In the one episode I sat through, (cringing the whole time) Rico came in to help a couple who had been ripped off by multiple contractors. You could clearly see the work they had paid a lot of money for was very shoddy and needed to be ripped out. He promised to speak to a couple of the contractors to see if he could negotiate something for them. He spoke to both contractors who, of course, dissed the homeowners. Rico instantly bought everything they said. They, of course blamed the homeowners saying they were picky and demanding, and Rico seemed to characterize them in that way too based solely on what the two contractors said, even though they had taken a lot of money from them and the only work they had done looked terrible. Rico even tried to rehire one of the guys!
He took the contractors' side and said over and over that homeowners should just leave contractors alone and let them do their job. That is ridiculous! Most contractors are not honest and not that skilled in my experience and will do whatever they can get away with. A lot of them will give you a bid and then suddenly need more money when they haven't even done the work they were contracted to do or do shoddy work. You have to watch them and make sure you are getting what you pay for.
Rico charged the homeowners 200k to remodel their tiny house which was very expensive given the little that they got. The prices they were quoting were very high and they just seemed to come up with them off the top of their head. The house got finished but wasn't great in my opinion.
The home owner's were not allowed to site visit or have any input during construction as though they were naughty children. Rico did everything to his taste and chose all the finishes. That is not how he normally does things apparently but he believed the contractors that the couple was difficult. He said, we don't like to be micromanaged. That is the sign of a bad contractor in my opinion. If someone is giving you 200k to do a basic remodel of some rooms in their tiny ranch home, then they have the right to check on the work, choose finishes themselves, and make sure things are done the way they want. It's not the contractors house and it's not their money after all. They are paid to build what the homeowners want and should just be happy they get paid so darn much for helping someone else realize their design vision. They are supposed to work for the homeowner, not the other way around.
