HESS FLOORING

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This is my first home & my first experience with hiring contractors for the many home repairs I needed. I have received a rude lesson on what not to do when employing a contractor. JIM HESS, owner of the company, is a disreputable businessman & does shoddy work. JIM HESS' son, also named JIM HESS, installed the carpet first. Although it appeared acceptable initially, after I had problems with JIM HESS(the father) I did a closer inspection of his work, with other contractors present, & have found numerous problems such as the edges of carpet are coming away from the walls & have irregularly cut edges. I also get pricked on the feet repeatedly from the tackboards on the door thresholds. On the tile floors the grout channels are irregular, are of varying widths or are crooked. Prior to discovering these problems though, I asked JIM HESS(the father) if he could recommend someone to do "handyman" repairs for a number of other minor repairs I needed done, he said he could do it all. When I presented a list of necessary repairs he said he would need 2/3 of the agreed repair cost up front for materials & I stupidly trusted him to be a man of his word. Then I learned that additional repairs were needed to my foundation & roof JIM HESS claimed he was a roofer by trade also but prodded me to authorize the work before the week was out so he could get started, due to the weather(which was irrelevant as I later learned). He also eagerly pushed the foundation company that had just done repairs for his daughter-in-law, for which I believe he would have received remuneration or a kickback of some sort. When I solicited other contractors for bids for the roof & foundation repair JIM HESS became sullen & stated he had spent enough time on my repairs & that he would only be finishing the tile job on the front porch, which he failed to do. Of the work that was completed only the cabinets were repaired satisfactorily but the wall repairs were amateurish & unfinished, which he acknowledged & promised to correct, he did not. He replaced the window glass, then said that it had to be redone because he had used the wrong sized pane. He never corrected it. JIM HESS was to purchase & install a new cooktop, took the money to buy it but then stated he couldn't find one. When I found one he said he would refund the money he had been given specifically for the cooktop but never did. I also learned subsequently that the method by which he intended to install the unit was a fire hazard & not up to code. It does not appear anything was done to the mirrors & the A/C registers were painted but were left laying on the floor, uninstalled from where they were removed. The screen door sweep was installed crooked. The back porch carpet was never installed at all. He started to tile the front porch then ran out of tiles & never returned to finish the job despite promises to do so. He left the job with cracked, irregularly cut & ungrouted tiles. JIM HESS lied when he said he would do all the work on my list. He took the list & never returned it leaving me with nothing to refer to when I wanted to check his progress. He executed substandard repairs & did not complete repairs he started after being paid in full (my dumb mistake). JIM HESS was unreliable as to when he was to show up to work. He always had excuses for being late, leaving after 2-3 hours, not showing up at all or lacking materials needed to do the job. In my opinion JIM HESS is an untrustworthy person & it has been my great misfortune to be involved with him. An expensive lesson learned!