# Is this contractor review too harsh? (long) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 14, 2011, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-contractor-review-too-harsh-long/599639 "2011-10-14T15:34:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-contractor-review-too-harsh-long/599639/1 "2011-10-14T15:34:49Z")
I am wrapping up (I hope) a fairly large rennovation project at my house. The contractor has been very frustrating to deal with, but is trying to make it right. His staff also are technically very good. When the job is done, I’m planning on putting a review up on Angie’s List. This website is used pretty heavily in the DC area by a lot of people looking for contractors and a bad review will likely mean a serious blow to his business. I’m wrestling with whether this review is too harsh, every time I think it is fair, the contractor does something that makes me feel I am being too hard on him, but then he does something that pisses me off. I’m not posting until the job is 100% done, so there is plenty of time to modify it. > [@](#): > > The company would probably do well on a smaller project, but our project was a pretty large renovation of our basement. They quickly got in over their head and did not have the organizational skills, or management capacity to manage the project efficiently. > > · Double any estimate for time or cost provided; go through his proposed scope of work thoroughly, we found that there were fairly major elements missing from his initial bid that then had to be added at a late date for extra cost, of course this was after we had already awarded the company the job based on their original bid; > > · They seemed to have cash flow problems and were constantly asking for money ahead of the schedule outlined in the contract; > > · They constantly left the door to our basement unsecured, I don’t mean that they left it unlocked, I mean that they left it wide open. At one point, the old door had been removed and they did not replace it for quite some time. I complained many times about this, but their solution was to leave an unsecured piece of ply-wood across the opening. Anyone could have walked into my house. More than once, I was forced to build a barricade against this piece of plywood because they had left my house unsecured; > > · When we signed the contract, the owner gave us a speech about how he was the project manager and if we had any questions we should ask him, but often when we did have questions, he told us to ask his employees directly; there wasn’t enough oversight of the staff working on our job, the owner wasn’t following up and inspecting the job site frequently enough; > > · The owner would frequently give us the answer he thought we wanted to hear, rather than the actual answer. As an example, the job required our heat to be turned off, this wasn’t a problem in July when the job started, but as it stretched into October, we asked when they would have the heat back online. His immediate answer was “tomorrow,” but of course that wasn’t true, neither was his next promised deadline. His strategy seemed to be to string the customer along with a promised result in the near future, and then keep pushing that deadline back every couple of days; > > · I should say that their technical work was quite good and if they were better at the project management and communicating with the customer, I would have given them a much higher review. Their biggest problem is that the owner doesn’t listen to the client, which creates confusion and problems later in the process. He constantly seemed surprised by requirements we had mentioned in earlier talks and which he promised would be “no problem,” but then didn’t seem to know how to do. ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-contractor-review-too-harsh-long/599639/2 "2011-10-14T15:38:25Z")
Well, if all that stuff actually happened it seems like a pretty reasonable review to me. I would also appreciate this type of review so I would know not to hire this person. ---
**Author:** ![Foxy40](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Foxy40](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foxy40)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-contractor-review-too-harsh-long/599639/3 "2011-10-14T15:43:50Z")
If there is no way in hell you’d ever ask this company to do another bit of work in your home, it is appropriate. If, however, that isn’t the case and you would consider them for a future project, then this would be too harsh. No one is going to hire this company if they read your review so make sure the tone is right and that is what you intend to advise the folks. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-contractor-review-too-harsh-long/599639/4 "2011-10-14T15:44:48Z")
I had a similar experience (better than yours, but still enough bad things to make me grumpy). I don’t think your review is too harsh per se, but my advice is to wait a few months after the work is finished before posting your review. This gives two advantages: 1. You have time to completely cool off and be objective. Not to forget the bad things, but to be able to step back and look at the whole project overall. 2. You have time to live with the results and get a better sense of how good or bad the final work actually is. I absolutely agree that contractors seem to give short shrift to organizing the work so that there is minimum down time, and also to communicating (both listening to the client and informing the client about what is going to happen). A second piece of advice for anyone using a contractor: don’t rely on verbal communications for anything that is in the scope of work. Make sure they give you a revised scope of work document; or you write it down and get them to sign it, and give them a copy. Fewer surprises that way. Roddy ---
**Author:** ![Zulema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/db5fbb/32.png) [@Zulema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zulema)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-contractor-review-too-harsh-long/599639/5 "2011-10-14T15:54:13Z")
I like it. It has your concerns in a factual way and also praises their actual technical ability. This actually sounds like pretty much every contractor we’ve worked with except we haven’t always gotten good work out at the end. I would hire them knowing that I have to do a lot of following up and pricing on my own. I would say the specific amount of time the basement door was not there instead of saying “for quite some time”. ---
**Author:** ![Baracus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2bfe46/32.png) [@Baracus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baracus)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-contractor-review-too-harsh-long/599639/6 "2011-10-14T16:17:11Z")
> [@Zulema](#): > > I like it. It has your concerns in a factual way and also praises their actual technical ability. This actually sounds like pretty much every contractor we’ve worked with except we haven’t always gotten good work out at the end. I would hire them knowing that I have to do a lot of following up and pricing on my own. Indeed. I don’t have a lot of direct experience with contractors, but from stories I have been told these seem like pretty common complaints for crummy contractors. If this guy is a typical crummy contractor then I think it is fair to put out a review that states such. I would probably leave out the part about seeming to have cash flow problems and just go with the fact that he asked you to accelerate the payments ahead of what was in the contract, letting the reader draw his own conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-contractor-review-too-harsh-long/599639/7 "2011-10-14T16:22:38Z")
I think it’s a fair review. Angie’s list will give the contractor a chance to rebutt and his rebuttal(s) will go alongside your review. So if you are completely off with anything, it will be corrected. I don’t see how anything could be off though - looks like you are stating facts and not whiny opinion. You start and end with a compliment too. That’s pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-contractor-review-too-harsh-long/599639/8 "2011-10-14T16:32:08Z")
Thanks all, I would never hire the contractor again, but I would hire some of his workers. In fact, the first day of the job both his carpenter and plumber gave me their cards and said that they could furture work for me cheaper than going through the boss. This is facilitated by the fact that I can speak their language (Russian) and don’t need their boss as a go between. I didn’t ask for these cards, they gave them to me unsolicited. I’ll cool off, but the one issue that makes my blood boil is his team constantly leaving the back door open. I live in the city and anyone walking through the alley could see the door open and come into my house, it never happened, but when I think about how many times I reminded him about it, I get a little stabby. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-contractor-review-too-harsh-long/599639/9 "2011-10-14T17:19:56Z")
> [@](#): > > They constantly left the door to our basement unsecured, I don’t mean that they left it unlocked, I mean that they left it wide open. At one point, the old door had been removed and they did not replace it for quite some time. I complained many times about this, but their solution was to leave an unsecured piece of ply-wood across the opening. Anyone could have walked into my house. More than once, I was forced to build a barricade against this piece of plywood because they had left my house unsecured; They deserve what they get on this point alone. Your entire review is a fair comment. Post it as is. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-contractor-review-too-harsh-long/599639/10 "2011-10-14T19:57:28Z")
Jesus fucking christ. No, it’s not too harsh. This is a company with horrible practices that deserves to go bankrupt. The fact that the actual work itself was good is a testament to the laborers, who have NOTHING to do with the management of the company. The workers, if they’re as good as you say, will find other jobs. That is not your problem. The owner’s shitty lies and unsafe management means that company closing up shop would actually be a public good for the DC area. By leaving your back door open and unlockable, the owner exposed you to robbery and/or bodily harm. He also lied about costs to get the job in the first place, and probably does that all the time. Those things, combined with the continual moneygrubbing ahead of the agreed payment schedule, would have me incensed enough to plaster the company’s name on a billboard, along with “never hire this company for any reason, ever, unless you want to be robbed and murdered in your bed.” ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-contractor-review-too-harsh-long/599639/11 "2011-10-14T20:18:45Z")
That seems absolutely fair, assuming all those things happened. I’d have no compunctions about posting it. ---
**Author:** ![phall0106](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phall0106/32/5934_2.png) [@phall0106](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phall0106)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2011, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-contractor-review-too-harsh-long/599639/12 "2011-10-15T14:48:51Z")
This is the kind of review I want to read (in the level of detail) when I search for reviews. There’s nothing worse, in my mind, that reading a four star rating of something and the comment is, “This was great!”. Okay, WHY was it great? When reading reviews, I want enough information to justify why the rating was good (or not). This is what helps me decide if I want to pursue business with the one I’m considering. I say submit as-is. ---
**Author:** ![2gigch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/2gigch1/32/3313_2.png) [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2011, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-contractor-review-too-harsh-long/599639/13 "2011-10-15T15:05:23Z")
The only suggestion I ever have about things like this is to write it up, then wait - day, week, month, whatever, before posting it. I’ve never seen an ‘unsend’ button. There have been many times I wanted one. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Lovely\_Margo\_Lane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/34f0e0/32.png) [@The\_Lovely\_Margo\_Lane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lovely_Margo_Lane)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2011, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-contractor-review-too-harsh-long/599639/14 "2011-10-15T16:13:38Z")
The only thing I would change is to be a little more specific about what they did do well - what particular work were you impressed with? It’s a little jarring to me that there are so many detailed bullet points of the failures, then the fact that the work itself was good is just generically tossed in. Perhaps, though that’s as it should be since you are specifically rating the contractor and not the workers?