The initial consultation (with Mr. Sonail) gives you a lot of faith in the company. However, the job itself did not live up to the promises in a several ways. First of all, it should be noted that 5 star is a franchise. These franchise owners then subcontract the job to the painters. In our case, the painters showed up and did not have any information about the job. The painters excuse was it was ‘on his phone’. So, we had to walk thru the job again even though I was busy and needed to leave. The next day, I noticed some of the things I asked for were not done. For example, something was painted trim colour that was supposed to be wall colour. No big deal, they fixed it. However, I had to tell them. I had to leave sticky notes because the information not communicated correctly to painters. Then, there were many spots where paint was not applied correctly, one coat here, places not painted, paint left on new floors, paint left on new fireplace insert, spots missed on the wall, and the lines along ceiling to walls were not good at all.
They painted a newly renovated 1100 square foot basement for me in my Etobicoke bungalow, but I got the feeling the painters felt our basement bungalow was below them. They were clearly ‘playing us’ with all the slap-happy errors as we forced to play a game of Whac-A-Mole, where we had to find their errors.
Also, they finished so quickly (well when you are slapping the paint on it goes faster) and then wanted their money the night they stayed late to finish, but luckily we said no and waited until the next day to do a walk-thru and found most of their errors, which they fixed. Another error was that they reinstalled our door handles upside down (good thing I caught it!) and then fixed some, but not all, and then pretended they couldn’t put the others back on correctly (‘say what?’) They preteneded not to understand what I was asking....really an upside door handle is the same in any language. But, I had to show the guy three or four times and rerpeat it three or four times and basically cajole him into fixing them. It seemed like every error I found the painter looked surprised….. Ya, right…So tiring and annoying to deal with this attitude.
I am still finding errors. They did not fill a nail hole on the wall to the basement (contract said all nail holes to be filled BEFORE PAINTING, but it was not done). What the FRANCHISE OWNER needs to realize is that a good quality job does not entail tricking me and leaving it to me to find all of the painters mistakes. The owner of the company told me “do not pay them until they fix everything” OK…sure but why do I have to spend my evening after work with their painter under pressure at 8pm to find all of their errors?? You are telling me basically you are not going to follow through and do YOUR JOB AND SUPERVISE THEIR WORK. I am expected to do it for you?? This is their gimmick and they will respond saying “we tell our customers not to pay until they are happy” However, INSTEAD you need to drive to worksite and see the errors and speak to them yourself! That is customer service! Also, this company does ask for 50% up front and we paid 30% ($1000 down because we changed amount). They asked for 50% so the response in other posts that they ask for nothing down is not true. Also, they knew all these errors were there. If I were older or if my eyesight was poor, I would have missed them. That would have been fantastic for them-less work! This is definitely a very different & in my opinion an unethical way of doing business and I am very sorry I hired them. (Yes, I know, Caveat emptor that’s why I am writing this as my civic duty). As for the paint job, it is average overall where they painted, but for sure there are some places where I know there are not two coats. It saddens me that there are people who are this deceitful. The price was good, but it was only about 5% below the other quotes. Overall, I would not recommend this painting company. Given the time I could have done it just as well and I am not a professional painter. House painting can be a skilled trade, but with the wrong painter it is unskilled.
