MICHAEL PACHECO CONTRACTORS

At first he was responsive and professional, discussing various door options and pricing. He created a simple contract, which I signed. He delivered the door (which looked great), and then installed it during the following day. I stopped by the house to see how the installation was going (all day project), only to not find him there, but rather an assistant. I was then further surprised to see that the door swung the WRONG way -- going into our living room rather than towards the wall as the old, or any normal door, would. The assistant called Michael and Michael said he would be able to fix everything like new. Michael promised that despite having ordered and installed the wrong door, he would be able to make it look like a brand new door. Stupidly, we agreed that he could do whatever needed as long as our door would like new. After two times where he sent another assistant to fix our door that never resulted in our door looking like new, he finally came himself to resolve the problem. During this process he became unresponsive to our phone calls as we inquired about what changes were going to be made to resolve this problem. After showing up late to our meeting, he tried to fix the door, but it never was perfect. In addition, my spouse had to do some additional work so the door could close (as Michael had left before the paint was dry so he could not test it himself). Unfortunately, at this point we had already paid him in full. We asked for some money back, as we did not want him working in our house anymore and we did not have a new door. After multiple voice messages, he never returned our calls. While we probably should have called a lawyer, we decided it was a very unfortunate "learning experience." Please learn from our lesson and do NOT use Michael Pacheco to do any work.

He wanted to get started immediately and did not get me the references he promised, which should have been a warning sign. However, the work was done quickly and efficiently, his painter was very good except for painting an outside door shut. When I asked him to fix that, as well as a couple of other things that hadn't been communicated, he did so. The work moved along at a very quick pace--too quick, it turned out. When it was finally done, Mike informed me that there had been some work that he was unable to do and some "extras" that had come up during the process. He then presented me with a bill that was 20 percent more than the original contract--and had not taken off the amounts for the work he had not completed (which were jobs that I presume he decided were just too challenging and not worth it for the prices he quoted) Everything cost significantly more than he quoted, he even tacked on things like a $45 charge for screws. When I argued some of the claims, he agreed to take off some of the more ludicrous charges, but also tried to tell me that we had not communicated what we wanted done. He wanted to be paid immediately, so we tallied up what was owed (minus the work that wasn't done and the ludicrous charges) and sent a check. His final comment was, "well, I guess everyone can't be happy." After picking up the check, he left a note threatening to invoice us for more, since some jobs turned out to be a lot harder than he had thought they would be, so I took the invoices to my lawyer, Mark. Mark took one quick look and said Mike was in violation of the Va. Professional and Occupational regulations, specifically Code 18-VAC-50-22-260, which stipulates that change orders must be made in writing and must be signed by the consumer and contractor before adding to an existing contract. We were considering taking Mike to court if he tried to bill us again, but we never heard from him again. While most of the work was fine, we found several mistakes, for instance, he broke a doorknob and deadbolt trying to fix the door that was painted shut, and the faucet was installed incorrectly. My husband was able to do the work, and said he couldn't believe Mike made such a mess out of simple jobs (he had hired other people to do most of the work, the things he did himself were where we had problems).