So So Sad. When I first met Miriam and visited her at her home for an initial consultation for restoration work due to flooding, I was taken aback that I was unable to maneuver through the house to clearly assess the issues. In kind she is an avid collector of stuff. This kind meek lady asked me if I would be willing to take on a project that she said so many others would not. She also indicated that she did not trust the insurance companies restoration contractors and that because of my high ratings on and positive reviews on Homestars that I was the only one that she trusted. Like a good used car salesman tugging at my heart strings Miriam totally sold me on helping her through this difficult situation, describing how the world is crashing down around her and everyone was against her. But this seemingly nice elderly lady was everything but, she was in fact a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”.
As the owner of Oborne Contracting I blame myself for letting this project even take place. From the onset I should have seen the “bad client signs”. When being prompted to commit insurance fraud and refusing, Miriam’s angry (the wolf) reaction to me was the first sign this may not end well. She unfortunately was required to cover the cost herself for the extra work she wanted above and beyond the insurance claim.
The terms of the contract were that the owner was to remove all personal belongings from the work areas, upon commencement this was not completed and we were asked nicely (by the sheep) if we could complete the relocation of items and we did so at no extra cost. Due to Miriam’s compulsive behavior, the rest of the site (house) was incredibly challenging to protect. Like a scene out of Cirque Du Soleil, breakable items, furniture, clothing, nick-nacks, grocery bags full of “who the hell knows what” were precariously balanced and piled everywhere and as high as mountains throughout the house. We were terrified while trying to cover items that a land slide stuff would come crashing down on us. We truly did the best that we could to protect the site but the truth is the contents should have been removed. Unfortunately there is no real way to tell what dust was from our work and what was not as the contents were already very filthy, unhygienic and most likely just short of contaminated. I even paid my men more for working in such conditions.
The work went well and I personally was happy with the quality plus we stayed within the time lines we set out, even after Miriam (the sheep) asked us to provide her extra services, which we obliged.
As Miriam (the sheep) even states her review we had trouble getting paid. This project lasted 3 weeks and had 5 installments as per the (sheep) requested. The first two installments were very late (over a week) and the final installments (3,4,5) that piled up at the end because of the short length of the project were a real fight to obtain to say the least. The “backache” was the issue. In her own words in her review “ache” not “so sorry I’m in the hospital and no visitors aloud” back problem, just an “ache”. My men and I are very aware of back problems and it never stops us from doing what we have to do to complete our jobs and I assure you it’s a lot harder than writing a cheque, We gave Miriam (the wolf) every option to provide the draws and she refused every one of them till it suited her. Finally many weeks later we received the final contractual payments, however we never did receive the change order payment for other work requested. So when we’re being asked to remove the small amount of debris I did refus until we were paid in full, it was the only collateral we had. Now Oborne Contracting is out over $1000.00, she gets to write a negative review and walk the 2 garbage bags and a ½ sheet of drywall to the end of her driveway for garbage pickup. Client wins!
It should also be noted that on several occasions I had to ask (the wolf) not to try and poach my employees to complete side work for cash behind my back.
Miriam if you want to knock a point off for us leaving garbage behind, or a point off for us not successfully covering your contents or a point off for us not committing insurance fraud, go right ahead, but you know better and that one rating you gave us is because you want to hurt me my employees and my company for not doing what you want. Well guess what, we know there are people like you out there and Oborne Contracting is built out of bricks and no big bad wolf is going to blow our good reputation down.
My client rating for you is 4 out of 10. I’ve had worse, you just hide it better
Good luck to you,
Reply created 19 Sep 2013
