Hired Amir and his company because he was super responsive and seemed to understand the scope of the work I needed - walls framed in our basement and stairs rebuilt because the rise was uneven. He told me that he could do the work in 2 weeks, but then moved it up to one week and then to 3 days, which should have told me he wasn't as busy working as he claimed. They did the framing first and it wasn't great. The framing in one part of the basement is so close to the ceiling that it damaged it by raising it up. They also got the framing so close to the external door that it couldn't close. No one notified me they were leaving and they just left my house unsecured with a door that was obstructed. The studs are also installed at all different widths, so predicting where studs will be is going to be impossible.
Although I was uncertain about continuing, Amir responded quickly to fix the issues I told him about (nothing to be done about the ceiling since removing the framing would have damaged it more). He was hiring someone else to do the stairs, so we ventured on, which was my biggest mistake. The stair builder was planning to just replace the treads and risers, not replace the stairs, which would have done nothing to solve the issue of uneven rise. It also would have been unsafe as he wasn't going to replace or add stringer (Amir didn't even know what stringer was), but just insert the risers and treads on the existing supports which were just attached to drywall! Unfortunately we found this out AFTER the existing stairs had been demolished. Amir then wanted to charge us twice as much to do the work we asked for in the first place. We decided AA Brothers was not capable of doing the work we needed and asked for a refund for the work we didn't get done. We were 100% okay with paying for what had been completed, even though it was terrible. Amir refused, saying he has to pay his workers before they work.
Amir also bought the wrong type of stair tread and would not refund or replace them, so now I'm stuck with a bunch of useless lumber.
Eventually we got a portion of our money back, but considering the problems we're left to fix, we're definitely in worse shape than we started. I'm not sure I could be more unhappy with this situation. Do not hire!
- Approximate cost of services:
- $3,000.00