All Universal Construction

Mike is a bully and a horrible project manager but a very good used car salesman. I would not recommend any women in particular to work with Mike. His response anytime you disagree was very threatening to the point that frankly I’m still scared to post about this company but feel it’s important to warn off any other women from getting bullied, scammed and then ultimately threatened. Be sure to check out other reviews on Yelp and BBB as there are multiple instances of this behavior documented.

I was excited that his team would be able to start work quickly so I hired them but now looking back that should have been the first red flag as every other general contractor I interviewed had at least a 3-6 month backlog. Things seemed to go well at first however it was quickly apparent that the only reason he could start work early was by pulling people off other jobs to appear to be working quickly but then just as quickly pulling them off your project to take money from others without ever finishing the first job. He is not a proper General Contractor and actually just uses subcontractors for the work so there is no accountability for quality, time or damages. Using subcontractors also means that they weren’t all certified/licensed for the work they were doing and not covered under Mike business. For the roughly 6 months we were working together I saw him twice and only to collect money. I hired a GC because I thought it would make my home renovations easier as I would not have to do all the project management. This was definitely not the case at all workers would show up and have no idea what they were supposed to do. Multiple times they showed up and left because they didn’t have the right supplies or tools. They caused thousands of dollars worth of damage to my furniture which I was told would be covered and protected but was never done. They did not know how to work with a commercial building and had no clue what to do with the electrical or plumbing renovations all of which were done incorrectly and later had to be completely reworked by someone competent. A few of the issues (but not all): Pipes were literally misaligned so the showers were not functional, valves were left in the off position inside of the walls then tiled over, tiles were left out of a mosaic wall, electrical was mis-wired making it impossible to turn on the bathroom light and fan, baseboards were not installed flush/square with the floor, gaps etc. basically anything that could be done wrong was.

When work started to go wrong Mike just avoided speaking to me and refused to pick up the phone and would only text. Mike would say he’d come by and look at the damage or things installed incorrectly then never show up but still completely deny anything was wrong sight unseen. He has no sense of accountability or quality of workmanship. I found Mike’s behavior and communication to his staff and to me very threatening when he was unhappy and would not recommend working with him under any circumstances.

We paid Mike D’Angelo’s company All Universal Construction over $32,000 for a basement remodel that was left incomplete after putting our family through an 8-month nightmare of dealing with this business.
The contract was signed Dec 2019 and was committed in the contract to be completed in 2.5 months.

8 months later, in Aug 2020, we severed our relationship with AUC after we threatened a lawsuit against them for breach of contract in multiple areas.

We had to hire another person to finish the job, which ultimately cost us more money and time.
I would be very hesitant to do any remodels with this company without city inspection(s). AUC failed 2 inspections with the city of Westminster with several code violations each time. These failures occurred on both ROUGH and FINAL inspections.

Look at the BBB reviews if you want a true sense of how this company operates. Don’t trust the Google reviews as there are a number of employees (ex - James Bayarsaikhan) or family members (ex - Joseph D'Angelo) that have left good reviews, which is simply unethical.

Areas they didn’t complete correctly or with poor quality workmanship – contracted ½ bath was never completed, contracted carpet was never installed, contracted egress window never installed, missing window flashing (waterproofing) around an exterior window that was called out by Westminster city inspector, paint overspray on most of our fixtures and windows, unfinished drywall patches in a number of areas, an unsealed shower, poorly installed vanity cabinet, cracked tile in bathroom, chipped grout in bathroom, missing paint/caulk in dozens of areas, multiple doors cut down with exposed hollow cores and many other items.

Lessons learned:
1. AUC’s contract asks for 50% down at signing which should have been a red flag to us. No reputable contractor should be asking for that much down at signing unless they are already in financial trouble.
2. Progress payments were not tied contractually to specific milestones. We paid progress payments in advance of work progressing in good faith, and because we paid early our job was left lingering for months. Tie progress payments to specific milestones in the contract.
3. We provided a key and AUC provided a lock box for access to our basement so they could access the job site without having to interact with us. This was a mistake since AUC sent people out on nights and weekends multiple times to work. While we had a baby at home, at night and during the winter, they sprayed drywall texture and primed/painted which led to high levels of VOCs throughout our house for multiple nights while our baby was trying to sleep. Since it was the dead of winter, we couldn’t air out the house easily since it was in the teens at night. We had to specifically tell them no more nights on items like drywall and paint... this should have been common sense by the contractor.
4. Since the drywall and paint was done at night with portable lamps to light up the work area since electrical wasn’t installed yet, the work quality was extremely poor – large wall seams are still showing, walls are bowed out in a number of areas, and the paint job left for us to correct was terrible all the way around.
5. Paint – they didn’t thoroughly clean the baseboards, trim or walls prior to spraying paint. This led to baseboards and trim especially having dirt and debris trapped under the paint, which obviously doesn’t look professional and was not what we paid for.
6. There was a complete lack of foreman or project manager oversight on our job. Their subs came and asked us what they were supposed to do in a number of areas that they should have been proactively managing. Even after bringing this up with them two different times, nothing changed in their approach.