After seeing his advertisement in the paper this past weekend (Kitsap Sun 2/25/07 Section E2) as a "Remodeling Specialist" with suspended Washington License #BOWTIBI943DG UBI#602573621 (he also has another suspended license #BOWTICi1972DC UBI#602267470) check this out on the state webpage at https://lni. Wa. Gov and search "Bowtie" Bonds on both of these licenses have paid out and he currently does not have a bond or a valid license.
I felt that I need to post my experience with "Bowtie" as well.
Jeremey Ralston (Bowtie Builders and Bowtie Construction) came to us on a referral from a friend. Little did we know he had a path of destruction behind him. He was eager to get get started and we were told that he would be done in 5 months.
We have hired him to build a garage for us. He told us that he had to use Kingston Lumber since he had a billing dispute with Parker Lumber (I suspect that was with other poster here). He said that he has all the subs&what I found out that the plumber was never paid 8 months after he did the work (we finally had the plumber come back a year later to finish the work since he is a man of his word who said he will never work for jeremy Ralston again) the sheetrock company GTS came onsite to pick up the materials they delivered due to non-payment, the sheetrocker had never worked for him before and wasn't pleased working for him.
I really don't know where to start.
He wanted the checks made out to him not Bowtie Builders or Bowtie Construction since he was "changing names".
He wanted me to get the supplies.
He had the delivery address wrong for the materials.
His entire crew smoked like chimneys & left the site littered with butts.
He never removed garbage from the site, just kept piling up inside.
His own monther-in-law didn't have him build her home.
Jeremy and his crew didn't measure cuts so that my garage doors that were ordered per the plan didn't fit the opening they built. Jeremy stood in front of me on site one day and swore that he wanted to make it right because he relies on referral business. He was to purchase new doors and reconfigure the bay at his expense to make us happy. That was nine months ago and the last time we ever saw him or heard from him.
Wait we did hear from his wife, Candace Day when Kingston Lumber was going after them for payment of supplies. She had the nerve to call us and say we were not to pay Kingston Lumber. She fought the fact that we were paying Kingston directly and not through them. Our property ended up being liened. When Bowtie's bond paid out we did get it released and we also found out that there is a couple other people out there who had the same problem.
Please if you see this, post as well, how else can we warn others about him!
After getting over the embarressment of this I started talking to others about this and found out that Bowtie would hire help from "Labor Ready". So the guys on the job site may not have even had construction experience. The county inspections on the project did show that nailing & insulation problems. How do you screw up insulation installation? As for the nailing and caulking, we went back after they were gone to do it correctly.
Jeremy from Bowtie construction did not do a job he should be proud of. At any time he could have said "Hey I have a problem" but he didn't he kept talking himself into bigger and bigger lies. I am not sure if he knew where one lie stopped and another began.
We also found out that many suppliers in the area would not sell to him on credit — he must pay cash up front to get materials (that he doesn't have), which is why he asks the property owners to get materials.
In the end, he never came back to complete the project and we are making sure no one we know ever uses him. No one deserves this treatment from a "professional" contractor. Guess that is why he is not a memeber of any Home Builder Associations.
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