This is an email I wrote to a friend of mine at a local news station. I did not know Jeff Sapp was the owner of the local Sharper Impressions here in the Kansas City Area until after I read the reports on here.
I am writing you to hopefully get your professional opinion concerning a painting company we used to paint our house.
In May we had our house painted by Sharper Impressions Painting Company. Before signing the contract with them, we spoke at length with the company salesman, Jeff Sapp. He of course made the usual statements about his company and how good their painters are so we decided to go with them rather than another company.
The paint crew arrived on schedule and began the prep work on the house to include power washing, replacing any wood that needed replaced and caulking any and all areas of the house such as around the windows, nail holes, trim boards etc. The paint crew we later found out was actually a contract crew rather than a paint crew from Sharper Impressions. We were never told Sharper Impressions does not have their own paint crews. On the last day of prep work, the back of our house was being caulked and before it had time to set up, a rain storm came through and washed away the caulk. The foreman for the crew told us they would re-caulk before painting, but that never happened I later found out. The house was painted, looked great and we were satisfied (for the moment).
About 30 days later in late June, we started noticing the caulk separating in the seams on the siding all around the house. Not just in one or two spots, but all around the house. We also noticed an upstairs bedroom window was leaking inside from around the outside window trim which caused the inside trim to separate and we found the windows in our living room were leaking. We made a call to Sharper Impressions and an employee by the name of Ty came out to look over things. He said the caulk separating on the siding was caused from the house settling. At the time, the house was over 11 years old and you know as well as I do a house would not settle that much in a month to cause the siding to separate. He would not agree with me, but did say he would have their touch-up person Jack come out to re-caulk and paint. This person never showed up after many promises to do so. Several phone calls were exchanged between us and the painting company and no one ever showed up.
Finally in November 09, they sent out someone to fix the problem areas. Two people who once again were contracted by Sharper Impressions came out to re-caulk and touch up. We were not left enough of the original paint for them to use to touch up with so they had to go buy a can of paint. When they came back with the paint, they told me the original paint crew used the wrong brand of paint and Sharper Impressions did not purchase or ever use that particular brand (we have both cans of paint to show the difference) and with using the different brand, the color might not match. Well, the two jokers re-caulked and immediately painted over the caulk without letting it set up. Again, you and I both know you have to let any caulk set up and dry before painting over it. They told me it would be fine. They also told me the upstairs window separating was not caused by the window trim leaking, but was caused from wood rot. It wouldnt have gotten wet and rotted if it was caulked correctly the first time!
Now in December more problems start. Im sure you remember the big snow storm we had just before Christmas. Well after this started melting (I dont remember exactly when it was), we noticed there was as I called them, brown caulkcicles hanging from the trim board just above our living room windows. I did take pictures of this. We noticed brown drippings inside the living room windows, brown colored water spots on the ceiling in the upstairs room with the leaking window and the caulk was again separated on the siding all around the house. Also we noticed some of the upper siding now had bowed out from water seeping behind it. After seeing all of this damage I called and left a message for Jeff Sapp to call me so we could discuss this.in the message I also told him I needed the name of his bond insurance company.
Jeff called back and said he was out of town but would get with me when he got back to schedule a time to come out and look at the damage. After much time and many calls, Jeff finally came out and I showed him all of the damaged areas and told him my wife was fed up with him and his company and was ready to notify the local news stations. I also told him of the different paint used to touch up and the touch up guys telling us the paint color might not match. He agreed there was a problem and said he would send out his paint rep to look at our house. He also asked me to email him the pictures I took, which I did and in this email I also once again asked for the name of the bond insurance company Sharper Impressions uses.
To this day, I have not heard back from Jeff Sapp regarding the so called paint rep coming out to look at the house nor have I been given the bond insurance information which I have requested twice now. With spring upon us and spring storms, the damage continues to mount up. We have also noticed numerous gnats inside our house and after some research we have found out gnats love to nest in moisture or areas of a house that have moisture from leaks. We never had a gnat problem in the past until now. It is also obvious now the paint use to touch up does not match the original color used. My wife also checked with the Better Business Bureau and found out a problem with Sharper Impressions Painting Company is their slow and/or lack of response to problems and fixing them in a timely manner.
I am writing you because of your expertise in law and television. I would like to know if this is something we should consider taking to small claims court and let a Judge settle or is this something you think could be fixed with pressure from the media or should we pursue both avenues. We paid over $3500.00 to have our house painted and we deserve for it to be perfect for that price. It has been a year now and Jeff Sapp has been given plenty of time and opportunities to fix these problems before things got worse and has chosen to not respond to any of them. I now want my money back so I can get the problems fixed.
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