Steve Bottcher and his wife Pam started an interior painting job on my home in St. Charles. I was originally told that the job would take about 10 days and it ended up taking over 6 weeks and still was not finished. They started just before Thanksgiving 2007. They seemed nice at first and were helpful in choosing colors for walls. They had a 3rd person come in named Nacho, a Mexican gentleman. The work started OK but then Steve got sick with pneumonia and only Nacho and occasionally Pam came. Nacho began to complain to me that he was left alone to do the job and I told Pam. She then said that she didn't think he respected women and didn't want to take orders from her.
The work continued slowly and I noticed that it was being very poorly done with skipped areas on the walls and loads of drips on the wood work, and nothing was getting completed. They painted over hardware on the kithchen cabinets. They left huge messes of wallpaper remains all over the toilets and floors and paint drips everywhere. I talked with Pam and Steve about it and they responded that they would fix everything to my satisfaction. They broke a large bathroom mirror and never replaced it.
I had originally paid them a deposit and then due to the length of time it was taking them with Steve being sick, I made another payment per Pam's request. I was sympathetic and believed that they would fix everything. Steve said that they would hire 2 extra guys to help finish and that he and Pam would be here also - they had 1 guy named Chris (here 2 days and another named Wes here 1 day) and Steve and Pam were not here the 2nd day - when called they said they'd be there in the evening. I told them that was not professional to just not show and then come whenever they want.
That day was 12/20/07: they came before 7 pm which was not a good time, and we reviewed and wrote an updated contract: Steve and Pam said that they would come on Friday 12/21 with Chris and Wes and would finish the job. I asked them why should I believe it and they said that they would never treat a customer like that and leave a job. They not only took additional payment to finish the job (since I would be out of town over the Holidays) they did not come back and never answered their phones. They put blobs of additional spackle on the bathroom walls and just left it: they left the job unfinished, hardware left off windows, doors off closets, they left a total mess and lied and cheated me. They never did replace my large mirror. They have absolutely NO integrity and cannot be trusted. Do not ever hire them. I left them messages that they could redeem themselves but no response. Ironically they both wore crosses around their necks; I would not call their behavior very Christ-like.
It makes me never want to trust anybody again. What scam-artists, and I hope that they lose business because of the way they treated me.
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