Mendez Painting

I’ve used Mendez twice to paint my home, the last job was finished yesterday. They were: reliable, communicative, quiet, respectful of my home and they did a great job for a fair price. There is not a whole lot more that I could ask for as a customer.

I needed to have a large two bedroom apartment painted after my tenant moved out. Mendez Painting quoted me the best price. They started the job right away and had the apartment finished in a few days.
When I inspected the apartment after they finished I was very disappointed. The painters had painted all the windows shut and there were specks of paint everywhere where they had failed to clean up. They hadn’t removed the plastic plates over the light switches; they just painted over them. They did not replace the overhead ceiling light covers when they took them down. They left them on the floor. I had to get a ladder and put them back up myself. The painters had painted over eight of the apartment’s 12 electric outlets. I had to replace them so they would be usable to plug in lamps and appliances.
When I called Mr. Mendez and told him this he apologized and came over to the apartment himself to inspect the work. He called me and said he was also unhappy with the work his painters did. He opened up all the windows and cleaned up some of the paint specks. He said he would send me a check for $ 100.00 to cover the cost of replacing eight electric outlets.
I called and emailed Mr. Mendez but never received any check. I spent several hours cleaning up paint smears and drips. There are cracks in the places where these painters painted over paint that was flaking off; they didn’t bother to scrape off the old paint. They didn’t do any preparation of the painting surfaces. I will probably wind up having to repaint some of these rooms again in a year or two.
In addition, my previous tenant was a heavy cigarette smoker. Mr. Mendez told me they would use two coats of primer to cover up the cigarette smoke residue on the walls; he said it was not necessary to wash the walls. The apartment still has a strong odor of cigarette smoke. The walls should have been washed with a strong cleaning agent before they painted.

I have used Mendez Painting multiple times in the past 10 years (myself, and for about a dozen of my real estate clients), and felt compelled to urge the masses to avoid all other painters in favor of them.
There is no other painter as far as I’m concerned. I refer them to clients with confidence, and after a bad experience with a painter last summer (who was used because a general contractor brought them in), I will NEVER EVER use anyone but Mendez.
THE QUOTE
Mr. Mendez arrives at the appointment time, on time, and takes down the requirements of the job. The quote is typically received the next day by email — in many cases it has come by the end of the SAME DAY. All quotes I’ve received have included the paint (they work with Benjamin Moore).
THE WORK ITSELF
For my latest job, they told me they need a 2-​business-​day lead time to schedule the actual painting. I gave them more notice than that, but within about 4 days, I called to see if we could move up the start day and they responded quickly and were able to do it!
The painters arrive at 8AM (as scheduled). On the second day, they were EARLY and waiting in their truck to come in (I know this because I saw them while walking my dogs at 7:30).
The real magic is in the prep. They meticulously tarp EVERYTHING (furniture, kitchen cabinets, personal items, etc.). They examine the walls, looking for even the slightest anomalies, and use putty as needed to fix the walls. Then they sand all the walls so they’re as smooth as possible. In another job I did with them, they spent the entire first day ONLY prepping. They also carefully took down window treatments, covered them, and put them back up when they were done. For the record — I didn’t give them ANY instructions for the job. This is just typical pride-​of-​great-​work kind of stuff.
The painting itself is clean and smooth (and quick!). All those «hard to reach» places are also painted without having to bug them about it. For instance, I caught one painter BEHIND my refrigerator painting baseboards (that no one will ever see).
At the end, they spent hours going over every inch of the job and making sure nothing was missed. And then they spend as much time as necessary cleaning up and leaving my place as clean as possible. I know from talking to Mr. Mendez that they pride themselves on a clean job with little to no splatter/​mess.
THE PRICE
For the ultra-​professional job that they do, it’s a bargain. I’ve had clients get quotes from inferior painters that were actually 1.5−2x as much.