Canadian Quality Renovations

My neighbors were getting work done in their backyard to put up a fence and pour concrete. These guys were the sub contractors that were hired. I asked the general contractor to give me a quote for a concrete pad parking as well as a fence as they were already in the area working. The general contractor gave me a verbal quote which I took to my other neighbors (Splitting the fence). Before they started doing work we asked these guys twice to confirm the price and provide a formal quote. He finally resorted to writing the figures on our broken fence. Oh well, as long we had the numbers correct. I made a spreadsheet, broke down the fence figures with the neighbours and gave them the deposit requested.
On the weekend of April 23rd, 2017 they started pouring concrete for the neighbours and started to do my parking pad afterwards. There was some sort of mix up with the delivery of the concrete trucks and by the time they poured 1/3 of our pad ZaZa stopped and said the concrete was bad and that they would have to rip it up and do it over again on another day.
Weather was not kind to us and they had booked other jobs as well and were not able to come back until June 1st, 2017. All understandable. But I will get to that shortly.
During this time after the half poured concrete they gradually began working on our fence. We made some adjustments adding lattice, I got the extra costs confirmed with them and added to the spreadsheet. It was very difficult to find out what days they were coming in to do the job, as weather and their other jobs played an impact. On May 12th, I received a call from ZaZa stating that he would need the outstanding money owed on the job that very day. I asked him if the job was done and he said no. The doors were not done, posts were not cut etc. I would say it was about 80 percent complete when I came home to look at it. I mentioned this to him and he said that fine he didn’t want the full amount just the majority of it minus the costs of the doors etc. Then he pulled a number out of nowhere and said we owed substantially more than the agreed costs (I will never work with another contractor without a formal quote again, but seeing as they did previous work with my neighbors basement I felt it was ok) At that point I called the general contractor who was present when we discussed the verbal quote and confirmed what I had written on my spreadsheet. I have the text messages to prove it. So once the price was confirmed, ZaZa was upset. He demanded that the money be paid even in some that day. I told him that it is unreasonable to expect payment with half a days notice and that I could have it available for him the next day. At that point he was even more upset getting very hostile, asking why am I doing the work if I had no money to pay him, saying that I didn’t want to pay him because I didn’t trust him, told me that if he didn’t get the money that day he wouldn’t come back and tried to make me shake his hand and say that I was not a man, all the while I was cool as ice trying not to get provoked. They totally finished the fence on June 10th which came out looking good. However from that exchange I dealt with the general contractor directly. Now on to the nightmare…
I was informed that they would be coming in on June 1st to finish the concrete. I did not have a proper driveway to park on for over a month. I asked if they would be pulling up the other concrete that was half laid. The general contractor said no it would be fine. I took his word for it and he guaranteed me that if there were any cracks they would fix it. The concrete was poured and I was informed that the job was done. I could not believe how poor of a job was completed. Attached are the pictures.
I contacted the general contractor again and said that this is unacceptable. He came to the site inspected and agreed that they messed up. Furthermore they messed up our neighbors pad as well. I don’t think he will be hiring these guys for concrete any time soon. The general contractor sent multiple guys in to grind the concrete and patch up their work, but alas I still have a giant crack on my brand new back pad. Also when I confronted these guys when they came back to finish the fence, they said that that was perfectly acceptable and that it was good work and standard. You can be the judge.
All in all AVOID ZAZA AND HIS SON AT ALL COSTS. These guys are bullies and I wanted to warn any potential clients of these guys so no one has to be treated or go through the same nightmare. They couldn’t bully me, but what happens if this is your mother, or grandmother taken advantage of.