OKI Handyman Services

Eileen W.

We hired Tim Zaruba, OKI Handyman Service, to be the general contractor for our remodel. We found them to be unqualified and unwilling to make things right, which cost us an enormous amount of time, money and stress.
Part of the job was to install tile floors in our condo. The initial installation was done incorrectly, leaving us with moving tiles and grout that cracked almost immediately. Despite them sending a ""tile expert"" several times to fix the problems, the situation only worsened.
When we reached out for further assistance, we got several months runaround. Tim Zaruba finally advised us to contact Austen Everhart, who told us Bob Hoza would come over and look at the job. Bob never showed up. When I finally spoke directly with Austen, he claimed he had no authority to correct the issue and told us to speak with Tim Zaruba. Unfortunately, our attempts to resolve the matter with Tim, Austen or Bob were futile, leading us to hire another contractor (who was excellent).
The second contractor discovered that the bathroom tiles were installed with only one screw securing the backer board, causing the tiles to shift underfoot. In the kitchen, no backer board was used, and the tiles were installed directly over the subfloor, leading to further instability. The new contractor had to redo the entire job, which was both costly and time-consuming.
In summary, my experience with OKI Handyman Service was extremely disappointing! Tim Zaruba and Austen Everhart's lack of follow-through, poor workmanship, and inadequate customer service made the situation even worse, with no way to recoup the financial loss. If you're looking for a reliable contractor with integrity, I strongly recommend looking elsewhere.

Vikki J.

March 7- Appt confirmed for work to start March 25, 0730.

March 22- Asked if we were still on for Monday. Responded Yes.

March 25, 0800, Let Tim know no one had arrived yet. No response.

March 25, 0830, Let Tim know I will find someone else since no one showed up. No response.

Waited almost 3 weeks when I could have contacted someone else.

Beware: You may get an appointment, but that does not mean the work will start then, or ever.

Kelly A.

Would not set an appointment time for the estimate. I was told just call when you are ready, and he would be out. I called and he was on another job. When he completed the job he headed over however, at that time I was no longer available. He was very rude on the phone.

Edward P.

I cannot recommend this business. They made an appointment to come to my home at 10 AM on October 27th. No show. No message from them except after I contacted them. The time was changed to 1 PM. Again, no show. Their logo is ""On time, Every time"" which is a lot of BS. I waited 4 hours for them to show up. They never messaged me to let me know that they were on their way or when they would arrive. Given the other reviews as to the quality of their work, I suggest that you stay away from this business.

Sarah M.

We cannot comment on the quality of work that Tim and his team provide because he simply did not show up to do the work he promised to do. We recently purchased a vacation home and needed some work done to fix it up. He was recommended by multiple people on Facebook and I wish we had checked Yelp prior to hiring him. My husband spoke to him several times while vetting a few contractors and Tim convinced him that he was the right man for the job and could get it started that week, as we were on a tight timeline. He said he could not promise to get it all done in a week (which was fair), but would put in 3 days of work prior to when we would arrive the following weekend. My husband was very clear that we needed him to complete as much as possible by that Friday as we were coming in town to do additional work. Tim assured him that the work would be started. My husband tried to check in with him that week but heard nothing back. By Thursday we decided to have my mom (who is local) drive by to see if anyone was working on the house. No one was there and a neighbor told her no one had been by that week. My husband reached out to Tim to ask what was up. Tim finally replied and ""fired"" us, apparently he doesn't like being checked up on. When we arrived Friday and saw that nothing had in fact been started, we let him know we agreed that we didn't want to work with him either. We are reasonable people and if someone communicates with us what they can or cannot do, we can work with that. But if someone over promises and under delivers, or doesn't deliver at all, we are done. Tim wasted our time and had complete disregard for our timeline. If he couldn't work that week he should have just said that. Instead he told us he could and then just blew it all off, and didn't have the decency to communicate.

Traci W.

My husband I commission Tim and his company in early March to do a complete remodel of a small home we purchased on Oak Island. When Tim came to give us the estimate, which ended up not even in the ballpark of what we paid, he promised a completion date by Memorial Day. Things progressed very slowly and to date our house is still not completed. I might add that we removed many of the items from the original list of things we wanted done after we saw how unreliable things were.

We gave Tim a detailed spreadsheet for each room of the house outlining what needed to be done & item numbers for materials we picked out as he instructed us to do. Many things were not done as we requested but my husband and I are fairly easy going folks and consistently chose to ""just live with it"" instead of asking Tim to redo them. Examples are wrong tile used, light fixture not hung in right place or bath, wrong paint color on trim...

One mistake we made as the home owners was not being present for much of the work. After several things were done incorrectly we decided we needed to stay on the island as much as we could until the job was completed. During the week and a half we were there before needing to return to our mountain home we never saw Tim once, only his crew. He never came to give his crew directions or to inspect the work. I assumed role of project manager as the crew had many questions about what needed to be done, all of which was on the spreadsheet given to Tim.

My husband thankfully knows a little bit about construction and was able to spot significant flaws. For example, the new windows that they installed were done so incorrectly and had gaps allowing water to run between the window and the house. Had we not been there, it's possible damage would have been caused to our home.

We have been patient with Tim's lack of organization and attention to our project. We had a couple of heartfelt honest conversations with Tim about how disappointed we were with things and each time he apologized promised to get the job completed. He even suggested that we talk everyday as a way of keeping him on track with things, which we did for about a week.

Tim asked us to send him a punch list of things that needed to be done. Although appalled at this request, ( we thought we hired him to manage the project), we agreed to do so and did. After two weeks of little attention to the list it became apparent that Tim had abandoned our job and had no intention of completing the punch list. We had no choice but to change the locks and seek help elsewhere.

We are utterly complexed as to why Tim consistently took on more work and delayed our project to do other jobs. We felt his promises made to us were insignificant. We paid Tim weekly what he told us we owed without asking for an itemized statement (stupid on our part). We are very trusting people and had good rapport with Tim so we didn't think things would have turned out like this. We trusted that he would do right by us especially given all the grace and forgiveness we had shown to him throughout what turned into a very stressful and frustrating experience.

Having owned a successful business before our retirement, my husband and I know first hand how important reviews are to a business. I would never write a negative review lightly.

I don't want anyone else to have the experience we have had and it's time for Tim to realize that his business needs attention if he wants to keep a good reputation. I hope for his sake this is a wake up call and he does better by his clients.

Tracy H.

We hired Tim Zaruba and his OKI handyman services. He was the general contractor to put in luxury vinyl tile flooring, paint the entire interior of the house, and remove a roof and put on a brand new roof. We've been dealing with issues for over six months and we keep getting ignored. The flooring is buckling and separating in several places. They did not put new plywood underneath so some areas are sinking in. The roof is another nightmare. Within four months three corners of the roof are peeling up with just 35 mph winds. After repeated calls he sent out 3 different guys to do repairs that had no roofing experience. We finally hired an independent roof inspector, which we have a report for those who request a copy, who says the roof was put on incorrectly and not per code. Repeated request for a refund or his insurance information have been ignored. FYI to anyone who thinks about hiring Tim Zaruba - he is unlicensed contractor in North Carolina and can work in North Carolina if jobs are under $30,000. Take this as your warning - don't walk but run from this company! I wouldn't wish this stress, frustration in aggravation on anyone.

Jennifer D.

If I could give him less than 1 star I would. Tim Zaruba has to be at the top of the list of shady and underhanded hangmen on Oak Island. He installed a laminate floor throughout our house. The floor began to separate in several places. The installers that work for OKI Handyman Services came back on 4 occasion to ""fix"" the problem. The first visit they came in a kicked the planks back together and cut some of the planks that were too tight against the wall. Each time making the problem bigger.

After these meager attempts to ""fix the problem"", Mr. Zaruba stopped returning calls. He has been contacted by an attorney, which he blatantly ignored.

If anyone is thinking of hiring him to do anything at your home, please rethink it.

Attached are photos of the gaps between planks and many other major issues with this install.

You have been warned!!