Category: House

We had to turn on the heater this morning. We’ve had a number of days in a row with lows in the 40’s and highs barely at 60. The past few years we have made it to December without turning it on. This year we didn’t even make it to Thanksgiving without the heater. The forecast has it staying cold for the next week or so. I’m hoping it warms before Christmas, when our pool is expected to be finished.

They continued work on the planters today. They also finished up the drain work, coring the curb so the drains will drain into the street. In addition, the pool equipment was delivered and place on the side of the house.

They continued working on the drains today and started work on the planters.

Lots of work went on today. The P-Trap was finished, more drain work was done and the tile and ledgestone around the spa was finished. They also installed the pad for the pool equipment.

It has been exactly 100 days since work was done on our pool. Back then I was just starting to think that we were going to have a problem with Craig King Pools & Design. I still thought he would get our pool done at some point. It took many more weeks before I came to the realization that he wasn’t. It was probably his ignoring all my emails and phone calls for over a month that finally convinced me that Craig King had made off with my money and I wouldn’t be hearing from him again. Complaints have been filed with the state, my claim against his bond was paid out (although at a fraction of what Craig owes me) and we can finally move on and get our pool finished.

Falyn was jumping up and down with excitement when she saw that Ron of R&R Pools was here. “Mommy, the workers are back!”, she yelled. I think my kids were pretty much convinced that the pool was never going to be finished. Hopefully they will get the gift of swimming in their pool for Christmas. Prayers that we don’t get a bunch of rain between now and then would be appreciated. (They can’t work in the rain!)

Today Ron dug out the planter in the front of the house in preparation for the backwash p-trap install, which should start tomorrow.

We have now hired another company to finish our pool – R&R Pools. I have every confidence that they will get the job done. Unlike Craig King, who stole our money without giving us what we paid him for, this company (except for a small deposit) will only take payment for equipment after it is delivered and for work after it is done. They expect to start work on our pool next week and unless we get a bunch of rain between now and then, it will be done before Christmas.

It has now been 5 1/2 months since work started on our pool. If you had told me back in May when we started this project that I would be sitting here in October with an unfinished pool, I would not have believed you. We had recommendations from people who had used King Pools and Design to do their pools. Craig King had been in business for 20 years and we found nothing but positive recommendations for him and his company. Everything started off great. Workers were here almost every day and progress was quickly being made. We had no reason to think he was going to take our money and then stop working. But that is exactly what happened. As soon as he got the bulk of our money, work came to a screeching halt.

The last time work was done was on July 13th , which is now over three months ago. There were workers here on August 9th who haphazardly tossed in some drains, which have to be completely redone. By the terms of our contract, all work was supposed to be done within 90 days of excavation. Excavation was started on May 8th, 167 days ago. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but at this point I have zero faith that Craig King is ever going to get our pool done. The worst part is that we have given him tens of thousands of dollars for equipment he never delivered and for work he never completed. That is a huge amount of money to us. We used our life’s savings to pay for this pool and now we are out most of that money and will have to find a way to come up with additional funds to pay someone else to finish our pool.

I’ve spent the past few weeks getting everything together I need to file a complaint with the Contractors State Licensing Board (CSLB). (If you need to file a complaint in California, see this page.) I got that in the mail last week and yesterday I received a letter stating Craig has 7 days to resolve this problem, if he doesn’t take care of it by then they will assign an Enforcement Representative to investigate my complaint. I seriously doubt Craig will contact me. I haven’t heard from him in over a month now. He doesn’t answer my emails and his phone rolls to voicemail, which is full.

In addition to filing this complaint, I have filed a claim on his bond. In the state of California, contractors are required to have a $12,500 bond. Since Craig took my money and didn’t provide me with the equipment I paid for or do the work I paid him for, I can place a claim on that bond. You can get the contact information on a contractors bond by searching the license number at the CSLB website. I mailed my claim in this week. The bond company will investigate and hopefully eventually I will be able to get money from his bond.

Just when I’d come to terms with the fact that Craig has taken off with my money, likely never to be heard from again, subcontractors start showing up at my door. Surprise! He didn’t pay the subcontractors that worked on my pool! Seems they can’t get a hold of Craig either. From talking to them, it appears he hasn’t paid anyone in about six months. They were interested in finishing the project and alluded to “lien rights” if we didn’t use them. After searching the CSLB website I learned that they lost their lien rights when they didn’t file a preliminary lien within 20 days of starting work on my pool. You can read all about mechanic’s liens in the state of California here. Apparently these guys have been enabling Craig by continuing to start project without having been paid for other project. I can’t help thinking that if these guys had put their foot down sooner, I wouldn’t be in the position I am now with an unfinished pool.

If you came upon this blog post while searching for information on Craig King or King Pools & Design because he has left you with an unfinished pool, I’d like to hear from you. Please post a comment so I can get in touch with you. I’ve been told by the electrician and plumber that worked on my pool that he hasn’t paid them for six jobs.

For the first time in almost a month, some work was done on our pool. They started installing the drains for the deck.

Work continued on the ledgestone today with everything but around the spill from the spa being finished. We are very happy with the way it looks. It goes with the slide structure perfectly!

They started putting on the ledgestone today. It looks absolutely gorgeous! There is definitely an art to putting on the ledgestone. There are a bunch of pieces and they have to be arranged just so, to get a balanced look. The guy doing our ledgestone puts a lot of effort into making it look just right. He does an awesome job.