Eldridge Homes

DO NOT HIRE – DISHONEST, UNRELIABLE, AND UNPROFESSIONAL

After more than 2.5 years, our new home is still unfinished, yet we’ve received a demand from the contractor to sign off on the final bank payment—along with an outrageous bill for $95,000 over the original contract, despite repeatedly requesting a budget breakdown in writing, he never provided one.

The delays have been endless, with numerous days and weeks of no-shows and zero communication. The contractor frequently arrived smelling strongly of alcohol. While his workmanship started off well, it quickly became shockingly poor. He showed no regard for protecting the spaces he builds—our brand-new garage floor and back deck were used as a workshop, leaving them permanently stained.

We have cleaned up after him countless times over the last 2.5 years, yet he continued to leave sawdust, gravel, nails, screws, dirt, tools, refuse, and more sawdust everywhere. Our brand-new HVAC system’s ductwork is now filled with dust because the filter was never installed—we just found it still in the box, buried behind trash and a thick layer of sawdust and drywall dust in the furnace room.

A 3-foot section of metal roofing was left off a corner for over six months, exposing the area to the elements. Birds nested in the soffits and covered everything in droppings because two sections were never finished—his solution? He simply sealed in the bird nests and droppings several months later. Finishing sections just didn't seem possible.

Trim work is still incomplete, inside and out, with exposed cut ends and no caulking. The kitchen cabinets have unfinished plywood edges. It was a major struggle just to get the contractor to fill the nail holes in the trim, and while most holes are now filled, others remain unfinished or look like a child smeared putty into them. There are drips of paint on our bathroom tile.

The wood floors have been an absolute disaster. First, they were finished incorrectly, with sparse and uneven polyurethane. Then, the contractor damaged them further by failing to protect them, dropping tools and lumber, and allowing subcontractors to do the same. A stone mason subcontractor dropped a massive rock in our living room, leaving a huge hole in the wood. The contractor’s botched “repair” looked like chewing gum stuck in the hole. After putting our foot down about the floors, the contractor promised in writing to cover the cost of a flooring professional to fix the damage. Now, he is refusing to pay them, despite the job finally being done correctly and the damaged boards replaced.

This experience went from pleasant at first to frustrating to an absolute nightmare. Throughout this process, we have never been unkind, untruthful, or unhelpful—in fact, we put in untold hours assisting he contractor, from staining shingles to finishing deck boards, to running to Home Depot for supplies we paid for out of pocket. The contractor told us in May 2024 that the house would be done in six weeks—yet here we are in March 2025, and it’s still unfinished.

What started as a seemingly professional arrangement spiraled into a disaster of deception, delays, and a complete disregard for quality or accountability.

We DO NOT RECOMMEND this contractor to anyone. Avoid at all costs!