College Pro Painters

They did a good job for us. We were happy with the work they did.

First, the salesperson was overly solicitous and pressuring. Promises for adequate preparation (scraping) of all surfaces and protection of adjoining garden areas were ultimately misleading and false. It took nearly three weeks to paint our single story home [the project took one week longer than promised.] One day, we returned from work to find a large garden area trampled and plants damaged by a coat of paint.  Garden tools and pots were spray painted and damaged. Another day, we awakened only to discover that all exits from the house had been taped closed with us inside! During "clean-up," newly painted surfaces were marred by paint and sloppy workers. Tape was left affixed to windows and the removal of debris was incomplete. We also discovered that every single window was painted shut and we could not open them!! In reponse to our request for an appropriate adjustment for property damage, we were offered Two hundred dollars which we rejected as inadequate and insulting. Less than six months' later, we are discovering areas where paint has started to chip away from painted surfaces.
This experience was a disaster from start to finish and advise our neighbors to find another way to assist college students!!

The work started slowly due to the weather.  They will not paint when it is raining because the paint won't dry right.  Once they got going they took about 6 days to do the entire house.  The quality of work was wonderful and the workers were all very nice and professional.  Most were students who were working during the summer.  They arrived each moring at about 8am and were working until 5 or 6pm.  They constantly checked with me about colors (where I wanted accent color to go) and made some suggestions that worked out really well.  There was some overspray onto our decking.  Once the overspray was pointed out they made sure they got it cleaned up.  In the future I would have them lay down paper on the decking.  The final walk around was with the manager.  They corrected all of the items that I had a concern about and really cleaned up after themselves.  It is customary to tip the painters so be sure to have some cash on the final day.

David called us first to make sure the date was fine and they pressure washed on Sept. 8th.   As the weather was hot, they were able to begin painting on Sept. 12th.......the workers were very courteous and made sure their radios wouldn't bother us.  They worked quickly and efficiently.  As one was covering windows, etc, the other started the main section of the house.  They completed a small section and had us come out to see if it was what we thought it would be.  The whole job was done in three days and it was done well.  Their price was great, their work was great, and they worked well together.  We would recommend them to anyone and certainly use them again ourselves if the need arose.  A+ to David Stevenson!!

• They started a day late because they said that their paint supplier was out of their preferred paint so they could not start on the scheduled day.
• The individuals who showed up to work were polite enough and quietly went about their tasks without asking me for any assistance.  However, they had not brought a hose with them to use while pressure washing and instead borrowed one from my neighbors.
• They did not clean up each day, but rather left their equipment in my yard for two weeks which left several dead spots in the lawn.  Yes, their equipment stayed in my yard for two weeks rather than even just the expected 3 days.  More on that later.
• They also did not clean up any of the numerous paint chips that fell into the driveway despite repeated requests (it looked like it had snowed and those paint chips tracked everywhere ending up in our house and cars)
• They did not fill in even the majority of the nail holes as the vast majority are still plainly visible
• When they claimed they were done there was:
  •  a lot of over-spray on our front door (white over spray on a coffee colored door)
  • over spray on all of our garage windows
  • over spray on our kitchen sliding door and window
  • drips of stain on porch railings
  • Numerous paint drips (both house and trim color) on our porch and front steps
  • Numerous smears and drips of stain on the body, near the deck railings and under the porch (we have a mid-level front-door)
  • The soffits were clearly not painted (nor even properly pressure washed) as you could still see dirt and a couple of pre-existing former wasp nests.
  • Our deck, porch and stairs did not look like they had even been stained as they were exactly the color they were previously (practically bare in some spots and still showing varying color depending on how much sun and traffic the boards had been exposed to previously)
  • drips of trim paint on front-door knob and dead-bolt

During the walk through I pointed out these issues (even printed out a list for them) and they agreed that they would take care of it within the next couple of days.  I did not "sign-off" on the paper work or provide the required rating as they recommended doing that after all of the work was done, but I was foolish and did pay them in full at that point.

Then began the nightmare of calling John Runland, leaving messages, not hearing back from him.  Contacting the corporate line at 1-800-327-2468 and having them try and call him but on having to leave messages as well.

A few days later I did get John to send someone out a couple of times and they did a little more work.
The first time they applied additional stain to the deck but the porch or stairs.
The second time I convince them to apply additional stain the porch and stairs.  You could now tell that some stain had been applied but it still looks terrible, some areas still look practically bare and there are a lot of house and trim drips all over the front porch and stairs.

I was still complaining about the very noticeable overspray on the front-door, paint chips in the drive-way and other issues so John sent out another guy to supposedly clean the front door, paint over the over spary and clean up the driveway (meanwhile they still have equipment like ladders and such in my back yard).  The guy arrived with no paint or even a broom (they had not left me any paint or stain at all when they left).  He tried to scrub away the overspray on our front door and ended up stripping away the some of the existing paint when removing the over-spray at which point I told him to stop as they would now need to paint our front-door because they obviously were not going to be able to clean it.  He did not work on anything else or clean up the driveway.

A few days after that visit someone came and took away their equipment from our backyard while we were at work.

After a couple of more weeks of repeated calls to both John and corporate (which had finally opened a complaint) complaining about the overspray on our front door, walls, sliding door and windows and all of the paint chips still in the driveway, I was able to get one guy to come out a few times.  The first day he did not have any of the proper colors of paint nor did he have a broom to sweep up the driveway, but he tried to remove the stain they had sprayed onto our kitchen sliding door.  First he tried paint thinner, then he went out and picked up some gasoline to try but the stuff was not coming off.  He returned a few days later with some body paint for touch up and some lacquer thinner for the sliding door.  He was finally able to get the stuff off of the sliding door and covered up most of the overspray on the house (a few spots were still left).  He did nothing for the front door, drips on the porch, sweeping the driveway or the overspray on the garage and kitchen windows.  He did explain that for some reason "John was scared of me" (though I had always been quite civil with him, and by this point I had not spoken with John for almost a month says he refused to return my calls) and that he was refusing to repair our front door, but I could pay him under the table to do so.  I refused saying that they had damaged our front door (which was perfectly fine before they got overspray on it and then chipped out some of the original paint) and that they should fix it.  He said that he would speak to John and when I called him back a few days later, he said to pick out a paint color as he had permission to paint our front door free of charge.  I gave him the paint color we wanted and he said he would be out within a couple of days to paint our door.  A few days later he had still not arrived so I called him directly and he said that he no longer worked for John and that I would have to take it up with John to get it taken care of.

In the meantime I had still be calling the corporate number and having them try to contact John.  Occassionally they would try to get me in touch with John's manager, but I only spoke with him once before all calls to him started going to voice mail (when corporate called as I never had his number).  Corporate kept saying that I should be getting calls but no one was returning calls.

Finally after two months of trying to get resolution for the issues (which really were quite simple to fix if handled in a timely fashion), when I called corporate again to try and get someone out, they informed me that John had told them that "if I called again, I was to be told that they would not be returning any of my calls nor providing any additional services to me".

This left me to:

• repaint my front door at my expense
• clean up my driveway
• remove the overspray from our garage windows
• touch up the house and trim

Things that I have been unable to do as I do not have ladders that are tall enough:

• clean and paint our soffits
• remove the overspray on our second floor kitchen window

Overall, this was a terrible experience as I had to clean up after them at my own expense, they did not return calls, they did fulfill any of their promises and provided very shoddy work.

Perhaps other College Pro crews are better (it looked like the previous years group had done good work), but whatever you do.  Please avoid using John Runland as he is a dishonest individual who does not stand behind his work.