To: Rhode Island State Contractors Registration and Licensing Board
From:
Subject: Jag Carpentry
Date: 11.18.09

Dear Madam/Sir,

For starters, John is blatantly lying through his teeth and if our kids could speak they would tell you the same. We had informed John that we don’t want him to start a job and then leave to go to another job. Well, right after arriving at our home on the date in question and dropping his trailer in our driveway, before even doing any work he came up to me and state that he had a service call and would be back in an hour. We he came back after being gone for over an hour and a half. After picking up tons of leaves this weekend, our neighbor and us notices several nails as well as several broken pieces of the old windows and casing and pieces of the old insulation all over the ground where John was working on them. John was supposed to clean up and take with him after completing the job. And he did take some of the old stuff with him but left behind a ton of stuff. Our kids and others could have gotten got really hurt had we not picked up after John. We also stated in the original contract that we wanted him to cut the closet door to fit taking into account a thick bedroom pad and plush rug and it is obvious that he did not size the door and we will have to pay some else to fix it as well. Not only did he not cut enough off the height of the door but the filler wood pieces that he nailed into the bottom of the door was not properly installed in the bottom of the closet door. The filler pieces were nailed in but stick out beyond the frame of the door and will need to be fixed also. Our 22 month old was so in fear of him that she would not let go of me and in fact was hugging me all so tight and even tighter when John would come near. She was traumatized by his behavior. Do we think traumatized is too strong a word, absolutely not. We certainly would hope you would not simply just close such a complaint based on a contractor’s word. That would be appalling. John again behaved in a hostile manner throwing his large equipment and tools in the back of his trailer causing our neighbors to turn their outside lights on and come out to investigate the loud behavior and noises they were hearing. I am sure they would not mind if you wanted to ask them. My husband and I were standing in the driveway getting ready to pay him for the work he did when he violently and in an extremely aggressive manner with his upper body jack knifing toward me repeatedly and sticking his finger in my face, first ordered me to take our daughter inside yelling all the while and after I stated I was the one who handled the finances he then in the same manner ordered my husband to take our daughter in the house. It seemed obvious that if one of us had brought our daughter inside that John would have gotten physical. We were somehow able to settle with him for the work he performed only. He again at one point became very hostile, aggressive and threatening when he threw his drill onto the floor in our daughters new bedroom startling our 3 month old son and then went on to tell us that he had his own problems and that he had a family to feed and that his wife is on unemployment too, etc. He threw his hands up and said several choice words mentioned in our recent statement to you. Weather or not he was having a bad day or what ever, the fact remains that he displayed this gross misconduct directly in presence of a 3 month old and a 22 month old and should be at the least ashamed of himself. My 3 month old son was so startled his whole body jolted from the loud behavior and the drill smashing into the floor.
This was to say the very least, very unprofessional. He did not want to work with us at all. We agreed on a bid price of $720 for installing 2 windows, hanging a closet door (which we purchased) and tacking up some floor baseboard on the bottom of the walls (8x12 room). As far as the additional work we had asked about the day before, we were not given any prices up front on this additional work. John had left for lunch and when he came back around 2pm, it was then that he provided a list of the prices. It was at this point that I started to cry simply because we did not have all that money and that was not what we had agreed upon. A couple of examples would be the following: For the windows to be installed properly, we were told it would be $300.00 a piece which included vinyl and anything else that was needed to weather-proof the windows. Well once John got to doing the job, he wanted $60 more dollars to buy additional vinyl needed to complete the window installation. We want this money back, as this should have been figured in the total window installation. As far as signing a contract we did not know what John would be capable of if we did not sign it, we just wanted him to leave because it my daughter was right there. I should have asked him to leave upon throwing his drill to the floor in anger but was holding my 3 month old son and I did not want things to get ugly. When you are in somebody’s home (even a mobile home), you should show the property and owners the up-most respect. My husband in an effort to diffuse situations with John on the day in question did shake his hand and do what ever else he had to in order to again try to calm Mr. Guglielmo as we just had no idea how far he would go and what he would do. We did not want any confrontation in front of our children. With a 22 month old and a 3 month old present he should be absolutely ashamed of the way he behaved. A police officer characterized his behavior as gross misconduct. He new we had money problems when we first spoke to him about having any work done period. John absolutely did not offer to wrap a window at no additional charge. He instead stated he built the price in with the new window purchase and installation. And further more we owe him nothing, we paid him for the work that he did which was again above the original bid amount. As consumers we should not be obligated to have the additional work done if we can’t afford it because we were never given the prices up front. Because John only accepted cash, I only budgeted and took out the $720 as originally agreed upon. I had asked John if I could give him a check, simply for documentation reasons after his behavior and said that he would have to charge us 33% tax on the total if paid by check. He simply did not want to have to claim this money. When we said only do the work that was originally agreed upon, John got very angry as to seem as though he had already spent the money because he was going up to New Hampshire over the weekend and needed it ASAP. The invoice that my husband signed was for the work that was completed, paying John a total of $930 which was already above the bid price. We asked John for the receipt for the windows when he purchased them and said he would bring it the day he installed them, we still have not received that receipt. As consumers, we are entitled to a receipt for the windows because in case of a manufacturer’s defect we would need it in order to get them fixed. Enclosed you will find our original agreement. After showing no respect for our property or us, we called John back that night and told him not to come back because I was afraid for my children. As with any job when you leave the worksite you should make sure all is cleaned up, the next day my husband took my daughter outside to play and found a lot of garbage left behind from John including a piece of wood tucked under leaves with a nail sticking straight up, which my daughter could have been seriously hurt by. As to the faulty calk job it was cracked and in awful condition only a couple of months after he did the job but he said the next time he was up this way that he would stop and repair and but he never came up here to do it.
Respectfully,