Complaint Review: Atomic Container Home- Les Burke - El Paso TX

On Novembre of 2017 I signed an agreement with Les Burke and Atomic containers to build two 20ft container structures per a set of detailed specs and requirements that were perfectly outlined in this agreement. The total cost was to be $38,000. And the project was to take 3 weeks- per the build agreement.  I paid $13,300 to get the project started. At first I received pictures almost every day of the progress. It seemed to be going well. Les would call at least once a day and update me. I would send him pictures of finishes that I wanted, tiles, flooring etc..Then came time for the second installment of $6450 which again I paid. Soon after the pictures started to not come every day and the calls were not returned in the same fashion. Les told me he was busy, had just gotten another potential project that was taking his time. Although the build agreement stated that he was going to build everything and order everything, he asked that I order and pay for the IKEA kitchen since there was no IKEA in EL PASO and that the shipping to him was going to take more than 2 weeks.

At that point, I asked him why he had not ordered it ahead of time. Regardless, I went to IKEA bought it all, paid for it to be delivered to me and then had to pay someone else to repackage it all in 4 bundles so that these bundles could be shipped to El Paso. This made no sense and was expensive, but that is what Les requested and I complied. He told me to take those $4500 off the next two payments. Time for another $6450 minus half of the kitchen- by that time, Les had stopped communicating with me. No pictures, no calls. We were now 6 weeks into the build. When I did speak with him it was excuses after excuses. I kept telling him that he needed to order the appliances per the contract. He told me he had but that there were delivery issues with Amazon This lasted for 10 days.

I finally ordered all of the appliances here in Los Angeles and told him that I would install them myself once the containers arrived. By that time, I was getting real nervous so I decided to take a trip to see him and see what was going on with my containers. When I got there, the kitchen had barely been assembled and what had been assembled was done mostly incorrectly. I had sent him sketches and measurements of how it was supposed to fit and they had not been able to do it. So we spent the day doing that. I could tell that many of the finishes were done poorly. One of the windows he had used was an old window he had sitting around and had been badly beaten up. They decided to bondo it and paint over it. The outside of one of the containers was very sloppy.  I asked them to replace that window. before shipping it to me. All I wanted at that point was to get them to LA so I could fix those few items Finally, we agreed on a shipping date. This was now February,  10 weeks since the agreement was signed.

Finally, the two containers get loaded on a truck that Les chose. A friend of his had a shipping company apparently. Our contract read that we would split the shipping, but I ended up by paying for all of it. During the 14 h trip from El Paso to Los Angeles, the shipper got a flat tire and this delayed the arrival by 7 hours and caused dreadful damage to the inside: both roofs collapsed and 2 of the kitchen modules were torn off the walls. Once the containers were in my showroom, we proceded to look at them. I hired a contractor to help me assess the damage. During that process we discovered that most of what we agreed to on the build agreement was not done and what had been done was done incorrectly:

1. There was no insulation at all

2. The electrical wiring was all wrong and not to code. We had to try to fix as much of it as possible

3. The shower tile was extremely badly installed- we had to take it all out and start again

4. An interior wall was so crooked it had to come down 

5. The kitchen cabinets were all improperly installed. We had to totally dismount them and re-install. Purchase new doors and cabinetry in certain instances and re-assemble as the measurements also were wrong.

6. The drywall and paint were so bad and the walls so crooked we had to re-drywall 70% of both containers and re-paint

7. The exterior of both had to be redone. The one with cedar siding had the cedar installed with staples that were coming off. We had to go back in and purchase more cedar and nail it properly.

8. The build agreement also said shower enclosure and quartz counter tops and 6 sliding gllass doors. I never got any of that.

9. I had to replace the window that was totally beaten up and had not been replaced prior to shipping

10. And most importantly, I was told by him that they do container conversion for Los Angeles. And that their engineer is licensed in all 50 states. When I spoke to the engineer, he had never worked on anything for Los Angeles. I sent him all the information and documentation required for this City. It was the first time he had ever heard of it. He did not know if he could comply as he never done a project in LA. 

All in all, I spent an extra $24,500 to fix the two containers so that I could show it to the public. I wrote to Les and his partner Ethan and showed him pictures and re-sent the build agreement delineating where it had not been honored. Ethan never answered and Les told me that his work was great! (best joke ever) refused to address it further. Refused to work with me and refused to offer me any kind of compensation. 

Les is a  guy that gets over his head and over promises. If you decide to use Atomic containers I would be very careful. My showroom is up and running, but thanks to my contractor here who basically took everything down to the studs.