Reviews (1)

The HomeAdvisor Handyman Pro services are a disaster. I would never recommend them to anyone. If you value your time, sanity, and supplies, steer clear of this company.

We scheduled a two-hour appointment through HomeAdvisor's Fixed-Price Handyman Services. We requested a professional to install twenty-seven feet of six-foot-high privacy fence, including four beams. The handyman showed up on time, but he didn't have any tools with him, not even a shovel to dig the holes for the posts. We were very specific about the nature of the job. The website clearly states that professionals are required to bring all the necessary tools for the job.

Regardless, my husband had all the necessary tools sitting out, and the handyman took an extension cord back with him (which he unplugged from a piece of equipment I was using at the time, without asking). Naturally, I assumed he was using the tools at hand. I was painting at the time, so I left him to his work. He came and got me a short time later to show me the beams he'd installed. They were horrible.

Anyone who knows anything about fence installation knows that the amount of posts installed underground should be equal to 1/3 the total height of the fence. We had ten-foot beams for a six-foot-high fence (the eight-foot beams were out of stock). That means that we needed six feet of the beam above ground, two feet underground (1/3 of six feet is two feet), and the remainder (two feet) should have been cut off and disposed of. He didn't bother to bring a chop saw, but ours was readily available. The beams hadn't been cut, and they were only about a foot in the ground. The handyman put the cement we'd supplied in first and then placed the beam on top of it; he should have put the post in (at an appropriate depth) and then poured the cement around it. He didn't bring anything to mix the cement with or in, so I had to supply that as well. I gave him permission to move anything that was directly in the way of the fence. For some reason, he ripped out an entire bush that was merely bordering the area. He was only at the house for about 40 minutes out of the two hours we'd booked. He left wet cement splattered all over the back patio, which my husband had to chisel off because it was mostly dry when he got home. There were piles of dirt left all over the yard, as well as cement-covered buckets. This worker never touched the chop saw, but for some reason, used my husband's jigsaw and left it plugged in. It nearly took my husband's hand off when he went to move it. He also left our tape measure lying in our neighbor's yard. I'm baffled as to what he even needed it for, since the posts were unevenly spaced and the posts were only a foot in the ground, uncut.

We contacted HomeAdvisor and demanded that someone come out and undo his mess. Obviously, we were happy to pay for the two hours it would take to install the fence correctly, but we weren't going to pay for someone to undo a problem that their employee caused. The person we spoke with, Josh, promised to have a worker come out by 4 PM that day (we had a photographer coming that evening to take pictures of the house to sell). He said that they'd comp us any time the handyman needed beyond the two hours we'd originally paid for and agreed to reimburse the wasted cement. I had to jump through a series of hoops to get a refund for our first handyman and make/pay for a new appointment. I had to call customer service again over an error message I received whenever I tried to make the new appointment. I was dumbfounded by their incompetence. For example, when I called tech support with my account information and the online error number, the representative asked me if I'd "tried going to HomeAdvisor.com to make my appointment." Unreal.

On top of everything, they canceled our new appointment at the last minute due to a "call out." This was on a Friday. We rescheduled for Monday morning at 8 AM with HomeAdvisor and with the photographer for Monday evening. Monday morning, around 7 AM, HomeAdvisor again canceled due to a "call out." We had to take the pictures without the yard. The back-and-forth with customer service was terrible. The notes they had in the system about our situation were sketchy at best, and the new person we spoke to insisted that we wouldn't be compensated for any time beyond our two-hour window. My husband was on the phone arguing with them for almost an hour. When my husband tried to speak with a supervisor, he was put on hold and then told that a supervisor "wasn't available." Eventually, we decided to just see how long the new appointment took and cross that bridge when we came to it.

Finally, someone came to our house on Tuesday at 8 AM. This time, it was a couple, and they also did not bring any tools. The details about the job, including the need to remove the improperly installed fence posts, had been clearly provided beforehand. This set of workers told us they would need $250 cash to go rent some "necessary equipment" to do the job. When we reminded them that they were supposed to have any necessary tools, and that we'd already paid HomeAdvisor, they told us to cancel our HomeAdvisor appointment and pay them directly. Unbelievable! When we told them to leave, the woman even left us a card: Vicky Wang, (267) 367-1016. We called HomeAdvisor and were issued a refund. My husband asked for the workers' Home Improvement Contractor numbers so we could file complaints. They refused to give us any information. Clearly, we weren't working with professionals on any level.

My husband and I took down the improperly installed posts and re-installed the fence ourselves. Interestingly enough, we didn't require any tools other than the ones we already had at the house. Removing and re-installing the posts took less than two hours. The only thing that took longer was waiting for the cement to harden enough for us to screw the fence panels to the posts. We're still communicating with HomeAdvisor about a reimbursement for our wasted cement.

A nightmare from start to finish. Stay far away.