Novelli Construction

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• By Gio L.

  August 28, 2017

  $5,500

  I have been doing my own contracting, carpentry, masonry, plumbing, electrical, etc. for the past 9 years. Mike Novelli has worked for me and with me for over 5 years. He has done a lot of very good work and some very mediocre work. Initially Mike worked for me on a per hour basis, but I noticed him occasionally padding his hours. As our budgets became less flexible, I began to ask him for price quotes for individual jobs. In the beginning this worked fine, but after 2 or 3 quotes, Mike began asking for more than the total he quoted me. Some of the increases were legitimate, and others not at all. Initially I acknowledged that he did put in at least some extra work and I paid him in full, but then there were often extra charges for no apparent reason. There were also numerous times when I had to completely redo work he did wrong because he would not show up for weeks at a time and I could not wait for him to fix it.

  In January he quoted me about $5,500 for a basement renovation. During the course of the construction I asked him no less than 3 times if there were any changes to the amount of original work we had outlined and asked specifically to make sure we were on schedule with the overall cost. In every instance he answered there were no changes to the original scope of work and no increases to the cost.

  Mike finished about 90% of the work and presented me with an invoice for about $5,800 ... $300 more than his original quote. As I was leaving for vacation, I paid Mike in full the $5,500 amount and asked him in a letter to explain the additional $300 when I was to return. When I got back, Mike had not finished the remaining 10% of the work. For 3 months he did not return my multiple calls and texts. In the meantime he cashed my check for the whole job without completing all the work.

  Finally I ran into him and he said he would call. He never did. Eventually I realized he was avoiding me and I called him on it. He did not even try to explain the extra $300 he wanted me to pay him. He told me, with the most pathetic list of excuses, that he did not plan on returning. When I asked him why, his response was that he had gotten too many parking tickets (many of which I paid him for either in full or at least half) - since when is the worker's poor parking the responsibility of the client? He said he had done me many favors that I did not recognize - I checked my invoices and he actually charged me a full $55/hour for every time he went and picked up material for me. But in all of this, he never even attempted to explain what the extra $300 he wanted to charge me was for, and he never returned to complete the work that I had paid him for in full. In my book, taking money for a job which you do not finish is stealing.

  The worst part was when I went to review all the work he had done. The two doors he installed in the basement did not close. I had to sand 1/8" of one and 1/4" off the other to make them work (these were pre-hung doors, which he improperly shimmed). Later, as I examined more of his work, I found all sorts of mediocre construction - door trim molding that was sloppily mitered with big gaps at the corners, one door that was hung so poorly I had to disassemble 2/3rds of it to correct it, over 25 popped screw heads in the sheetrock ceiling in one room, crooked walls (almost 1" out of plumb in two cases), bathroom tile that was installed cracked. A lot of Mike's was good, especially his masonry work, but some of it was just plain mediocre, and in a couple of instances just plain bad. I could accept some of this, but overcharging me without ever even trying to offer any explanation for the extra costs (and I am now confident that this was going on for more than just the one time I called him on it), and not finishing work on a job that he was paid for in full are both unacceptable to me.

  Of all my bad experiences in 30+ years of architecture and 10+ years of construction, Mike is the most disappointing of all.

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