Pictures from our Shipputz

For the story behind these pictures (which is only a tiny portion of the entire project that they did), click here:

Here is the entrance to the bathroom. I added three dark lines over the grout to that you could see that, for some crazy reason, they decided that the bathroom floor did not need to line up with the rest of the floor that they were laying at the same time,

Also notice the door. That is as far as it will open, because they chose to lay tile on top of the old tile. "Don't worry about it", I was told. You won't notice any difference. Right...

There was also a smell coming from there. It was not until I paid someone to tear it up that we discovered the problem: something under the tiles, probably the adhesive, smelled horrible. Once the new person removed all of the old under-tile area, as well as the toilet, the smell went away.

Although it didn't help the tiles outside of the bathroom, where the neft (heating kerosene) was leaking under the floor in a pipe that they had installed. - this, after the THIRD time that they caused a neft leak. Notice the grout between the tiles is a darker color where the neft was soaking through, and light where it had not yet appeared.

Now how did their work affect the toilet?

In their first attempt, the toilet was leaning to the left.

What, they thought I wouldn't notice?!

When I complained, they straightened it out, but that night, water came all over the floor because the pipe was too short! So they fixed it again, and water only dribbled. Then they finally jerry-rigged a fix using non-standard connectors to give me this:

When I showed this to a plumber, he shook his head telling me that I would have a lot of problems with this down the road. (I paid someone else to rip all of this out). Think of it: fecal matter passing through a passage with pockets where it can be trapped. Perhaps the smell was coming from there. It's hard to say. Once the old work was removed, the room smelled fine.

And this closeup of one of the corners (they are all about as good) will give you an idea of the quality of their work:

Notice, by the way, the poor job of finishing the tiles around it. Here is a closeup of the tank area:

I lost count how many times they had to redo the grout. The kitchen area was done 2-3 times and the bathroom was done a couple of times. First because of bad color, then because of missing areas, then because of too much grout, and also because it would crack after a few weeks, like this:

Of course, their finishing around the front of the toilet door wasn't any better:

When I complained: "Don't worry about it. We'll fix that". This is after the second time they "fixed it".

The light switch inside the bathroom, but the frame that they added to hide the ragged tile cutting. Notice that there are two colors of grout. "Don't worry about it". This is after the 3rd fix. Let's look at a few close-up's.

Poorly cut, Extra-heavy grout. Two colors of grout. Mess on the wood. Tile at odd angles. This is representative of the work. Oh, and this was after being fixed more than once.

Here is the light switch. A badly cut-out "square" (they cannot seem to measure well and hope that nobody will notice) and some incredibly hard adhesive that I cannot get off the switch. When I complained, "Don't worry about it. We'll clean that all up and you won't notice that corner." Right.

I forced them to replace one tile that was so badly misshapen, and here was the result:

 No, that isn't mold. That's the color of the grout, badly applied. When I complained, "Don't worry. It will get lighter when it dries". They lied. And, of course, the gap between those tiles, due to the lack of spacers, is bigger than the ones above it.

As for the door frame itself, let's just say that they aren't known for paining in a straight line, or without it dripping. When I complained, "Don't worry about it. It will all be cleaned up:. Uh-huh.

And her is the other side of the door. Just as bad. They just do these things and think that nobody will notice. They just didn't care.

Another door that they painted badly a few feet away ended up peeling a few months later:

Now what about cutting tiles to fit?

Here is the lower part of the bathroom door. They don't seem to be able to cut odd shapes (or straight lines).

Missing grout and mess on the wood. "Don't worry..." etc.

Summary:

These guys cannot paint, they cannot do plumbing, the cannot tile. All of which spells disaster when you are having your bathroom redone!

What is galling is that I still owe these guys 7,000 shekels (an agreement - hold back 7,000 shekels for 1 year and then give it up) when I have to pay more than that to redo this small segment of their work. They are unwilling to forego that and demand that I give them a 4th or 5th chance.

Warning: Stay as far away as you can from them!

The Saga of the "Shipputz From Hell"

"Shipputz" is another word for modifying the home in some way that causes one to hope for the best.

I know we did!

We hired "G" to handle all of the affairs.

We had an interior designer and an architect prepare the renderings. We selected and paid for the supplies.

And then the problems began.

Neft

We use a Neft heater (kerosene) with a tank outside of our front door and a pipe that ran through the salon and into the basement where the fire/heater was located.

They cut/broke that pipe in three separate occasions.

In the first occasion, they cut the pipe and went home for the day without telling us that the pipe was cut. It was very cold, so I turned on the neft and, after a minute, realized that it was pouring into our house. I turned it off and complained to "G". I was told not to worry about it.

The second time was so bad that our entire back yard was soaked with kerosene. We had to call the fire department to examine and then cover the back yard with an absorbent.

"M" did not believe it was his fault. After some convincing they agreed that it was "M"'s fault and would pay for the replacement of just the amount of kerosene that was lost, because "anything more wold have been unfair". "M" did pay to correct the stench that filtered into the neighbor's home as a result of the neft spill.

The police came by because of the fire department report, asking me if I think that this damage was intentional. I said, "No, they are just incompetent".

The third time was when we noticed the neft smell did not go away and there was a stain under out new tiling (the grout). I complained and "M" saw it and took care of it, being obviously embarrassed by the incompetence of his workers.

[update]

Months later, I was noticing a smell in the house when I would come into the living room from outside. Prior to Passover, I pulled up the carpet and a large area of grout was dark. Putting my nose to the grout, it smelled of neft.

Apparently, the third time of fixing it was not fixed, and a small leak still existed under the floor. I sent an SMS to "G" who told me that he and his men would come the next day and look at it. In the meantime, I have turned off the neft from the tank outside, but whatever is in the pipe will still drain out.

Tiling

The tiles had to be redone several times to get to the point of being mediocre. A level was obviously not used, and in most cases, spacers were avoided, perhaps as a cost savings, and the inconsistent spacing between tiles was apparent. Some tiles stuck out from the wall more than others. Different colored grout was used rather than one color, grout that would crack after a few weeks, and the cutting of the tiles were ragged.

They had to redo it over, and over, until I finally gave in. They changed the grout color in the kitchen so that the crookedness and bad placement of tiles would not be so obvious. They put a wider frame around the door to try and hist the ragged tile cuttings.

The bathroom smelled, and they could never isolate the problem. I hired someone else (that they would not pay for) to discover that they had let some of the toilet pipe pour beneath the tiles (sewage) and simply left it there!

They laid the floor tile throughout the entire area, including the bathroom. For some reason, they decided to not have the straight line of the tiles match those of the bathroom. I complained. "It has to be that way" I was told by "G" and"M". (I have since hired someone else to did it the correct way, showing that it did not have to be that way).

Bay Window

The widths of the frames were different sizes, and I complained and they redid it and redid it. The plan called for the seating area in front of the window to have a lid that would open. For some reason they poured their excess cement in that area, eliminating that as a possibility. A number of times I heard "Uh Oh".

The angles in front of the bay window are all different as well as the lengths of the sides. I was told that there was nothing more that they could do without tearing out everything. Apparently they did not know how to measure. And when trying to find someone to cut a cushion for that area, one person told me that there were too many odd angles to work with.

Sinks

I had ordered a glass sink and nice faucets to be installed. They ruined the glass sink. "M" brought the sink to a villager to paint the ruined area which only made it look worse and agreed to pay for a new one. The two faucets in the kitchen came with instructions, which they could not (or chose not to) read. They spent hours trying to get the faucets to work until I called in a plumber who corrected one of their errors in 5 minutes. He instructed them how to correct the other sink and had to leave. They did not follow his instructions and spent more time failing. (My son in-law came to visit and fixed it in a few minutes. By the way, he is NOT a plumber!)

As for the hand washing sink, THAT they spent hours trying to install. Besides ruining the sink, they also drilled the wrong size hole into the marble base, causing the entire thing to leak.Then they tried to attach the water pipe to the sink. 

First, they cut the wrong pipe, and after they left, when I turned on the water in the sink in the kitchen, the water near the hand-washing basin poured all over the floor. "M" came and fixed that. Of course, after he did, then the water that ran outside of our house for watering the garden no longer flowed. So "M" came back to fix that. 

And of course, the hand-washing sink leaked and leaked. They spent several days and tried several times until I got fed up and called a plumber who laughed when he saw what they had done, ripped it all out, and in under an hour we had a solution.

Of course, I could not use the hardware that came with the sink because they cut the wrong sized hole. So I had to accept a cheaper looking solution.

The marble shelf under the sink was glued to a nasty looking piece of metal (sharp), to hold it up. They used some permanent adhesive and could not remove it. I was told that they would give it a try and "don't worry about it". It remained after they had left.

Front of the house

Of course, there wasn't much that was done to the front of the house except moving the front door forward about a meter or so.

They piled all of their cement and pain on the outdoor tiled patio. The result is that 75% of the front area is now white, while a small section has the original tile coloring. They got pain on the tiles as well. Pain on the front fence. I am not sure what it is that is all over the wooden Pergola. 

I told them to clean that all up. "Don't worry about it " "G" told me, "They will clean everything up."

For an extra amount of money, they would repaint the front fence. They painted half of it because they ran out of paint. The rest of the front is still a mess.

When moving the light that was at the front of the house to be beside the door, they left the wire hanging outside. I complained. "Don't worry about it"G" said. You won't see it in the end.

They covered the wire with a plastic tube and glued it to the corner. I complained. "Don't worry about it, we'll move it."

They never did.

Odds and Ends

 That's not even the half of all of the disasters. There was practically not a single thing that they did not have to redo. And of what they redid, much of it was still unacceptable, and some of it I just gave in. You can only argue for so long.

When "M" was paid, we were told to hold back 7,000 shekels for 1 year. After that, he would receive that final amount. It was to encourage him to return and correct any problems.

But his crew was incompetent. They could not tile. They could not paint (they had to redo the paint job several times), They could not grout. They could not make a right angle or a straight line to save their lives. And they made messes that remain today.

So I hired someone to correct their messes.

When I told "G", he said that I still needed to pay the 7,000 shekels in the end. "It would not be fair to "M".

Fair to "M"?

"G" told me that I needed to let "M" and his men back into the house to make things right.

I explained to "G" that they were incapable of doing anything right. And I demanded that they forego the 7,000 shekels since it was going to cost me more than that to undo their problems.

"G" told me that he spoke to a Rabbi and told me that I would lose the case in a Beit Din (religious court) - as if I planned to take it to a religious court! (It was between a Jew and an Arab).

And so, I told "G" that I was done with him and "M". And that he best not advertise on social media, lest I make their incompetence public.

If you are reading this, then "G" chose to ignore that.

If you want to see the pictures of their work, click here