James Willis U-NAME-IT Handyman Services- Incomplete, Sloppy work, Messy, Unprofessional, unknowledgable, destructive, untrustworthy - Ocoee, Florida

I had some water damage and had to replace my floor. I ended up needing the entire room painted as well due to the wall patch from the leak. A friend recommended a handyman that did some good work for them. The only complaint she had was tardiness and worked a little slow. I thought I could live with that. I was already ripped off by a general contractor who purchased the supplies for me but refused to give me receipts.

Once I contacted James he was very pleasant and came across like he knew what he was doing, assured me he could get the job done in two days. I agreed as I put the flooring, etc. in myself the first time but just didn't have the time and patience this time around. 

First things first, he had his wife paint the room, which looked like a child had done it. I had her re-do it once and it still looks terrible with roller marks and paint slopped on the ceiling, doorways and floor. She dropped a pan of paint on the new flooring making a chip. I helped her clean it up as she was trying to do it with a dry cloth. She got paint on my couch (which was not covered but half the time), paint on the porch carpet, paint on my already "painted" garage floor, paint all over pavers and stepping stones outside. I also observed her sitting on my couch without it being covered a few times.

Meanwhile, the floor is getting put in...seems to be going well but about half-way through I noticed that every other board lines up. Which I made very clear not to do before they started. Now half the flooring is gone and I can't afford to replace it, I guess I live with it.

Once the floor is complete now it's the difficult parts...thresholds...one was put down before the baseboards so the baseboards are sitting on top with gaps between the floor and the baseboards. The hall doorway thresholds (three doorways) were not notch and all blunt cut so there are gaps...he tore off the door trim to get the flooring closer to the walls inside the doorways (I did not need to do this the first time) but split most of the wood and nail-gunned those suckers right back up with the splits still in the wood frame. Despite this effort there still are plenty of gaps in the flooring around and inside of the doorways.

There is a closet in the hallway as well and he didn't get very close to it as there is about a half inch gap. Oh and the closet door he took out to "get closer" no longer closes all the way. There is one doorway he didn't even put a threshold and got so close to the sliding glass doors in the living room that there is not room to put the L threshold.

To top it all off...there is a lump I later noticed (as my couch was moved on top of it) in the middle of the living room floor where the padding underneath was not flattened out.

A few odds and ends: While they were cutting the boards they had all the doors open in my house so the soot just flowed right through. It took me a week to clean it up in the garage and house and I'm still not sure I got it all. There was debris all over outside, excess floor padding missing and one of my screw drivers missing that they borrowed. I had to constantly watch what they were putting on my nice table and antiques, wipe up paint splatter and pick up sharp tools sitting on my new flooring so my attention to the larger details were not as I would have liked however, I suppose I didn't think I needed to micro manage a supposed professional either.

The second day they were here a long time and I knew they were trying to finish up but it was getting late. He said he'd come back and finish up whatever I found that needed to be finished on top of the obvious. He did this with my friend as well so I trusted he would. I didn't mention how upset I was as I wanted him not to be scared to come back. We set a date and time. No call, no show, no returning of my calls or texts.

Never again...I will continue to do things myself. It's just unfortunate that on the very very rare occasion that I just don't have the time and energy to do it (due to a medical episode), I get totally screwed. I will be fixing this myself.