Intelligent Design and Construction Inc. (IDNC)

Response from Intelligent Design and Construction Inc. (IDNC)

Dear Handy Canadian,

I would like to raise my concern about the following feedback and I believe that it is an unfair judgment about the services that our company has offered to Ms. Mable.

I submitted my estimate for Ms. Mable s work on October 27, 2009. The initial work which was agreed upon included replacing the existing shower tiles with new ones. The response I received was that she decided not to give her project to us, and would rather give it to a friend s friend.

I was contacted again around November 22, 2009 by Ms. Mable; she informed me that she has got one week off from work, however, the friend who was supposed to take care of her project had never shown up. She informed me that she was stuck with one week off from work and without any contractor, and she asked me to get the contract even with such short notice.

I decided to take this project although we were in the middle of a complete house renovation, only to get the company known in Brossard were she was located; and also, according to the estimates that I have had the job would take a maximum of two days to be finished. I offered her our minimum charge, only to have her as a referral in that particular district were we have had never worked before.

As soon as the project was started, I noticed that a very unprofessional job was done before us in the shower area. The shower walls were previously covered by plywoods nailed to the studs; the tiles were glued to the plywoods which were completely molded and the mold was spread to the adjacent room (laundry room). Therefore, the scope of the project was increased substantially, and I could not withdraw at that time since it was not fair to the client. Therefore, I had to hire 3 more extra people, which were not part of my crew to be able to finish the job before December 1st.

At this point, the client (Ms. Mable) demanded for an extension of her shower to the laundry room which required several additional tasks (including: total change of the shower plumbing system, reinstalling the shower base, installing new drywalls for the bathroom ceiling, etc.); also, she demanded for the installation of spot lights in her bathroom ceiling and changing of her bathroom fan.

The market price for doing all these tasks should be around $7000 including the material. Ms. Mable informed me that she did not anticipate this much in her budget and we have had already demolished the existing walls when she informed me of this. The price that would at least cover my expenses was $3500 and this is the price that I offered her considering that I needed to get a good referral in that area. She was happy at that time with the estimate that I gave her but I did mention to her that the company is going to be closed on December.

The work finishing (including plastering and painting) was not finished until the beginning of December. I have asked one of my sub-contractors to contact Ms. Mable in December and make appointment with her to finish the project. My contractor was advised by Ms. Mable that she is only available on the weekends and not during the week. Therefore, my sub-contractor did not agree to work on the weekends to finish her project.

I was abroad in December and my contact here in Montreal advised me of this matter; I was informed that Ms. Mable has requested to have the job finished on the coming weekend and she was not going to let my sub-contractors work during the week. I had to contact one of my workers to go to Ms. Mable place on a weekend and take care of the finishing of the place, without any supervision.

Ms. Mable has started communicating with my worker without informing me. My worker has finished the work and has left her place and she did not send any email or left me any message regarding his work.

When I returned to Montreal in January I did contact her to see if everything was OK and I did went to her place to see the final work and give her the invoice. At this point, she mentioned to me that my worker, during my absence, have used her vacuum cleaner at the end of the work, and has taken her extension cord and paint bucket by mistake; also, I was informed that she has had difficulty communicating with my worker since his first language is not English.

I did ask her why she had not contacted me in the meanwhile through email or has not left me a message on the company s phone, stating her in-satisfaction; I told her that I will pay for anything that is taken from her place buy mistake. She did finally bought herself an extension cord and all the other items and I did pay for that; also, I did buy her an extra cord (the most expensive one) just to make her happy. I did examine the final finishing when I went to her place, and noticed that the job was not completed perfectly and did required about 4 hours of work.

I offered her to have the job finished perfectly to her satisfaction as soon as possible; however, she did not accept that and she requested for a reduction of $500 in the price. I have had already covered only my costs with $3500 that I have had requested, however, I did accept her request and only charged her $3000. She told me that she will have her friend which is a professional take care of the final finishing. I did also give her a gift and did apologize for the inconvenience that the timing might have caused her.

In addition, to verify the weak points of our work and to follow-up on the proper functioning of her bathroom, I did send her a feedback email on May 10, 2010; she responded that she will answer to my questions through the Handy Canadian website.

In conclusion, our company has had several full house renovation projects, as well as a couple of smaller projects. I can forward you the contact information of our previous customer s, in order for you to verify the quality of our work and in particular the timing and budgeting. I still think that the following review is not a fair review for the work that was offered to Ms. Mable.

I would appreciate if you ever decide to post the following review on your website, to also post our response to her. We are really sorry that she has not been able to finish her project, I did offer for a second time to do the final finishing in her bathroom in May when I heard that she has still not finished the job to her satisfaction. Yet, she has refused my offer for a second time.