HONEY-DO HANDYMAN LLC

I liked him a lot. He was really good. He did everything that I asked and did it well. He helped me on something that I didn't ask for. I over flooded my lawn mover and he helped me. I thought the price was reasonable.

Greg Deese, owner of company, came out to look at job and provide bid. Stressed the "Christian" nature of his business and the fact that "satisfaction is guaranteed". Contract was signed on Sept 28, 2006, work began on Oct. 9, 2006, and estimated to take 24-27 days to complete. Payment terms were $1,000 to hold start date, 25% prior to start, 25% two weeks into job, balance due upon completion. Things went reasonably well until Mr. Deese called us in late November to say that he was having cash flow problems and asked if we would make our final payment early so that he could make payroll. He promised that the job would be completed, and we withheld only 10% of that final payment ($411.00). After that payment was made, his employees stopped coming to the job site in December when the work was only approximately 70% complete. There are far too many things that went wrong to detail in this report; suffice to say that the work was unprofessional, many of our personal items were either damaged or missing, the carpet was cut up twice and then glued back down in the wrong places, and an employee who refinished a tub cleaned his materials in a brand new kitchen sink and disposal and let the materials dry, ruining the sink and the disposal. A photo below shows a second contractor removing the ruined sink and disposal and replacing it. This is only one of a very long list of problems. Mr. Deese only showed up on the job site twice. We were never allowed to walk through and produce a punch list; this we had to do ourselves, to which we received no response. We had to send two certified letters to Mr. Deese outlining the damage that needed to be repaired and a demand for completion of the contracted work. We received no response either to our letters or our calls. After threatening to turn them into the Better Business Bureau, they sent two men on January 31, 2007, who spoke no English and did major damage to the apartment. We documented everything, took photos, and hired competent licensed contractors to correct the damage they had caused and to complete the work they had not done. We put this together in a coherent package outlining the events, payments, correspondence, etc., and filed a complaint with our credit card company, who reviewed the documentation and upheld our complaint. We also filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, who reported Mr. Deese to us as uncooperative and abusive to their employees. His rating changed on their site to "pending revocation of membership". He agreed to come in for mediation, wherein our complaint was clearly valid and he agreed to pay us for the expenses we had incurred to complete the work and repair the damage. It took many months of hounding by the BBB and us to get him to make the payment. If I called him to ask the status of the payment he had promised, he cursed at me and told me never to call his business again and hung up on me. We were always courteous to both Mr. Deese and his staff. His claim of "Christian" values is a farce. He is a complete scammer and can be very intimidating when he is asked to fulfill the requirements he has agreed to. For this reason, we waited until we moved away from that address to file this report. It appears that Honey-Do Handyman is not in business at this point because their phone numbers have been disconnected. However, we would caution anyone not to do busineses with Greg Deese under any circumstances under any company name.

Called Greg and set up an appointment to review work needed to be done. He arrived pretty much on time and looked at work to be done (rehang fan, put up roman shades, replace electric timer, replace door, rehang doors(4), light carpentry). Said he could do all this work and suggested ways to repair. He said he would send email at end of day with quote and could start the following week. The following day I emailed him as to status and he emailed back his computer was messed up (interesting since he noted that his Blackberry allows him send/receive emails). Waited a couple of days and then called to see if he had any progress. Never heard back. Called and emialed several times....nothing. Last call was to say please call just to say you can't do it so I could move on, again....nothing. Very nice at initial meeting then down hill from there. His website notes a family based Christian business which made me comfortable but turned out to be rather unprofessional.

He was very personable and professional.

We contracted with them to put drywall in a pantry next to the kitchen and lay vinyl sheet flooring in both the kitchen and pantry. The flooring is the center of our complaint. The kitchen had an old oak strip floor on screeds and the pantry was concrete. Even though the vinyl salesperson suggested that strip oak floors move and thus require plywood underlayment to bond to the vinyl, Deese over ruled him and simply spread self leveling compound directly on the strip wood (and on the concrete floor with no preparation). Deese said he had done hundreds of jobs like this. The workers troweled the material, but did nothing to make sure if was indeed smooth and level. After a 24 hour curing period, the vinyl sheet was laid and both the installer and Greg Deese told us not to worry about any bubbles because they would go away overnight. The following day we noticed a bulge in the flooring in a central area that had not gone away. It was solid and definitely not a bubble and besides looking horrible, would lead to premature wearing. On the concrete pantry floor we found many obvious void sounds, indicating that the vinyl was not stuck down. I took pictures and we emailed them to HoneyDo on Sunday, July 12. We finally got an email reply saying they would take care of the problem quickly. Neither Deese nor his office has returned any calls as of this writing (07/24/08). Deese knew we were without the use of our kitchen and were waiting for the floors so that cabinets could be installed in the pantry. He had full payment for the job and our plight apparently did not trouble him at all. Since it was clear Deese was not going to help us and that he was incompetent to do the job correctly anyway, we contacted Dick n Sons Flooring in Bellaire to help us. They had to remove everything HoneyDo did because the self-leveling material did not stick to the wood or the concrete floors and most of it came up on the backside of the vinyl in both rooms. The very noticeable bulge and other visible irregularities in the surface were in the self-leveling material, which obviously did not self level. After clearing all off the wood and concrete floors, plywood was nailed down on the strip floor and leveled. The concrete area was prepared, sealed and leveled, and vinyl installed. Now have nice solid, level floors. We have since found numerous web sites pointing out the correct procedure to install vinyl over strip wood which agrees with the opinions of Deese own vinyl supplier and with the real professional floor people. Greg Deese proved himself to be completely incompetent as a contractor and uninterested in helping us out of the mess he made. It cost us $1820 to fix his mistakes. We still have never heard a word from them about fixing what they messed up.

Very pleased. I am living in a very old house, and the first company I tried could not find the studs in the wall to hang the closet system. Honey-Do Handy sent a pair of workers who were able to find the studs and hang everything carefully and quickly. I found them by calling the Container Store, who has them hang all their Elfa systems in the Houston area (but mine wasn't Elfa). I had to wait a few days for service (less than a week), but it was well worth it. My quote was done by phone and email, which saved me time, too.