Ritter Renovations

This was a very costly welcome to my new hometown. I hope I have explained it enough.

This job went very well, and the services and grass were delivered on time and at the agreed price. The job was extremely labor intensive, and I was pleasantly surprised by Ritter's reasonable quote. The grass was appropriately sodded and is doing well despite the current drought. The same crew showed up on both days.

They were given a key to my lakehouse to install ceramic tile and since the lakehouse is about 1 hour away from Austin, I told them they could stay in the lakehouse overnight for the 3 days the job was suppose to take. I went up to the lakehouse when I got back from an out of town trip and below is the email I sent to the owner regarding the conduct and work of the workers they used on my project. The quality of the work was terrible, they tried to fix it but they could not so I hired another company to repair thier work and fix the damage caused by thier employees to my lakehouse. Overall....the repairs to thier work and cost to fix damage caused by thier workers exceeded the cost of thier bid. My email to owner is below. The company that fixed thier tile job laughed at the quality of the work from Ritter Rennovations. Email to owner: Tom, I got back last night and went up to my lakehouse this morning. I have two major concerns. First, the home is in disasterous condition and the behavior and conduct of workers staying in my lakehouse is completely unacceptable. Second, I have concerns about the quality of the work. Whomever is staying in my lakehouse needs to vacate the property IMMEDIATELY (TODAY). I found liquor and beer cans everywhere, the amount of alcohol in the home clearly indicates whomever is working there is intoxicated throughout the day or every evening, beer stains on the floors, cigarette buts throughout the house, food and trash on all the counters, tuperware being used to feed dogs, dishtowels used to wipe up floor dirt, my wood dining room table being used as a \"work table\" with the wood now stained with water ring stains from the beer cans placed on the wood, the entire home has a coating of dust on all surfaces (it appears they are cutting tile in the home or doing it close to the windows and doors so tile dust has filled the entire home, my leather chair was in the midst of the floor covered with tile mud, clothing and undergarments are on the floors in two bedrooms and the breakfast room, packaging from raw meat was just thrown on the kitchen counter and smells terrible. Whomever is staying in my lakehouse does not know how to behave as a guest in someone's home and needs to leave immediately. I cleaned up what I could and sprayed the entire home with a disinfectant to get rid of the beer and cigarette stains before I left. However I want them out immediately. Regarding the quality of the work. The tile work is very sloppy with tile thinset all over the tile, baseboards, and some furniture. The tile gaps that need to be filled with grout in many cases are filled with thinset not leaving room for grout which will result in the dark thinset being visible after the tile is grouted. The last row of tile that runs up to the hearth was cut too short so the grout line along the hearth will be too wide. As you enter the master bedroom, the row of tile along the left wall was also cut too short with a large gap. The divider wall that separates the master bedroom and master closet also will have a large gap as the tile on both sides was cut too short. Aside from this...the general cleanliness of the work is horible and my concern is the worker will not be able to remove all that thinset everywhere so tiles can be grouted properly. Please call me so we can discuss this. I would like you to either correct all these problems or I can just pay you for partially completing the job and find someone else to complete the job.

It's done, and I will not recommend this company or the owner, even though he seems to be a nice guy. There are things that still need to be finished - such as the pantry door doesn't have paint, only factory primer. There is caulking to be done, etc. But I can live with it I left out the horror story of the guy who brought in a commercial sander to work on the drywall. That cost me a pretty penny in maid service to get the entire house cleaned floor to ceiling!