We contracted on or about January 19, with Steve Arnold, owner of Avalon Home Service, LLC, Plano, Texas, to do a shower remodel project in our Master bath. The project was to cover tearing out the shower pan and cultured marble and replacing that with tile, as well as replacing the shower fixtures, tub fixtures, and installing a new shower door.
We were told the project would take 2 weeks to complete. We made an initial payment on January 21, to upgrade the fixture allowance above what was allowed in the contract, add to the order 2 sink fixtures, pay for the tile upgrade from what was allowed in initial contract, and pay 10% on the contract total.
The fixtures were to be special ordered (Arnold did not want us to order these directly or go find them ourselves) and to be delivered the next week. Later we heard one of the fixtures ordered (the shower spray unit) would take until the following Monday to arrive, which was fine. We wrote an additional check for the frameless shower door on January 26th.
On Jan. 28, we gave Arnold a check which covered demo & dump of materials, backer board, shower pan, the and remainder owed on the tile. We were told the shower sprayer would arrive on Mon. And then our shower would be completed. That was the week of Feb. 2. To date we have paid $4717.07 (the last payment being made on Jan. 28). Contractor Arnold ran to the bank and cashed each payment immediately upon receipt.
Starting with the original set of workmen and through not less than five iterations over the course of four months (on our two week job), Arnold either failed to have qualified workmen or in the instances when he sent qualified workman, he failed to provide sufficient tile or direction as to what was supposed to be done. He provided no meaningful supervision at any time.
We have gone through multi-week periods with no contact or work.in every instance Arnold has failed to provide reasonable direction or supervision, with the result that even he has never been satisfied with the quality of the work done. He has promised repeatedly that he would have the work completed to both his satisfaction and ours.
As of Wednesday, May 20th, we finally have a tiled, but filthy shower (didn't bother cleaning tiles, grout or wall paint with grout slopped all over). We have not received the fixtures or frameless door paid for in January. I have been asking for the paid fixtures to be delivered since February, when we started to get nervous. Arnold has repeatedly promised to deliver them, but has failed to do so. We are assuming he diverted those funds for other purposes and the fixtures and shower door have never been ordered.
Contractor Arnold refuses to meet, and is not responding to email, or to repeated voicemail messages trying to resolve this. The pattern is exactly what Deceived and Disgusted in Dallas (report # 431512) ran into with Arnold and Avalon Homes. After taking money up front, he does not deliver the services nor materials, he refuses to meet and communicate, and in a really off-his-meds email exchange in April made the point that unlike in the world of corporate slaves, we cannot make him communicate or perform under the contract.
We are assuming that he has no intent to finish the job and that he has criminally diverted our paid funds for purposes other than this contracted job. We have spoken with an attorney and it is our intent to sue for damages and to separately file a criminal complaint with the Collin County District Attorney.in the meantime, anyone looking at remodeling services should be aware that Contractor Steve Arnold and Avalon Home Service represent nothing but trouble and they are well advised to avoid him, Avalon, and any future business he sets up to pull the same stunts.
We did learn some lessons:
1. Any site like Best Contractors is a convenience, probably not a legitimate screening. We contacted Best Contractors and they had cancelled him for not paying the fee required to be listed.
2. Check current references for similar work. My trusting wife was convinced this guy was professional and ethical, and she bought into his story about one of his jobs being featured in Architectural Digest and his buds at the BBB. He would not have been able to provide a current positive reference by the time we stumbled into this.
3. Be leery about not getting to order materials yourself or about paying for materials before they are delivered. He took that money and immediately diverted it to other uses.
4. Cut your losses sooner than later. I let him drag this along for four months hoping he would eventually come through, and still end of having to sue him for damages.
5. An act of fraud, as was clearly committed here, negates his ability to hide behind his Avalon business or bankruptcy. It's all personal liability now, so even if he files bankruptcy for Avalon, he is still criminally liable and we can pursue his personal assets or even force him into personal bankruptcy in satisfying the judgment we will end up with.
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