Nightmare Contractor Stories!

Here is a NighmareContractor.com story about Greg Kowalski and Luna Construction. It was very odd because it was not the typical scenario where the contractor disappears after completing 80% of the job. Greg Kowalski (Luna Luxury Finishes and Construction Corp.) would show up day after day. The problem was, however, that Greg was not completing work and the workmanship of the work he did complete... [more]

Here is a NighmareContractor.com story about Greg Kowalski and Luna Construction. It was very odd because it was not the typical scenario where the contractor disappears after completing 80% of the job. Greg Kowalski (Luna Luxury Finishes and Construction Corp.) would show up day after day. The problem was, however, that Greg was not completing work and the workmanship of the work he did complete was substantially below par and completely unacceptable. What happened? The job was contracted to take 6 months and about 4 months into the job Greg Kowalski (Luna Luxury Finishes and Construction Corp.) realized he had underbid the job and that he was going to lose money on the job. So, instead of doing the upstanding thing and timely completing the job with high quality work, he decided to cut corners in an attempt to cut his losses. Consequently, for example, Greg Kowalski (Luna Luxury Finishes and Construction Corp.) did not hire licensed plumbers or electricians to complete certain parts of the work and, instead, used his skeleton crew of essentially 3 handymen (who are not licensed plumbers/electricians nor trained carpenters) to complete many items. As a result, my kitchen sink leaked ruining my new kitchen cabinet and damaging my neighbor's ceiling. Another example: Greg Kowalski's (Luna Luxury Finishes and Construction Corp.) workmanship on the framing, sheet-rocking and painting of all the new walls in the apartment was so bad that I had to have every single wall in the apartment skim-coated to make the walls straight, level and plum. Additionally, the workmanship on the brand new wood floor he installed was so bad that I have to have all of the wood floors re-sanded, stained and sealed. Without contacting me to ask, Greg Kowalski (Luna Luxury Finishes and Construction Corp.) cut a hole in a brand new bathroom vanity cabinet to install an electrical outlet in it. If he had called, he would have realized that the wrong cabinet was delivered and it was going to be sent back. Right in line with his "nightmare contractor" bad actions, Mr. Kowalski did not offer to pay for the cabinet to make up for his mistake. Something as simple as telling the owner the correct amount of tile to order was challenging for him. Based solely on his calculations, I had to re-order tile three times because his numbers were off. Not surprisingly, there were extra delivery charges resulting solely from his incompetence that he never once offered to pay. Greg Kowalski (Luna Luxury Finishes and Construction Corp.) installed the master bathroom shower and it had a leak that ran under the entire length of the master bath tile floor. He damaged a brand new stainless sink and explained that I should be fine with a damaged sink because "it will be all scratched up in a few months anyway". Under his philosophy, I am not sure why anyone would ever paint their walls! Greg Kowalski (Luna Luxury Finishes and Construction Corp.) installed tiles in the kitchen, master bathroom and spare bathroom that had to be torn out and replaced because they were either misaligned or damaged. Oddly, instead of installing perfectly new tiles (of which there were plenty), Greg chose to install damaged tiles. In terms of timeliness, Greg Kowalski (Luna Luxury Finishes and Construction Corp.) was absolutely terrible. As mentioned above, the job was scheduled to take 6 months. There were a few change orders and, arguably, those may have kicked the job out another 3 weeks perhaps. That said, by the end of the 7th month he was no where near finished. We had weekly meetings with the architect and I provided regular "to do" lists. All, to no avail. No matter what I did to try to motivate him, he simply would not make meaningful progress nor deliver quality work. In fact, on one occasion, during our weekly meeting I was shocked to hear him tell me that there was nothing I could do to motivate him because (in his words) he realized a few months ago that he underbid the project and was going to lose money on the job. I made countless efforts to try to help Greg Kowalski (Luna Luxury Finishes and Construction Corp.) by even going so far as paying him cash weekly for completed work. (Our agreement was for monthly payments.) I put together lists of items to complete by target dates. He agreed to those target dates and items, and yet he did not complete a single item on those lists by the target dates. It was (and still is) truly a nightmare dealing with Greg Kowalski (Luna Luxury Finishes and Construction Corp.). He simply showed up on the job, did very poor quality work and worked slower than anyone can imagine. After 10 months, there were still 67+ items on the "punch list" that he needed to complete. Greg Kowalski (Luna Luxury Finishes and Construction Corp.) left me in such a bad position because it is extremely difficult to find a contractor to come into a bad situation with poor workmanship and complete a job. I cannot imagine being left in a worse position by a contractor. Greg Kowalski (Luna Construction) turned out to be completely incompetent and untrustworthy. I am left holding the bag trying to find someone to finish my renovation. Greg Kowalski (Luna Luxury Finishes and Construction Corp.) is a Nightmare Contractor. [less]