Contracted to build a small pole barn. Poles were 2" out of square. They brought within 10" of…read moresquare , took $20k and never produced materials to finish and I fired him. Shoppers beware!

Dealing with Jerome Graber was a complete nightmare! Unfortunately we hired him to build us an…read moreattached garage with a bedroom and bathroom above it for my daughter. After 1 year on a 65 day job it was still not completed. He lied to us, made promises that were never kept and anytime he said someone would be out he wouldn't give us a exact date. He always calls the guys who do work for him "his guys" but when something is damaged he tries to deflect on to them and it becomes apparent that they are subcontractors. "His guys" damaged our septic system to where we had to connect to city sewer and now have a monthly bill. "His guys" cut our gas line for our pool. He tried to charge us to fix the septic system. He said he would pay for the septic system to be pumped but never did. We had poop water running across our driveway. We ended up paying for(also insurance payed for) to have the system pumped every 2 weeks because he always said "the check is in the mail" but the guy pumping it never received payment and wasn't willing to come out until he was paid. He charged us for Champion windows but put in a cheaper brand and not even the color we chose and then painted them. In our contract it was to be framed with 2x6 and it was framed with 2x4. He was going to put the bathroom in front of a window where we did not want it and was going to do so without our permission. The plans he had drawn up were not correct the 1st time and had no elevations or detail to them where gas, water, sewer, hvac, and electricity would be. The garage was built so high that just to be able to get a vehicle into it and not fall down it walking it, we had to have the apron come out ito our driveway 6-8'. And it's still a hazard to walk in in the winter. He told us he was only going to come out 18". Which would have made it a danger to walk on or drive a car up. Non of that was told to us when we signed with him and was not on the plans he had drawn up. He sold us a gas mini split system(which we paid extra for)to heat and cool the bedroom which was also to be ran to our basement to help heat and cool it. I asked on many occasions for him to send me the specs on the system. He never did but sent me the quote from the company that was to install an electric mini split. Well after speaking with several hvac professionals we concluded no such system exists. Him and the company contracted to do the mini split we're going to put the system on the front side of our house which was going to be extremely ugly when there were better options for placement. He did not consult with the hvac/electrical/plumbing company contracted before he sold us the system. So there were no runs put in before the slab or footer for gas, electric or sewer. So the gas line, and electric are on the outside of the house and the sewer had to have a hole cut in the concrete slab and trenched over. Which he never did. He was supposed to drywall the bedroom and bathroom which he didn't do, he tried to charge us extra to drywall the ceiling of the garage. By code it was supposed to be drywalled because of a living space above it. The rear man door was installed below grade which is not to code. One corner of the garage the top plate was not overlapped which is not to code. His permit was for prescriptive, he didn't build it to code for it to pass on a prescriptive permit. We know this because we had a city inspector come out to make sure what he had built was to code and we didn't have to tear it down. The shingles on one section of the garage are not straight. Some of the board an baton siding are not straight. Over spray from it being painted is all over the shingles. We picked up pounds of screws and nails from our pool area where my kids run around barefoot. Along with some type of razor blade after repeatedly asking for him to have the site cleaned up. One of "his guys" stole some tools and he wouldnt replace them. After speaking with some of "his guys" we became aware that he has had problems paying some of "his guys". So we asked for invoices, payed receipts and lien waivers. Come to find out at least one of the lien waivers was forged. We contacted our lawyer and he said to look him up on mycase.in.gov and that we would t like what we saw. And boy was he right!!! I've never seen someone who has been sued as much as he has let alone the criminal cases(2 felony check deception cases just this year). We gave him a 30 day notice to get the job finished and that no work would be done until we had all the documents we asked for to make sure he was paying "his guys". Well it didn't get finished and we sued him. We went to mediation and agree to a sum that he would pay us in 2 installments. The 1st payment was around 4 days late and 2nd installment we still haven't received and as of today is 11 days late. So, I cannot recommend hiring this man but I do recommend looking him up and his former business Midwest Developing, on mycase.in.gov along with google, BBB, Yelp.