Aardvark Painting Inc

I hired Aardvark for an outdoor painting job at my home for fall 2018. They were to paint wood siding and trim, garage doors, and my covered patio including the paneled ceiling, and repair and replace some rotted wood. They began the job in the fall and told me they thought the would be able to get it done before it got cold. Unfortunately that was not the case. It got cold and I was told that they would have to finish up in the spring. I paid for more than half of the job and waited until spring. This spring I found a note from the owner, Michael, on my back patio that said he stopped by to talk to me about the job but I wasn't there and they were going to start painting the next day. I never received a call that he was coming, nor did I ever get an idea of how much longer the job would take. They started the job. And before they were done I went on vacation. I received a call from the office asking me for the money as soon as they were done with the job, while I was still on vacation. I told them I would have to mail them a check when I got back. The weekend after we got back we finally got a chance to take a look at the job. There were a few corners of wood rot that they had filled that did not harden and were not painted. And we noticed that the painter had also painted our mailbox. The mailbox was not in the contract for the job, and we did not ask him to paint it. The problem was that he painted it the wrong color. Our HOA requires all the mailboxes in our neighborhood to be painted the same color. In addition, we noticed that the wood paneled ceiling of our covered patio was warped and sagging in a few spots. I called the office and explained there were a couple of issues and asked if Michael could stop by to discuss it. When he got to my house he launched into a defence about how several other people in the development did not have an exact match to the rest of the mailboxes in the neighborhood and he didn't even think there was one standard color. I pulled out paperwork from my HOA that stated the exact rules and color that was required. He basically told me that he was not going to repaint it unless the HOA complained. I was not satisfied but he was unwilling to fix their mistake. I also pointed out the soft wood fill on the rotten wood and he told me that they would harden when the weather warmed up. He said they just have just missed those spots when painting and went out to paint them. It was sprinkling outside, and shortly after that we got a downpour. And finally, I pointed out that the paneled ceiling of the covered patio had warped. Michael said there was no way that the clear coat they put on the paneling had done that and said it was some other problem. We have lived in this house for a year and a half and there has never been a problem with the paneling until it was painted. Michael totally denied that they caused the problem even though it was apparent that it was not like that before painting. In the end he did not resolve any of the remaining issues. And he proceeded to guilt me because he had trouble paying his painter for the job during the time we were on vacation. I just payed him and accepted that fact that my husband would have to do the work himself to resolve the remaining issues. So in the end we paid a hefty price for a job that will likely cost my husband some additional time to correct. Overall the painting job on most of the house was done well. They did some carpentry work in the fall that had to be redone because it just wasn't done well. And Michael did agree to redo it, although he guilted me about the time and money at the time. However, there were a few issues left in the end. Unfortunately, the unwillingness to fix a mistake that was clearly theirs left a bad impression. It's unfortunate, but a thing like that on top of the poor communication and guilt trips means I doubt I would hire them again.