I signed an agreement with Mr. Maxwell and work on installing custom cabinets in my kitchen was to begin July 17th. Mr. Maxwell postponed the commencement of work until the 19th, when he and his helper "Charlie" arrived at our home.
That afternoon, my husband went to the pet store to pick up a surprise graduation gift for our daughter - a new puppy. My husband used our digital camera to take pics of our daughter with the puppy and that evening laid the camera on the desk in the family room.
The next morning Mr. Maxwell and Charlie let themselves in and worked unattended (we were upstairs taking a shower and left a note to come in). Later that morning, Debbie, my decorator, showed up to give me more decorating suggestions and I asked my husband to get the camera so she could see the cute pictures of the new puppy. Surprisingly, the camera was not sitting on the desk as it had been the night before. We asked Mr. Maxwell and Charlie if they had seen the camera and they both denied seeing it.
This did not send off immediate alarm bells because we thought perhaps our daughter had moved it and anyway, it never occurred to us that a "professional" licensed company that came recommended and installed expensive custom cabinets would stoop to theft. Also we had never had anything stolen from our home before. We thought the camera would show up after we cleaned up the room (which was a mess due to remodeling).
Mr. Maxwell and his helper worked every day until about July 24th.
Mr. Maxwell said that he was leaving on vacation on July 25th and would be back from the vacation on the 28th. Mr. Maxwell went on to say that he would call me by the 31st to reschedule and finish the job. This was okay with us, as long as they finished within a reasonable time. We are easy-going about such matters as long as we are not being taken advantage of.
The day Mr. Maxwell and his helper left, I decided to tidy up the family room so we would not have to live in a mess until Mr. Maxwell and his helper returned. Well, now our brand new laptop computer was missing which I distinctly remember placeing on top of the TV set in the family room (which is next to the kitchen where Maxwell and his helper had been working).
This was no "misplacement" this was $1250 worth of new electronic equipment which had been stolen!
The process of elimination was not a tough one. The only other people who had been in the house the whole time were our daughter, who has never stolen from us, our daughter's boyfriend who had been around for over two years with nothing missing and our decorator who was not left alone the whole time she was there.
Well, the 31st came and went and after I left two messages, Mr. Maxwell finally called me back on August 2nd. He told me that four cabinet doors that were being re-made and the arch that was to be installed over the kitchen window would be finished by August 10th. Mr. Maxwell went on to say that he would return to finish the job after that. This all seemed reasonable to us. Delays happen, as we all know.
I informed Mr. Maxwell, that we might be out of town at that time but we agreed to touch base and schedule from there.
On August 10th, I left a message to please call me and that he could finish installing the kitchen cabinets on August 17th or Aug. 20th. I left both my home and cell phone numbers. I left multiple phone calls on Mr. Maxwell's cell phone, all of which were ignored.
I debated over whether to mention the theft to Maxwell when and if he finally called me back, but I decided I might never get him back to finish and he already had most of the money anyway. Yes, it is a good idea to make sure the draws are evenly distributed. Mr. Maxwell had the money draws running in his favor as far as I could tell.
Mr. Maxwell finally returned our phone calls and he came back to finish approximately August 27th and he completed the job on August 30th. Needless to say, we never left Maxwell or his helper alone and as an added precaution, we hid our remaining electronics, cash and jewelry.
After they had finished, we asked to speak to Maxwell alone. We had no idea which of them had purloined our camera and laptop, but we asked Maxwell to talk to his helper and please get our possessions back. Maxwell stuck up for his helper and asked us if we wanted to speak to him. We declined because we felt that if Charlie was the culprit, he had his chance to come clean when we questioned him about the disposition of the camera when it first went missing.
Also he did not act one bit guilty. I knew that he would be too smooth to give himself away IF he had done it. Without proof, we had no choice but to pay Maxwell the balance owed or risk a mechanic's lien on our property, so we paid. The loss was particularly painful because the last pictures of my husband's sister was on the camera and she died unexpectantly that September.
As if we had not suffered enough, when the installers came to install the new oven into the cabinet in November, they said that they install ovens every day and they were quite sure that the oven was too big and would not fit! We thought, GREAT! Now what do we do? As we had supplied Maxwell with the oven dimentions from the manufacturer and he should have measured correctly.
I sent a certified letter to Maxwell after leaving several phone messages - all ignored -to please come and re-check the cabinet measurements. After a good couple of weeks and no reply, we decided that we had no choice but to have the cabinet altered by another cabinet maker and sue Maxwell later for the mistake. So we took the installer's advice and had the cabnet altered.
When the installers (from another company) came to install the oven, this tiime the space was too big! I hold Maxwell partially responsible for this error because if he had just come and checked the cabinet, as I had asked, he could have saved us all of the extra work and frustration. Maxwell made it very clear from his non-communication that he just didn't care and could not be bothered.
Finally, the icing on the cake is that there is a gap on the right side of the built-in refrigerator - flaring down to over an inch wide at the bottom. This is supposed to be BUILT-IN with NO GAPS. I am going to have to have that repaired by another cabinet-maker as it is quite apparent that Maxwell's communications have dwindled from infrequent to none.
My advice - don't use this guy or, if you do, have yourself committed.
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