Hot take: I hired a guy off Craigslist to do my stucco patch in the South Valley and it was a disaster.

I needed a small stucco repair on my house near Isleta, maybe a 4x4 foot area. A guy on Craigslist said he could do it for $400, which was way less than the other quotes I got. He showed up, slapped on some mix, and said it was good. Two months later, after our first real rain, the whole patch cracked and started to crumble away. I called him back and he ghosted me. I ended up paying a licensed contractor $1200 to rip it out and do it right, with the proper base coat and finish. So I was out $400 plus the new cost. I'm torn because sometimes you can find a good deal with a smaller operator, but this felt like straight-up fraud. Has anyone else in ABQ had a nightmare story with hiring someone without checking their references first?

3 comments

3 Comments

fionarodriguez19d agoMost Upvoted

What kind of stucco mix did he even use, cause a lot of those guys just grab a bag of something random from a hardware store and call it good? Proper stucco needs a scratch coat, a brown coat, and then the finish, and you gotta let it cure between each layer. The guy you hired probably did none of that, just threw mud on the wall. Faithk92 is right about the cheap price being a trap, but the real scam here is people pretending they know how materials work when they don't even understand the basics of curing. That $400 wasn't just a bad deal, it was a guarantee you'd be paying to fix it later.

faithk922mo ago

Feels like this happens with everything now, not just home repair. You try to save a few bucks on a handyman, a mechanic, even a haircut, and you end up paying double to fix their mess later. It's exhausting trying to figure out who actually knows what they're doing versus who just talks a good game. That cheap price is like a trap, because once the money's gone, so are they.

felix_fox2mo ago

Ever notice how the worst ones always have the most perfect five-star reviews online? Makes you wonder if they're all fake or if people just don't know what good work looks like anymore.