Oh yes, that would be our house. You see, the crew that was painting our house got fired today. True story. Here's how it happened...
We hired a company that had painted 8 other houses in our neighborhood. All of the homeowners were happy with the work and recommended this company. So we hired them. They were supposed to paint the house in September, I'm not sure why that didn't happen. Then they were going to paint last week, nope. So this Monday when they actually showed up we were pleasently surprised.
They started by pressure washing the house. But they didn't have the right kind of wand, so they borrowed ours. And they had no extension cords, so they borrowed ours. They did not remove any screens. They did however manage to spray vigorously enough so that we had a waterfall on the INSIDE of our front hall. They did not finish the house on Monday so said they would finish up Tuesday. Hmm.
Tuesday they showed up and finished pressure washing the house, and the sidewalks as a bonus. Okay. Then they started painting. With the wrong paint. Bill said, no...that was not the brand on the contract. So they went to the store and bought more paint, again the wrong kind, but right brand. Third try seemed to be magic and it was right. So they started painting again. No caulk. No wood replacement, no hardware removal. Just started painting. At this point we were getting frustrated. Bill told them they needed to do all the above mentioned items. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they would get to it. Bill patiently pointed out that some things needed to be done BEFORE other things. This seemed to be news to them.
Did I mention they tried to sell $700 worth of wrong paint to my next door neighbor? Oh yes, they rang his doorbell and asked if he liked the color, and was he interested. He declined.
Wednesday, they asked to borrow some tools, because they had none. They also wandered through the basement looking for the bathroom and scared the daylights out of me. The bathroom is right next to the door from outside I pointed out. Not surprising. They continued painting and caulking AFTER they painted. They promised they would go back and touch it up. They also oversprayed the paint onto a retaining wall, and into the porch onto the white ceiling. Nice. Oh and couple of trees are now painted as well.
Thursday, only two guys showed up because the third had to go to a funeral because someone got shot. How could I make this up?
Friday, they borrowed Bill's power drill and hammer without asking (from INSIDE our house). They needed to know if they could just paint around the hardware instead of removing it? And they left the hammer on the roof. It's still there. Bill finally talked to the "boss" on the phone after multiple tries to get in touch with him. He read the list of issues we had compiled (two pages) and the boss promptly fired the crew and told them to leave.
So FIVE DAYS into this craziness, we find out that these guys were new to this company and had never actually painted a house before. Not surprising. You really should see our house. When I told the boss that the side of the house was all splotchy, he replied, "Oh yeah, the front is too."
Tomorrow we are assured that the new crew will be here and that they have indeed painted a house before and do actually know how to.
I'll keep you posted.