COLORADO SPRINGS — When you hire a contractor to do work on your home you expect the work to be done on time and right. We met two separate homeowners who say they paid thousands of dollars to a local landscaper who gave them excuse after excuse about why he couldn’t get the work done.
Here's what happened when we started asking questions, and what one attorney wants you to consider before your next home project.
Homeowners Steven Gray and Melody Shoop say they hired Dustin Novak of Superstars Construction Handyman and Landscaping Services to landscape their homes. Gray says he paid Novak approximately $11,000 up front and Shoop says she paid Novak more than $11,000 upfront.
"When I first did the walkaround with him he said everything was easy, 'I could do it within a week'," said Gray.
"He was supposed to be done in three weeks and as of today's date we are at three months," said Shoop.
Three months and a lot of headaches. Shoop claims the work Novak did to install a sprinkler system ended up flooding part of her basement.
"The water was all over the entire room and when we found it the water was (partially up our window well)," said Shoop. "He responded said, 'Oh my gosh just send me a bill.' He said, 'Well maybe it's not my fault,' and we were like, 'When are you going to fix this? What are you going to do?' and then it was just radio silence.
Gray says something did not seem right with his sprinkler system, too.
"The work stopped when we started asking questions about the sprinkler system." said Gray. That was when he really got very defensive on his work."
Both homeowners claim they asked for answers over and over.
"He did say he had an illness at one point, which due to Covid, he wanted to restrict his time here, his exposure here, but that was an extended amount of time and we had no exposure to him so he wouldn't have affected us at all," Gray said.
"Excuses were material delays, not being able to find someone to be able to help work for him, he had a personal issue with the courts, family issues, pretty much the gamut you could think of," said Shoop.
They also each filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado, which gives the company an "F" rating. See the rating here: Superstars Construction Handyman and Landscaping Services LLC | Better Business Bureau® Profile (bbb.org)
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