Presbys

I recently made the mistake of hiring Mike Peterson to do excavation for a foundation for a garage/addition as well as a new septic system. He never called dig safe, nor did he provide us with a copy of his insurance! He tore up my old garage pad and stack it on my newly soded yard rather than just …

I recently made the mistake of hiring Mike Peterson to do excavation for a foundation for a garage/addition as well as a new septic system. He never called dig safe, nor did he provide us with a copy of his insurance! He tore up my old garage pad and stack it on my newly soded yard rather than just loading it in a dump truck like he was supposed to. He left it there for over 3 weeks! While digging the foundation he tore up our drainage around the house. He said he was going to fix it when he tied into it. He never did tie into or did he fix it. Prior to pouring the foundation floor I stop his progress and asked him to put down a vapor barrier and crushed stone as this is a must and was part of our contract, the engineer that drew up our plans noted this on them and Mike had these prior to bidding the job. He tried to steer me away from this. He eventually put this down and delayed our pour for the floor twice. He came back prior to the pour and had a dump truck back into the area where the floor was going to load a portion of the old excavated pad. The truck sank about 4 inches! Mike had never compacted the gravel! When he poured the floor it was right over loose gravel! Before I forget, Mike used used the materials he excavated from our yard to backfill our frost walls. This include a mix of over sized rocks, CLAY and dirt from where he dug our foundation. He never brought in one drop of materials other than the gravel, which he also used to backfill with to get rid of it! I now have to have this dug up for the asphalt work yet to be done. Mike had assured me he was bringing in clean fill for backfilling, he never did this! When he was initially ready to pour the floor he asked if he could get a check for the materials for our septic system. I cut him a check and after this he disappeared for nearly a week and kept putting our job off. It was excuse after excuse. He told me he would pour the floor when he was ready and didn't like being told what to do. He said if I didn't want him to do our septic that he would return our money. I agreed it was the best thing to do. He said he would bring our money when he poured the floor. When he came he said he forgot his check book. He returned on 2 other occasions and always had an excuse about not bringing our refund. He had left his mini excavator at our home and still had lots of clean up to do so although I wanted our money, I still had his equipment. I messaged him on a Thursday, that I was having lumber delivered and he needed to get the loam delivered and fix our yard. I told him once the lumber was delivered that his excavator would be stuck in our yard until the framing was done as it would be blocked in. About 4 hours after this he shows up unannounced. I said did you get my message he said no " his phone was broke". I told him what had to happen and he said he was taking his machine but would come back to finish after the framing was done. I asked him for my refund and he said it was mailed on Monday. At this time I knew he hadn't mailed it. My gut said to keep his excavator until I got my money back but I didn't want any conflict! The next few days I contacted him to let him know my check had never come. Finally after a few warnings that I would be taking him to court. He said that he wasn't mailing my check. He was going to keep the extra $1500 as a fee for putting down a couple of yards of gravel! I contacted a lawyer and the lawyer and I went over the Maine Attorney General's contractor laws,It shows that Mike completely ignored the requirements put together by the attorney general! The contract wasn't even drawn up properly and in Maine Laws, If a contractor has any financial changes during the job, an addendum must be made and agreed on by both parties or it is invalid! We never agreed to any new charges. I gave Mike one last chance to return our $1500 and I said if he did he wouldn't have to come back and fix the damaged yard and finish any clean up or pavement work as he did some damage to that which needed Attention! He decided not to return the money. I will be taking him to court, most likely civil as the unfinished work and damages are much higher then we could sue for in small claims court. We are going to have to pay $3500 more to have our septic system done as he gave us a better price because we hired him for both jobs! Sorry for the rambling but I needed to get this out there to protect people looking to have work done. Make sure whenever you hire a contractor in Maine to have them detail everything in the contract. View the Maine attorney General section on contracts before hiring them. Get a copy of the contractors insurance. Read reviews! References are nice but keep in mind, would a contractor give you a reference that may say negative things about them. After my experience with Mike Peterson the owner of vertex construction llc. Company of 1! Beware and look elsewhere!