BluSky NM Drywall Lath & Plaster Inc
Serving Texarkana, TX and surrounding areas
In business since 1994
Free estimates
Emergency services offered
"I apologize in advance for the long comment. I?ll do my best to impartially lay out the facts of what happened on this contract so that the reader can make their own judgement.
I initially contacted 5 contractors to get bids on re-stucco for my house. The house is large, almost 5000 square feet plus it is surrounded on 2 sides by a stucco wall enclosing the swimming pool and adjoining patios. There are also over 150 windows of various sizes throughout the house. We chose BlueSky for several reasons: 1. Many positive Angie?s List recommendations. 2. Price was in the lower half of the bids received. 3. Mr. Esparza seemed genuinely interested in ensuring our requirements were met. We were told that there would always be a supervisor on site and that Mr. Esparza himself would usually stop by once or twice per day to address any concerns. He assured us that they would clean up after themselves every day after work so that there would be no garbage blowing around the neighborhood. We were told that the job would take 8 days. We increased that in our minds to 10 because we thought 8 overly optimistic. We told Mr. Esparza that we like to be involved in the work that is done at our house and he encouraged that. He told us that since we know the house better than anyone else we should point out any discrepancies. We signed a contract and work was to begin immediately.
At this point I?ll say that as a rule we treat the folks who work on our house very well. We often order lunch for them. My wife will bring them snacks, coffee in the morning, ice water and sometimes even cook them lunch. The workers had no safety equipment and at one point we noticed that they were applying stucco to the underside of a column and stucco was falling into their eyes. My wife supplied them safety glasses. We are also demanding of good work and will point out things that are wrong as soon as we see them so that they can be fixed immediately. We have dealt with numerous contractors this way and have never had a problem. In this case, unlike what was promised, there really was no supervisor on site and we only saw Mr. Esparza twice after work started. At one point we were unable to contact him for 3 days. He later apologized and claimed he had a family emergency in Mexico. We were understanding although I think that maybe a text or email to his clients would have been appropriate.
The workers did a great job of sealing all the cracks and rebuilding the parapets. There were some areas of concern including a column that had to be adjusted 3 times because it was crooked. No problem, we dealt with the 1 or 2 English speaking members of the crew and got it taken care of. Garbage was not completely cleaned up at the end of each day, my wife and I walked around the property picking up little pieces of blue tape flying around without complaint. I believe proper supervision would have been helpful here. Part of the contract was to dig down 4 to 6 inches around all of the walls, I think this is common practice based on many of the bids I received. In a number of areas this was not done, I pointed out areas that I saw to the workers and they took care of them. There are still, however, several areas that have been missed. Again, proper supervision would have been helpful. I thought that overall the stucco work on the house went very well. My wife and I were happy with the work that was done and we thought that the remaining concerns would be taken care of after a walk- through with Mr. Esparza. This is the point where things start to get a little strange.
On the final day of work (Day 16, a bit longer than the 8 day estimate) I received a ranting call from Mr. Esparza. He was on a cell phone and was yelling and talking so fast that I could not understand a word he was saying. I asked him to calm down, told him that I could not understand him and he finally told me that he would call me back on a land line. When he finally called me he was livid. He asked me for money immediately, prior to the walk-through, to pay his workers. He told me that my wife had mistreated his workers and caused 3 of his best workers to quit, he made disparaging (I won?t elaborate any further) comments about her ability to speak proper English (She is Asian, has a degree from an American university, and speaks English well although with an accent), he accused her of following the workers around and watching them so closely that it made them uncomfortable and that she disturbed their lunch. I tried to have a conversation with him but he hung up on me. I was quite taken aback by what I can only describe as a tirade. I responded to him with a text message letting him know that I would be happy to pay in 2 installments, explaining that I have heard no complaints from him until now, and finished with the following statement ?We are very happy with your workers. I have never EVER been spoken to as unprofessionally by a business owner as I have been by you and am very disappointed?
A couple of hours later Mr. Esparza stormed onto our property after refusing to acknowledge my wife and I, even after my wife greeted him. He climbed onto the roof, walked around the house, glared threateningly, gave some orders to his workers, walked to his car and left. Later a worker handed me a piece of paper requesting $10,000 in 2 checks. I was confused about exactly what he wanted so I gave the worker $5000 in one check, unsuccessfully attempted to call Mr. Esparza, and sent him on his way. Mr. Esparza called back a short time later and still seemed quite upset. I had a difficult time understanding him but he explained that the job was done well (with a few exceptions, this is something I agree with), that he had to fire 3 workers because they refused to come to our house (a change from his original assertion that they quit) and that he made me a fair offer but that I had only paid $5000 and that we were in the wrong for not paying him $10,000. I believe he wanted to go to arbitration which is really not necessary since we were not completely unhappy with the finished product so I wrote another check for $5000 and he sent his worker back to collect it. At this point I have paid him all but $4,149 which should be paid after a final walk through and any corrections. My dilemma is that my wife is uncomfortable to the point of being fearful of having him on our property, and I really have to agree with her. I can probably pretty much forget about the warranty, if for no other reason than I don?t want to deal with him again. At this moment he has sent me a message forgiving the money not paid and essentially calling me a deadbeat, which I am not. I will probably hire someone else to do the touch up work, subtract from the total, and send him the rest. I spent 28 years honorably serving our country in the military and I always pay my bills. I just cannot tolerate his behavior.
Now for my thoughts. I am really conflicted about this. Until a few hours prior to project completion I was ready to give Blusky an A rating and was even going to recommend them to several people I know who need stucco work. The work appears to be done properly with a few exceptions and thanks to our involvement, pretty much the way we wanted it done. I was home the entire final week of the construction and neither my wife nor I was ?Big Brother?, although we did inspect the work and ensured things were being completed to our satisfaction. Often the workers would ask us to look around to see if we found anything that needed attending to. On the other hand, I have never dealt with a business owner who has berated me and acted as unprofessionally as this. I believe"
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