Kelly Builders

Complaint: [redacted] I am rejecting this response because: Mr [redacted] seems to be justifying his keeping $for work he did not complete based on three things:(1)the time he spent talking to me or to the property managers;(2)the time he spent cleaning up after the electricians; &(3)the fact that the a/c was not working.I will respond to each of these in more detail below, but the most pertinent point is:These are as irrelevant as his previous effort at justification explaining these charges with his gasoline costs and tool fees (see below) Our contract with him did not have anything to do with any of these issues Our contract (Attachment #1) included items he had agreed with us to complete Of these, he completed approximately 15% of ONE of these items (i.e., about 3% of the total job) For this, he charged close to one-third of the entire amount This could not – from any perspective – be interpreted as completing this portion of the contract.Please also see his later justification for his charges (Attachment #2), which includes $in extra fees for “Materials [which] include the gas for the multiple trips to the property, delivery of materials, wood blockers for drywall repair, mixing paddle for the mud, the mud, the saw to cut the blockers so yes, $500” Besides the glaringly obvious fact that these materials could not possibly add up to $500, he’s included in these materials charges gasoline and tool fees?!? This is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard of Aside from the fact that he did not mention “tool fees” or even the potential for extra charges for such fees (or for gasoline) on his contract, it specifically contradicts his charging for extra materials on his contract:“We herby (sic) propose to furnish the necessary labor and materials to complete the following for [redacted] ***” I have never in my life heard of a contractor charging for use of his/her tools (any more than I as a teacher would charge for use of my worksheets or reference books) It is understood that a contractor has the tools of his/her trade and if not, he/she will pay for rental of those tools or at least be upfront about this deficiency and stipulate these rental charges in the contractIf Mr [redacted] wanted to amend the contract to add charges for any of these (including his tools), he should have done so in a professional and legal manner at the time the work was going on, not in a unilateral decision after the fact to justify his not meeting his contractual obligations.Futhermore, he did not bring up any of these issues with me at the time If he had a problem with them to the point that he felt was being mistreated, why didn’t he talk to me about it so that I might have the opportunity to solve the problems?(1)The time he spent talking to me or to the property managers:(a)I won’t even bother going into the veracity of these complaints as I can’t begin to see how – even if his perspective were to prove to be accurate – they’re of the slightest relevance to his charging us for work he did not complete Does Mr [redacted] think we owe him money for time spent talking to us? The last I heard the only professionals who charge for talking with clients are psychologists/counselors and attorneys As far as I’m aware, Mr [redacted] holds neither of these qualifications, and even if he does, “talking” is not listed in the many uncompleted tasks detailed in our contract with him Thus, I don’t see how he sees this as justification for not honoring his contract with us (b)As with all of his justifications for not completing the contracted work we paid him for, if he found there was more work (in this case “talking” to us) than was specified in his contract, then it was up to him to renegotiate and amend the contract if he felt he was owed more money – or at the very least to bring the problem to our attention so that we could come up with a mutually acceptable solution – instead of unilaterally deciding, after the fact, that he was due a unilaterally-decided amount of compensation for sorting out a problem we weren’t even aware of.(c)Before we entered into the contract, he seemed very eager to talk to me and the property managers (Attachment #3, as just one example) If he had a problem with talking with either of us, why didn’t he simply say that? I viewed our interactions as friendly ones and in fact chose him over another contractor, who would’ve caused us a lot less grief and for roughly the same bid amount, because Mr [redacted] and I had established a friendly relationship and because he had taken the time to make a second trip to the house during the bidding process.(d)After we entered into the contract, he all of a sudden became relatively unavailable for any discussion at all, whether by phone or email (tons of documentation available on request).(e)All of the “talking” took place before we signed the contract with him (once he got paid, as previously mentioned, his seemingly friendly and enthusiastic attitude quickly disappeared and he was very difficult to get in touch with) Aside from the fact that it is not unusual to have discussions with prospective clients before an agreement is entered into (so it seems indicative of his self-serving attitude that he would even bring this up), if Mr [redacted] had a problem with having to face what he seems to think was the ordeal of these discussions, then why did he even enter into the contract at all?(f)The most pertinent proof that these later justifications he’s supplied do not hold water are that even after all of these “circumstances of this job” that he “deeply regret[s]” and even after he “can [could] honestly say that in all the years [he has] been in business, [he has] never encountered anything similar,” he wrote an email on September (Attachment #4) promising by the following week to bring the work to a point commensurate with what we’d already paid him At that point, he was not citing the flimsy justifications for his fees that he has since come up withAt that point, he still was intending to honor his contract with us Nothing happened between the time he wrote that email and the date when my husband arrived to find he had not honored what he’d said in the email - with the exception of one very brief email from me confirming that my husband would be arriving in two days and would contact him when he arrived Other than this, there was no contact with me or with anyone – and not a single minute of work out of Mr*** So whatever his justifications he later claimed, why did he not feel that way at that point? (g)At any point, he could have said “this is not what I signed up for Let me refund your down payment, less an amount commensurate with the contracted work that I did complete, and walk away from this.” He never did that He simply stopped answering emails or phone calls and didn’t honor the one email he did write promising to resume work (i.e., Attachment #4) - at which point he had clearly felt there was still considerable work he needed to complete to bring things up to the already-paid-for level (h)And later he came up with a bunch of irrelevant justifications for keeping the “down payment” on uncompleted contractual work (Attachment #5, highlighted), the great majority of which was not on our contract and which didn’t even add up to $but rather only to $(he couldn’t even bother to throw out relevant numbers for his irrelevant detailed charges!): a.Clean up for electricians - $400b.Materials - $500c.labor - days - $600(i)Besides the fact that it seems highly unlikely that it took six days to complete only 1/3rd of the patching of ½ of the duplex (Attachments #a-e) (it took his replacement one day to complete the same amount of work), a more relevant question is why in his most recent explanation to the Revdex.com he cited “cleaning up the electricians’ mess” as the main reason for his charges but here billed them as less than a third of the (mis-calculated) It also seems that the figures in (h) (Attachment #5) are double-billing for these clecharges (once in “a” and again in “c”) These kinds of mistakes are indicative of Mr***’s lack of attention to detail and lack of professionalism – and it seems to me that they further indicate his attitude that he can just throw any nonsense out there to cover up his refusal to act with integrity.(j)Statements like the following from Mr [redacted] are another example of the red herrings he throws around as explanations for his unprofessional “where I wasn’t sure who I needed to answer to: the property managers or Ms [redacted] .” This is so simply solved Just ask! This way of thinking seems to pervade Mr***’s logic.(2)The time he spent cleaning up after the electricians:(a)Again, the most relevant point here is: why not bring this to our attention at the time? Of course, the electricians should have cleaned up after themselves – that was included in THEIR contract If Mr [redacted] had told us about it, we would’ve called the electrician and got him to see to that immediately There was no reason for Mr [redacted] to waste his time – or our money – doing work we hadn’t contracted with him to do Once any of this crossed the line out of being prep work, it wasn’t in his contract, and it wasn’t his responsibility (and we would not have seen it as such if he’d advised us of this) If it was going to fall to him to do it (which if he’d advised us of it, it never would have), he could have negotiated with us and amended his contract instead of making a unilateral decision to do work for which he was planning to charge us over $ He was patching holes in the drywall; there is no reason he couldn’t have gotten started on this work as the electricians were cleaning up their mess Or if it was such an onerous task that it necessitated $worth of work (which wasn’t in his contract and which he therefore couldn’t expect payment for unless he negotiated that), he could simply have refused to proceed until it was solved.(b)Second, if the electricians weren’t going to clean it up, we would have preferred to pay someone at a lower rate of pay than a contractor charges to do that kind of unskilled labor Mr [redacted] is a skilled tradesman (probably) and there is no reason we should be paying the rates of a skilled tradesman to do cleaning Again, by not advising us of this problem, he took away our opportunity to come up with a sensible, cost-effective solution I can’t imagine anyone would be willing to pay upwards of $for what couldn’t have been more than a few hours of cleaning (c)Even at higher-than-cleaner rates, looking at the size of the strips cut into the sheetrock (Attachments #a-e), while they are fairly extensive, I don’t see how there was $(or even $400) worth of clearing-out to do If there was so much debris that Mr [redacted] did in fact spend an “extraordinary amount of time” and had to do a haul-away (this detail he’s been inconsistent about and it appears and disappears randomly), then why was there still a lot of construction debris when my husband arrived (Attachments #a-e)? My husband did a lot of cleaning himself when he arrived, so if Mr [redacted] did a $1000+ clean-up, why was that necessary?(d)As for Mr***’s other explanation of his charges: “What was left we placed in the garageAlso, upon Ms [redacted] ’s request, all the light fixtures and ceiling fans were carried downstairs and placed in the garage.” It is true that I asked him to do this – this was to keep these things from getting dust and paint splatters on them and would be a part of any contractor’s prep work (and in fact, would go without asking, I should think – but I just wanted to make sure since when the property manager sent photos, I noticed Mr [redacted] hadn’t protected our beautiful hardwood refinished floors, which I would also have thought would go without saying) At any rate, this task couldn’t have taken more than half an hour (I would be surprised if it took two people more than minutes) (Please see Attachment #to see how insignificant a task moving these few things would’ve been.) This is the kind of thing he thinks it’s worth listing as justification for his outlandish cleaning fees? And it also seems to me that the point at which I asked him to do this would have been the perfect time to bring up the inordinate amount of time they’d spent cleaning up after the electricians He did not.(3)The fact that the a/c was not working:(a)The apartment was very cold when my husband arrived (after it had been empty for weeks and Mr [redacted] was the last one to have been there) (Documentation of $CPS bill available upon request - there is no other electricity usage in an empty apartment that could account for this high usage.)(b)Even if the a/c was not working, once again: why did Mr [redacted] not reach out to us and solve this at the time (one obvious very simple solution would have been to move his work to the downstairs unit)? How are we supposed to solve a problem we don’t know is a problem? And why should we have to pay $electric bills for an a/c that Mr [redacted] left running on a super cold temperature in an empty apartment?Three further issues to address:(1)In response to Mr***’s statement: “It is not practical to have just the drywall assessed to estimate what the value of the work I performed is worthThe time spent cleaning up the electrician’s work, along with materials left at the job, and the inability to work full days due to the heat are obviously not being consideredI can easily obtain estimates from several contractors to dispute Ms [redacted] ’s claim that the work was ‘nowhere near the $1,down payment.’” I have already pointed out the irrelevance of the uncontracted and undiscussed work he is saying we should pay him for, but I would like to add that whatever estimates he may obtain from other contractors, we have a clear contract with him, one he did not honor He put drywall (some of it backwards) in approximately 1/3rd of one of the two units This would amount to 1/6th of the drywall The cost of materials would amount to approximately $(two sheets of drywall) (see again Attachments #a-e of what was completed when my husband arrived, after which no other work was completed) No matter what price tag anyone would like to put on that, we paid him almost one-third of the entire contractual amount He completed approximately one-sixth of all the drywall Even if his contract had been ONLY for the drywall, it is clear he did not complete enough of that to merit keeping one-third of the entire contractual amount He did NONE of the painting, NONE of the minor carpentry, NONE of the other items listed on his contract.(2)In response to Mr***’s claim: “I did not “angle” with the property manager for more money and I resent the implication,” please see Attachments & which directly and indisputably contradict Mr***’s statement Attachment is an email to the property manager in which he did request additional funds and Attachment is Mr***’s formal revised “project proposal” (which revised only the payment schedule) The idea that we should have to pay his crew because he was unable to complete the work himself – regardless of the reasons for that – is illogicalEven if ultimately these “additional funds to pay the crew did not increase the contract price – [and] this payment would be a draw against the original contract price, and be [Mr***’s] expense,” we had already given him a more than ample “draw” to cover such costs He had not completed anywhere remotely approaching enough of the job to have earned the “draw” we’d already given him If he’d spent the “draw” on something other than meeting the contract for which he was given the “draw”, we couldn’t see why this was our problem He is (supposedly) a professional and it is up to him whether he wants to complete the work himself or pay a crew to complete it – just as it is up to him to manage his time and resources so that he doesn’t spend money he has not yet earned and to treat his “draws” responsibly The reason “days passed where [Mr***] heard nothing about [his] proposal” was because we were trying to find out from the property manager where things stood as it seemed to us that Mr***’s request was inappropriate but we wanted a professional perspective of that (3)In response to “Ms [redacted] called my mother and my referrals, stating that I was a thief and that she was advising them not to use me again,”:a.I was not going to bring this up, but now that Mr [redacted] has done so, I would like to point out that all three of Mr***’s references, as it turns out, were his relatives and family friends; not one of them disclosed this to me when I contacted them The fact that Mr [redacted] presented them as independent references and that they behaved as such seems not only inappropriate and unprofessional but possibly even illegal I had not previously brought it up as I had instead chosen to focus on the one central issue here: that we had a contract with Mr [redacted] that he did not honor If he wants to make a defamation suit out of this (as he has threatened to do - in an effort to silence this Revdex.com complaint and Internet reviews), I would think that the judge’s first question to him would be to ask why he was presenting relatives and family friends as independent references and why he didn’t have any more appropriate references to give out And then, given the defamation claims, if these references were his relatives, wouldn’t they question my so-called “defamatory” claims and expect they be proven to be true before giving them any credence? And then, how would such claims amount to thousands of lost dollars in potential income for Mr [redacted] unless these relatives were planning to do extensive building that they didn’t award to Mr***? Even if they were, as a result of the emails, no longer willing to serve as references for Mr***, does Mr [redacted] have no one other than these three relatives who can vouch for his work and if not, why not?b.I never advised Mr***’s “references” not to use Mr [redacted] again (letter sent to “references” available upon request) Instead, I was merely giving them information If I were serving as a reference for a contractor, and he behaved as Mr [redacted] had, I would want to be aware of that It would then be up to me to choose whether or not to believe the person giving me that information and to further investigate that person’s claims or not From my part, I feel it would be unethical of me not to pass on this information or put it up on Revdex.com (and soon to be other reviews) in order to save others the grief that Mr [redacted] has put us through It is a public service to make the facts of this available to potential hirers.c.I’m sorry Mr [redacted] “was in shock and totally disgusted” at my use of the word “stolen” in relation to his actions in my email to his “references” (i.e., relatives), but the attorney we consulted said that this would not be defamation as, given Mr***’s actions, there were very clear grounds to believe that our claims were true I have since modified my original Revdex.com statement in the same vein (that Mr [redacted] was a “conman”) and acknowledged that this could have been a case of Mr [redacted] simply making mistakes rather than a conscious attempt to deceive The fact remains, though, that he did not honor his contract and now even after being made aware of the clear facts substantiating that, he refuses to return the money he took These are objectively true facts that it is not only appropriate to report but in the public interest to do so.(4)In response to “I was in disbelief that Ms [redacted] completely forgot all the issues regarding this job except the ones that only benefit her,” I would ask Mr***:a.What does he see as having done to benefit me? Not only did he walk off with an unearned $from us, but because of the delays and complications caused by his lack of communication about this, he cost us at least another $6,in lost rent and unnecessary travel expenses This doesn’t even begin to take into account the stress and time lost in trying to right the situation.b.How would it conceivably benefit me to “mistreat” him (as he sees it)? All I wanted was for him to complete the work agreed upon in our contract with him so that I could honor our end of that contract by paying him for said work I don’t see how that is “mistreating” him and I don’t see how “mistreating” him would accomplish what was supposed to be the mutual goal of successfully completing the contract.c.Does he not remember that when I could have gone with a different property manager who would have required my using his contractors instead of Mr [redacted] (at about the same price), I instead chose a property manager who was willing to work with Mr [redacted] - out of loyalty to Mr [redacted] (and not wanting to go with a different contractor after Mr [redacted] and I had established a relationship and after Mr [redacted] had twice taken the time to go to the house to meet with the first property manager)? Regards, [redacted]

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:I am rejecting this response because: Mr. [redacted] seems to be justifying his keeping $1600 for work he did not complete based on three things:(1) the time he spent talking to me or to the property managers;(2) the time he spent cleaning up after the electricians; &(3) the fact that the a/c was not working.I will respond to each of these in more detail below, but the most pertinent point is:These are as irrelevant as his previous effort at justification explaining these charges with his gasoline costs and tool fees (see below).  Our contract with him did not have anything to do with any of these issues.  Our contract (Attachment #1) included 14 items he had agreed with us to complete.  Of these, he completed approximately 15% of ONE of these items (i.e., about 3% of the total job).  For this, he charged close to one-third of the entire amount.  This could not – from any perspective – be interpreted as completing this portion of the contract.Please also see his later justification for his charges (Attachment #2), which includes $500 in extra fees for “Materials [which] include the gas for the multiple trips to the property, delivery of materials, wood blockers for drywall repair, mixing paddle for the mud, the mud, the saw to cut the blockers so yes, $500”  Besides the glaringly obvious fact that these materials could not possibly add up to $500, he’s included in these materials charges gasoline and tool fees?!?  This is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard of.  Aside from the fact that he did not mention “tool fees” or even the potential for extra charges for such fees (or for gasoline) on his contract, it specifically contradicts his charging for extra materials on his contract:“We herby (sic) propose to furnish the necessary labor and materials to complete the following for [redacted]”  I have never in my life heard of a contractor charging for use of his/her tools (any more than I as a teacher would charge for use of my worksheets or reference books).  It is understood that a contractor has the tools of his/her trade and if not, he/she will pay for rental of those tools or at least be upfront about this deficiency and stipulate these rental charges in the contract. If Mr. [redacted] wanted to amend the contract to add charges for any of these (including his tools), he should have done so in a professional and legal manner at the time the work was going on, not in a unilateral decision after the fact to justify his not meeting his contractual obligations.Futhermore, he did not bring up any of these issues with me at the time.  If he had a problem with them to the point that he felt was being mistreated, why didn’t he talk to me about it so that I might have the opportunity to solve the problems?(1) The time he spent talking to me or to the property managers:(a) I won’t even bother going into the veracity of these complaints as I can’t begin to see how – even if his perspective were to prove to be accurate – they’re of the slightest relevance to his charging us for work he did not complete.  Does Mr. [redacted] think we owe him money for time spent talking to us?  The last I heard the only professionals who charge for talking with clients are psychologists/counselors and attorneys.  As far as I’m aware, Mr. [redacted] holds neither of these qualifications, and even if he does, “talking” is not listed in the many uncompleted tasks detailed in our contract with him.  Thus, I don’t see how he sees this as justification for not honoring his contract with us.  (b) As with all of his justifications for not completing the contracted work we paid him for, if he found there was more work (in this case “talking” to us) than was specified in his contract, then it was up to him to renegotiate and amend the contract if he felt he was owed more money – or at the very least to bring the problem to our attention so that we could come up with a mutually acceptable solution – instead of unilaterally deciding, after the fact, that he was due a unilaterally-decided amount of compensation for sorting out a problem we weren’t even aware of.(c) Before we entered into the contract, he seemed very eager to talk to me and the property managers (Attachment #3, as just one example).  If he had a problem with talking with either of us, why didn’t he simply say that?  I viewed our interactions as friendly ones and in fact chose him over another contractor, who would’ve caused us a lot less grief and for roughly the same bid amount, because Mr. [redacted] and I had established a friendly relationship and because he had taken the time to make a second trip to the house during the bidding process.(d) After we entered into the contract, he all of a sudden became relatively unavailable for any discussion at all, whether by phone or email (tons of documentation available on request).(e) All of the “talking” took place before we signed the contract with him (once he got paid, as previously mentioned, his seemingly friendly and enthusiastic attitude quickly disappeared and he was very difficult to get in touch with).  Aside from the fact that it is not unusual to have discussions with prospective clients before an agreement is entered into (so it seems indicative of his self-serving attitude that he would even bring this up), if Mr. [redacted] had a problem with having to face what he seems to think was the ordeal of these discussions, then why did he even enter into the contract at all?(f) The most pertinent proof that these later justifications he’s supplied do not hold water are that even after all of these “circumstances of this job” that he “deeply regret[s]” and even after he “can [could] honestly say that in all the years [he has] been in business, [he has] never encountered anything similar,” he wrote an email on 11 September 2015 (Attachment #4) promising by the following week to bring the work to a point commensurate with what we’d already paid him.  At that point, he was not citing the flimsy justifications for his fees that he has since come up with. At that point, he still was intending to honor his contract with us.  Nothing happened between the time he wrote that email and the date when my husband arrived to find he had not honored what he’d said in the email - with the exception of one very brief email from me confirming that my husband would be arriving in two days and would contact him when he arrived.  Other than this, there was no contact with me or with anyone – and not a single minute of work out of Mr. [redacted].  So whatever his justifications he later claimed, why did he not feel that way at that point? (g) At any point, he could have said “this is not what I signed up for.  Let me refund your down payment, less an amount commensurate with the contracted work that I did complete, and walk away from this.”  He never did that.  He simply stopped answering emails or phone calls and didn’t honor the one email he did write promising to resume work (i.e., Attachment #4) - at which point he had clearly felt there was still considerable work he needed to complete to bring things up to the already-paid-for level.  (h) And later he came up with a bunch of irrelevant justifications for keeping the “down payment” on uncompleted contractual work (Attachment #5, highlighted), the great majority of which was not on our contract and which didn’t even add up to $1600 but rather only to $1500 (he couldn’t even bother to throw out relevant numbers for his irrelevant detailed charges!): a. Clean up for electricians - $400b. Materials - $500c. labor - 6 days - $600(i) Besides the fact that it seems highly unlikely that it took six days to complete only 1/3rd of the patching of ½ of the duplex (Attachments #6 a-e) (it took his replacement one day to complete the same amount of work), a more relevant question is why in his most recent explanation to the Revdex.com he cited “cleaning up the electricians’ mess” as the main reason for his charges but here billed them as less than a third of the (mis-calculated).  It also seems that the figures in (h) (Attachment #5) are double-billing for these clean-up charges (once in “a” and again in “c”).  These kinds of mistakes are indicative of Mr. [redacted]’s lack of attention to detail and lack of professionalism – and it seems to me that they further indicate his attitude that he can just throw any nonsense out there to cover up his refusal to act with integrity.(j) Statements like the following from Mr. [redacted] are another example of the red herrings he throws around as explanations for his unprofessional behavior: “where I wasn’t sure who I needed to answer to: the property managers or Ms. [redacted].” This is so simply solved.  Just ask!  This way of thinking seems to pervade Mr. [redacted]’s logic.(2) The time he spent cleaning up after the electricians:(a) Again, the most relevant point here is: why not bring this to our attention at the time?  Of course, the electricians should have cleaned up after themselves – that was included in THEIR contract.  If Mr. [redacted] had told us about it, we would’ve called the electrician and got him to see to that immediately.  There was no reason for Mr. [redacted] to waste his time – or our money – doing work we hadn’t contracted with him to do.  Once any of this crossed the line out of being normal prep work, it wasn’t in his contract, and it wasn’t his responsibility (and we would not have seen it as such if he’d advised us of this).  If it was going to fall to him to do it (which if he’d advised us of it, it never would have), he could have negotiated with us and amended his contract instead of making a unilateral decision to do work for which he was planning to charge us over $1000.  He was patching holes in the drywall; there is no reason he couldn’t have gotten started on this work as the electricians were cleaning up their mess.  Or if it was such an onerous task that it necessitated $1000 worth of work (which wasn’t in his contract and which he therefore couldn’t expect payment for unless he negotiated that), he could simply have refused to proceed until it was solved.(b) Second, if the electricians weren’t going to clean it up, we would have preferred to pay someone at a lower rate of pay than a contractor charges to do that kind of unskilled labor.  Mr. [redacted] is a skilled tradesman (probably) and there is no reason we should be paying the rates of a skilled tradesman to do cleaning.  Again, by not advising us of this problem, he took away our opportunity to come up with a sensible, cost-effective solution.  I can’t imagine anyone would be willing to pay upwards of $1000 for what couldn’t have been more than a few hours of cleaning.  (c) Even at higher-than-cleaner rates, looking at the size of the strips cut into the sheetrock (Attachments #7 a-e), while they are fairly extensive, I don’t see how there was $1000 (or even $400) worth of clearing-out to do.  If there was so much debris that Mr. [redacted] did in fact spend an “extraordinary amount of time” and had to do a haul-away (this detail he’s been inconsistent about and it appears and disappears randomly), then why was there still a lot of construction debris when my husband arrived (Attachments #8 a-e)?  My husband did a lot of cleaning himself when he arrived, so if Mr. [redacted] did a $1000+ clean-up, why was that necessary?(d) As for Mr. [redacted]’s other explanation of his charges: “What was left we placed in the garage. Also, upon Ms. [redacted]’s request, all the light fixtures and ceiling fans were carried downstairs and placed in the garage.”  It is true that I asked him to do this – this was to keep these things from getting dust and paint splatters on them and would be a normal part of any contractor’s prep work (and in fact, would go without asking, I should think – but I just wanted to make sure since when the property manager sent photos, I noticed Mr. [redacted] hadn’t protected our beautiful hardwood refinished floors, which I would also have thought would go without saying).  At any rate, this task couldn’t have taken more than half an hour (I would be surprised if it took two people more than 10 minutes).  (Please see Attachment #9 to see how insignificant a task moving these few things would’ve been.)  This is the kind of thing he thinks it’s worth listing as justification for his outlandish cleaning fees?  And it also seems to me that the point at which I asked him to do this would have been the perfect time to bring up the inordinate amount of time they’d spent cleaning up after the electricians.  He did not.(3) The fact that the a/c was not working:(a) The apartment was very cold when my husband arrived (after it had been empty for weeks and Mr. [redacted] was the last one to have been there).  (Documentation of $300 CPS bill available upon request - there is no other electricity usage in an empty apartment that could account for this high usage.)(b) Even if the a/c was not working, once again: why did Mr. [redacted] not reach out to us and solve this at the time (one obvious very simple solution would have been to move his work to the downstairs unit)?  How are we supposed to solve a problem we don’t know is a problem?  And why should we have to pay $300 electric bills for an a/c that Mr. [redacted] left running on a super cold temperature in an empty apartment?Three further issues to address:(1) In response to Mr. [redacted]’s statement: “It is not practical to have just the drywall assessed to estimate what the value of the work I performed is worth. The time spent cleaning up the electrician’s work, along with materials left at the job, and the inability to work full days due to the heat are obviously not being considered. I can easily obtain estimates from several contractors to dispute Ms. [redacted]’s claim that the work was ‘nowhere near the $1,600.00 down payment.’” I have already pointed out the irrelevance of the uncontracted and undiscussed work he is saying we should pay him for, but I would like to add that whatever estimates he may obtain from other contractors, we have a clear contract with him, one he did not honor.  He put drywall (some of it backwards) in approximately 1/3rd of one of the two units.  This would amount to 1/6th of the drywall.  The cost of materials would amount to approximately $20 (two sheets of drywall) (see again Attachments #6 a-e of what was completed when my husband arrived, after which no other work was completed).  No matter what price tag anyone would like to put on that, we paid him almost one-third of the entire contractual amount.  He completed approximately one-sixth of all the drywall.  Even if his contract had been ONLY for the drywall, it is clear he did not complete enough of that to merit keeping one-third of the entire contractual amount.  He did NONE of the painting, NONE of the minor carpentry, NONE of the other 13 items listed on his contract.(2) In response to Mr. [redacted]’s claim: “I did not “angle” with the property manager for more money and I resent the implication,” please see Attachments 10 & 11 which directly and indisputably contradict Mr. [redacted]’s statement.  Attachment 10 is an email to the property manager in which he did request additional funds and Attachment 11 is Mr. [redacted]’s formal revised “project proposal” (which revised only the payment schedule).  The idea that we should have to pay his crew because he was unable to complete the work himself – regardless of the reasons for that – is illogical. Even if ultimately these “additional funds to pay the crew . . . did not increase the contract price – [and] this payment would be a draw against the original contract price, and be [Mr. [redacted]’s] expense,” we had already given him a more than ample “draw” to cover such costs.  He had not completed anywhere remotely approaching enough of the job to have earned the “draw” we’d already given him.  If he’d spent the “draw” on something other than meeting the contract for which he was given the “draw”, we couldn’t see why this was our problem.  He is (supposedly) a professional and it is up to him whether he wants to complete the work himself or pay a crew to complete it – just as it is up to him to manage his time and resources so that he doesn’t spend money he has not yet earned and to treat his “draws” responsibly.  The reason “days passed where [Mr. [redacted]] heard nothing about [his] proposal” was because we were trying to find out from the property manager where things stood as it seemed to us that Mr. [redacted]’s request was inappropriate but we wanted a professional perspective of that.  (3) In response to “Ms. [redacted] called my mother and my referrals, stating that I was a thief and that she was advising them not to use me again,”:a. I was not going to bring this up, but now that Mr. [redacted] has done so, I would like to point out that all three of Mr. [redacted]’s references, as it turns out, were his relatives and family friends; not one of them disclosed this to me when I contacted them.  The fact that Mr. [redacted] presented them as independent references and that they behaved as such seems not only inappropriate and unprofessional but possibly even illegal.  I had not previously brought it up as I had instead chosen to focus on the one central issue here: that we had a contract with Mr. [redacted] that he did not honor.  If he wants to make a defamation suit out of this (as he has threatened to do - in an effort to silence this Revdex.com complaint and Internet reviews), I would think that the judge’s first question to him would be to ask why he was presenting relatives and family friends as independent references and why he didn’t have any more appropriate references to give out.  And then, given the defamation claims, if these references were his relatives, wouldn’t they question my so-called “defamatory” claims and expect they be proven to be true before giving them any credence?  And then, how would such claims amount to thousands of lost dollars in potential income for Mr. [redacted] unless these relatives were planning to do extensive building that they didn’t award to Mr. [redacted]?  Even if they were, as a result of the emails, no longer willing to serve as references for Mr. [redacted], does Mr. [redacted] have no one other than these three relatives who can vouch for his work and if not, why not?b. I never advised Mr. [redacted]’s “references” not to use Mr. [redacted] again (letter sent to “references” available upon request).  Instead, I was merely giving them information.  If I were serving as a reference for a contractor, and he behaved as Mr. [redacted] had, I would want to be aware of that.  It would then be up to me to choose whether or not to believe the person giving me that information and to further investigate that person’s claims or not.  From my part, I feel it would be unethical of me not to pass on this information or put it up on Revdex.com (and soon to be other reviews) in order to save others the grief that Mr. [redacted] has put us through.  It is a public service to make the facts of this available to potential hirers.c. I’m sorry Mr. [redacted] “was in shock and totally disgusted” at my use of the word “stolen” in relation to his actions in my email to his “references” (i.e., relatives), but the attorney we consulted said that this would not be defamation as, given Mr. [redacted]’s actions, there were very clear grounds to believe that our claims were true.  I have since modified my original Revdex.com statement in the same vein (that Mr. [redacted] was a “conman”) and acknowledged that this could have been a case of Mr. [redacted] simply making mistakes rather than a conscious attempt to deceive.  The fact remains, though, that he did not honor his contract and now even after being made aware of the clear facts substantiating that, he refuses to return the money he took.  These are objectively true facts that it is not only appropriate to report but in the public interest to do so.(4) In response to “I was in disbelief that Ms. [redacted] completely forgot all the issues regarding this job except the ones that only benefit her,” I would ask Mr. [redacted]:a. What does he see as having done to benefit me?  Not only did he walk off with an unearned $1600 from us, but because of the delays and complications caused by his lack of communication about this, he cost us at least another $6,000 in lost rent and unnecessary travel expenses.  This doesn’t even begin to take into account the stress and time lost in trying to right the situation.b. How would it conceivably benefit me to “mistreat” him (as he sees it)?  All I wanted was for him to complete the work agreed upon in our contract with him so that I could honor our end of that contract by paying him for said work.  I don’t see how that is “mistreating” him and I don’t see how “mistreating” him would accomplish what was supposed to be the mutual goal of successfully completing the contract.c. Does he not remember that when I could have gone with a different property manager who would have required my using his contractors instead of Mr. [redacted] (at about the same price), I instead chose a property manager who was willing to work with Mr. [redacted] - out of loyalty to Mr. [redacted] (and not wanting to go with a different contractor after Mr. [redacted] and I had established a relationship and after Mr. [redacted] had twice taken the time to go to the house to meet with the first property manager)?
Regards,
[redacted]

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because: Mr. [redacted] seems to be justifying his keeping $1600 for work he did not complete based on three things:(1)the time he spent talking to me or to the property managers;(2)the time he spent cleaning up after the electricians; &(3)the fact that the a/c was not working.I will respond to each of these in more detail below, but the most pertinent point is:These are as irrelevant as his previous effort at justification explaining these charges with his gasoline costs and tool fees (see below).  Our contract with him did not have anything to do with any of these issues.  Our contract (Attachment #1) included 14 items he had agreed with us to complete.  Of these, he completed approximately 15% of ONE of these items (i.e., about 3% of the total job).  For this, he charged close to one-third of the entire amount.  This could not – from any perspective – be interpreted as completing this portion of the contract.Please also see his later justification for his charges (Attachment #2), which includes $500 in extra fees for “Materials [which] include the gas for the multiple trips to the property, delivery of materials, wood blockers for drywall repair, mixing paddle for the mud, the mud, the saw to cut the blockers so yes, $500”  Besides the glaringly obvious fact that these materials could not possibly add up to $500, he’s included in these materials charges gasoline and tool fees?!?  This is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard of.  Aside from the fact that he did not mention “tool fees” or even the potential for extra charges for such fees (or for gasoline) on his contract, it specifically contradicts his charging for extra materials on his contract:“We herby (sic) propose to furnish the necessary labor and materials to complete the following for [redacted]”  I have never in my life heard of a contractor charging for use of his/her tools (any more than I as a teacher would charge for use of my worksheets or reference books).  It is understood that a contractor has the tools of his/her trade and if not, he/she will pay for rental of those tools or at least be upfront about this deficiency and stipulate these rental charges in the contract. If Mr. [redacted] wanted to amend the contract to add charges for any of these (including his tools), he should have done so in a professional and legal manner at the time the work was going on, not in a unilateral decision after the fact to justify his not meeting his contractual obligations.Futhermore, he did not bring up any of these issues with me at the time.  If he had a problem with them to the point that he felt was being mistreated, why didn’t he talk to me about it so that I might have the opportunity to solve the problems?(1)The time he spent talking to me or to the property managers:(a)I won’t even bother going into the veracity of these complaints as I can’t begin to see how – even if his perspective were to prove to be accurate – they’re of the slightest relevance to his charging us for work he did not complete.  Does Mr. [redacted] think we owe him money for time spent talking to us?  The last I heard the only professionals who charge for talking with clients are psychologists/counselors and attorneys.  As far as I’m aware, Mr. [redacted] holds neither of these qualifications, and even if he does, “talking” is not listed in the many uncompleted tasks detailed in our contract with him.  Thus, I don’t see how he sees this as justification for not honoring his contract with us.  (b)As with all of his justifications for not completing the contracted work we paid him for, if he found there was more work (in this case “talking” to us) than was specified in his contract, then it was up to him to renegotiate and amend the contract if he felt he was owed more money – or at the very least to bring the problem to our attention so that we could come up with a mutually acceptable solution – instead of unilaterally deciding, after the fact, that he was due a unilaterally-decided amount of compensation for sorting out a problem we weren’t even aware of.(c)Before we entered into the contract, he seemed very eager to talk to me and the property managers (Attachment #3, as just one example).  If he had a problem with talking with either of us, why didn’t he simply say that?  I viewed our interactions as friendly ones and in fact chose him over another contractor, who would’ve caused us a lot less grief and for roughly the same bid amount, because Mr. [redacted] and I had established a friendly relationship and because he had taken the time to make a second trip to the house during the bidding process.(d)After we entered into the contract, he all of a sudden became relatively unavailable for any discussion at all, whether by phone or email (tons of documentation available on request).(e)All of the “talking” took place before we signed the contract with him (once he got paid, as previously mentioned, his seemingly friendly and enthusiastic attitude quickly disappeared and he was very difficult to get in touch with).  Aside from the fact that it is not unusual to have discussions with prospective clients before an agreement is entered into (so it seems indicative of his self-serving attitude that he would even bring this up), if Mr. [redacted] had a problem with having to face what he seems to think was the ordeal of these discussions, then why did he even enter into the contract at all?(f)The most pertinent proof that these later justifications he’s supplied do not hold water are that even after all of these “circumstances of this job” that he “deeply regret[s]” and even after he “can [could] honestly say that in all the years [he has] been in business, [he has] never encountered anything similar,” he wrote an email on 11 September 2015 (Attachment #4) promising by the following week to bring the work to a point commensurate with what we’d already paid him.  At that point, he was not citing the flimsy justifications for his fees that he has since come up with. At that point, he still was intending to honor his contract with us.  Nothing happened between the time he wrote that email and the date when my husband arrived to find he had not honored what he’d said in the email - with the exception of one very brief email from me confirming that my husband would be arriving in two days and would contact him when he arrived.  Other than this, there was no contact with me or with anyone – and not a single minute of work out of Mr. [redacted].  So whatever his justifications he later claimed, why did he not feel that way at that point? (g)At any point, he could have said “this is not what I signed up for.  Let me refund your down payment, less an amount commensurate with the contracted work that I did complete, and walk away from this.”  He never did that.  He simply stopped answering emails or phone calls and didn’t honor the one email he did write promising to resume work (i.e., Attachment #4) - at which point he had clearly felt there was still considerable work he needed to complete to bring things up to the already-paid-for level.  (h)And later he came up with a bunch of irrelevant justifications for keeping the “down payment” on uncompleted contractual work (Attachment #5, highlighted), the great majority of which was not on our contract and which didn’t even add up to $1600 but rather only to $1500 (he couldn’t even bother to throw out relevant numbers for his irrelevant detailed charges!): a.Clean up for electricians - $400b.Materials - $500c.labor - 6 days - $600(i)Besides the fact that it seems highly unlikely that it took six days to complete only 1/3rd of the patching of ½ of the duplex (Attachments #6 a-e) (it took his replacement one day to complete the same amount of work), a more relevant question is why in his most recent explanation to the Revdex.com he cited “cleaning up the electricians’ mess” as the main reason for his charges but here billed them as less than a third of the (mis-calculated).  It also seems that the figures in (h) (Attachment #5) are double-billing for these clean-up charges (once in “a” and again in “c”).  These kinds of mistakes are indicative of Mr. [redacted]’s lack of attention to detail and lack of professionalism – and it seems to me that they further indicate his attitude that he can just throw any nonsense out there to cover up his refusal to act with integrity.(j)Statements like the following from Mr. [redacted] are another example of the red herrings he throws around as explanations for his unprofessional behavior: “where I wasn’t sure who I needed to answer to: the property managers or Ms. [redacted].” This is so simply solved.  Just ask!  This way of thinking seems to pervade Mr. [redacted]’s logic.(2)The time he spent cleaning up after the electricians:(a)Again, the most relevant point here is: why not bring this to our attention at the time?  Of course, the electricians should have cleaned up after themselves – that was included in THEIR contract.  If Mr. [redacted] had told us about it, we would’ve called the electrician and got him to see to that immediately.  There was no reason for Mr. [redacted] to waste his time – or our money – doing work we hadn’t contracted with him to do.  Once any of this crossed the line out of being normal prep work, it wasn’t in his contract, and it wasn’t his responsibility (and we would not have seen it as such if he’d advised us of this).  If it was going to fall to him to do it (which if he’d advised us of it, it never would have), he could have negotiated with us and amended his contract instead of making a unilateral decision to do work for which he was planning to charge us over $1000.  He was patching holes in the drywall; there is no reason he couldn’t have gotten started on this work as the electricians were cleaning up their mess.  Or if it was such an onerous task that it necessitated $1000 worth of work (which wasn’t in his contract and which he therefore couldn’t expect payment for unless he negotiated that), he could simply have refused to proceed until it was solved.(b)Second, if the electricians weren’t going to clean it up, we would have preferred to pay someone at a lower rate of pay than a contractor charges to do that kind of unskilled labor.  Mr. [redacted] is a skilled tradesman (probably) and there is no reason we should be paying the rates of a skilled tradesman to do cleaning.  Again, by not advising us of this problem, he took away our opportunity to come up with a sensible, cost-effective solution.  I can’t imagine anyone would be willing to pay upwards of $1000 for what couldn’t have been more than a few hours of cleaning.  (c)Even at higher-than-cleaner rates, looking at the size of the strips cut into the sheetrock (Attachments #7 a-e), while they are fairly extensive, I don’t see how there was $1000 (or even $400) worth of clearing-out to do.  If there was so much debris that Mr. [redacted] did in fact spend an “extraordinary amount of time” and had to do a haul-away (this detail he’s been inconsistent about and it appears and disappears randomly), then why was there still a lot of construction debris when my husband arrived (Attachments #8 a-e)?  My husband did a lot of cleaning himself when he arrived, so if Mr. [redacted] did a $1000+ clean-up, why was that necessary?(d)As for Mr. [redacted]’s other explanation of his charges: “What was left we placed in the garage. Also, upon Ms. [redacted]’s request, all the light fixtures and ceiling fans were carried downstairs and placed in the garage.”  It is true that I asked him to do this – this was to keep these things from getting dust and paint splatters on them and would be a normal part of any contractor’s prep work (and in fact, would go without asking, I should think – but I just wanted to make sure since when the property manager sent photos, I noticed Mr. [redacted] hadn’t protected our beautiful hardwood refinished floors, which I would also have thought would go without saying).  At any rate, this task couldn’t have taken more than half an hour (I would be surprised if it took two people more than 10 minutes).  (Please see Attachment #9 to see how insignificant a task moving these few things would’ve been.)  This is the kind of thing he thinks it’s worth listing as justification for his outlandish cleaning fees?  And it also seems to me that the point at which I asked him to do this would have been the perfect time to bring up the inordinate amount of time they’d spent cleaning up after the electricians.  He did not.(3)The fact that the a/c was not working:(a)The apartment was very cold when my husband arrived (after it had been empty for weeks and Mr. [redacted] was the last one to have been there).  (Documentation of $300 CPS bill available upon request - there is no other electricity usage in an empty apartment that could account for this high usage.)(b)Even if the a/c was not working, once again: why did Mr. [redacted] not reach out to us and solve this at the time (one obvious very simple solution would have been to move his work to the downstairs unit)?  How are we supposed to solve a problem we don’t know is a problem?  And why should we have to pay $300 electric bills for an a/c that Mr. [redacted] left running on a super cold temperature in an empty apartment?Three further issues to address:(1)In response to Mr. [redacted]’s statement: “It is not practical to have just the drywall assessed to estimate what the value of the work I performed is worth. The time spent cleaning up the electrician’s work, along with materials left at the job, and the inability to work full days due to the heat are obviously not being considered. I can easily obtain estimates from several contractors to dispute Ms. [redacted]’s claim that the work was ‘nowhere near the $1,600.00 down payment.’” I have already pointed out the irrelevance of the uncontracted and undiscussed work he is saying we should pay him for, but I would like to add that whatever estimates he may obtain from other contractors, we have a clear contract with him, one he did not honor.  He put drywall (some of it backwards) in approximately 1/3rd of one of the two units.  This would amount to 1/6th of the drywall.  The cost of materials would amount to approximately $20 (two sheets of drywall) (see again Attachments #6 a-e of what was completed when my husband arrived, after which no other work was completed).  No matter what price tag anyone would like to put on that, we paid him almost one-third of the entire contractual amount.  He completed approximately one-sixth of all the drywall.  Even if his contract had been ONLY for the drywall, it is clear he did not complete enough of that to merit keeping one-third of the entire contractual amount.  He did NONE of the painting, NONE of the minor carpentry, NONE of the other 13 items listed on his contract.(2)In response to Mr. [redacted]’s claim: “I did not “angle” with the property manager for more money and I resent the implication,” please see Attachments 10 & 11 which directly and indisputably contradict Mr. [redacted]’s statement.  Attachment 10 is an email to the property manager in which he did request additional funds and Attachment 11 is Mr. [redacted]’s formal revised “project proposal” (which revised only the payment schedule).  The idea that we should have to pay his crew because he was unable to complete the work himself – regardless of the reasons for that – is illogical. Even if ultimately these “additional funds to pay the crew . . . did not increase the contract price – [and] this payment would be a draw against the original contract price, and be [Mr. [redacted]’s] expense,” we had already given him a more than ample “draw” to cover such costs.  He had not completed anywhere remotely approaching enough of the job to have earned the “draw” we’d already given him.  If he’d spent the “draw” on something other than meeting the contract for which he was given the “draw”, we couldn’t see why this was our problem.  He is (supposedly) a professional and it is up to him whether he wants to complete the work himself or pay a crew to complete it – just as it is up to him to manage his time and resources so that he doesn’t spend money he has not yet earned and to treat his “draws” responsibly.  The reason “days passed where [Mr. [redacted]] heard nothing about [his] proposal” was because we were trying to find out from the property manager where things stood as it seemed to us that Mr. [redacted]’s request was inappropriate but we wanted a professional perspective of that.  (3)In response to “Ms. [redacted] called my mother and my referrals, stating that I was a thief and that she was advising them not to use me again,”:a.I was not going to bring this up, but now that Mr. [redacted] has done so, I would like to point out that all three of Mr. [redacted]’s references, as it turns out, were his relatives and family friends; not one of them disclosed this to me when I contacted them.  The fact that Mr. [redacted] presented them as independent references and that they behaved as such seems not only inappropriate and unprofessional but possibly even illegal.  I had not previously brought it up as I had instead chosen to focus on the one central issue here: that we had a contract with Mr. [redacted] that he did not honor.  If he wants to make a defamation suit out of this (as he has threatened to do - in an effort to silence this Revdex.com complaint and Internet reviews), I would think that the judge’s first question to him would be to ask why he was presenting relatives and family friends as independent references and why he didn’t have any more appropriate references to give out.  And then, given the defamation claims, if these references were his relatives, wouldn’t they question my so-called “defamatory” claims and expect they be proven to be true before giving them any credence?  And then, how would such claims amount to thousands of lost dollars in potential income for Mr. [redacted] unless these relatives were planning to do extensive building that they didn’t award to Mr. [redacted]?  Even if they were, as a result of the emails, no longer willing to serve as references for Mr. [redacted], does Mr. [redacted] have no one other than these three relatives who can vouch for his work and if not, why not?b.I never advised Mr. [redacted]’s “references” not to use Mr. [redacted] again (letter sent to “references” available upon request).  Instead, I was merely giving them information.  If I were serving as a reference for a contractor, and he behaved as Mr. [redacted] had, I would want to be aware of that.  It would then be up to me to choose whether or not to believe the person giving me that information and to further investigate that person’s claims or not.  From my part, I feel it would be unethical of me not to pass on this information or put it up on Revdex.com (and soon to be other reviews) in order to save others the grief that Mr. [redacted] has put us through.  It is a public service to make the facts of this available to potential hirers.c.I’m sorry Mr. [redacted] “was in shock and totally disgusted” at my use of the word “stolen” in relation to his actions in my email to his “references” (i.e., relatives), but the attorney we consulted said that this would not be defamation as, given Mr. [redacted]’s actions, there were very clear grounds to believe that our claims were true.  I have since modified my original Revdex.com statement in the same vein (that Mr. [redacted] was a “conman”) and acknowledged that this could have been a case of Mr. [redacted] simply making mistakes rather than a conscious attempt to deceive.  The fact remains, though, that he did not honor his contract and now even after being made aware of the clear facts substantiating that, he refuses to return the money he took.  These are objectively true facts that it is not only appropriate to report but in the public interest to do so.(4)In response to “I was in disbelief that Ms. [redacted] completely forgot all the issues regarding this job except the ones that only benefit her,” I would ask Mr. [redacted]:a.What does he see as having done to benefit me?  Not only did he walk off with an unearned $1600 from us, but because of the delays and complications caused by his lack of communication about this, he cost us at least another $6,000 in lost rent and unnecessary travel expenses.  This doesn’t even begin to take into account the stress and time lost in trying to right the situation.b.How would it conceivably benefit me to “mistreat” him (as he sees it)?  All I wanted was for him to complete the work agreed upon in our contract with him so that I could honor our end of that contract by paying him for said work.  I don’t see how that is “mistreating” him and I don’t see how “mistreating” him would accomplish what was supposed to be the mutual goal of successfully completing the contract.c.Does he not remember that when I could have gone with a different property manager who would have required my using his contractors instead of Mr. [redacted] (at about the same price), I instead chose a property manager who was willing to work with Mr. [redacted] - out of loyalty to Mr. [redacted] (and not wanting to go with a different contractor after Mr. [redacted] and I had established a relationship and after Mr. [redacted] had twice taken the time to go to the house to meet with the first property manager)?
Regards,
[redacted]

I am emailing you for a response the complaint #[redacted].   We worked over there 6 days in a hot box with no A/C and we were told that it would be fixed and it never happened, 2 property managers quit citing that they could not stand to work with the [redacted] and that it was also not worth...

their time which left us stranded.  Her husband was supposed to come into town and contact me to get the project back on track in which he never did although he claims he called but it's weird my phone says different.  I was diagnosed with colon cancer so her acting like I was faking it also has me upset.  We did not ignore [redacted] and she would call at all hours of the night (sometimes at 1am) and I have proof of the constant communication with her.  My lawyer is looking into this complaint as well as emails she sent out and we consider the matter closed as of now and will not be returning the down payment which we earned nor lost rent which was her fault.  If you have any questions you can contact me at [redacted]   Thank you,    [redacted] Builders