Complete Restoration Services

This is the sort of business that gives contractors a bad name. I have a complaint that is similar previous customer but I was stupid enough to let Complete Restoration Services string me along for nearly two months.

Our basement drain backed up and our basement flooded during the massive rain storm on July 8, 2013. Our daughter was 2 and a half months old and we were in the middle of preparing to sell our house and move while my wife was still on maternity leave. Stressful, right? Well, Complete Restoration Services made it much worse. Our insurance company sent them as the 'preferred vendor'. They came by promptly to take out the bottom 2 feet of drywall and rip up the laminate flooring in the basement - standard practice after a drain backup. However, when taking out the bathroom walls they found evidence from where rats had gotten into the wall and 'mold' (our subsequent contractor said there was none) and sealed off the bathroom without finishing the removal. That was the last work they did on the house, leaving us with a sealed-off bathroom, ripped out basement (and disconnected gas dryer for good measure). The people I spoke to were all very friendly and apparently helpful at first. They said they'd take care of the 'mold' as a minor repair on rebuilding the basement. After waiting for a couple of weeks for them to get in touch to schedule work, I called them back and tried to pin them down on when they'd do the work. They told me how busy they were and said they couldn't do anything without getting the 'rebuild estimate' from the insurance adjuster. The adjuster said he couldn't finish the rebuild estimate until CRS uploaded the bill for the removal work (makes sense). I acted as the go between, asking CRS to upload the removal bill and personally getting the rebuild estimate from the adjuster and sending it directly to CRS (not the seamless service promised for a preferred vendor).

At that point, CRS stopped returning my phone calls. Over the next few weeks I called at least 20 or 25 times and was always told that the person I was looking for 'wasn't there but they'd call me back' (they never did) or the person I was talking to 'had to check on something with someone else and would call me back' (never did). The last straw was when I called and the receptionist said 'you should talk to Garry the owner, he's here right now'. But when she went to get Garry he wouldn't take my call and told her to tell me he'd send a report to me 'early next week'. I didn't want a report: I wanted a simple answer as to when they would do the work. I never got an answer (or a report, for that matter). I got in touch with a different contractor I had do work in my house before, and he started the work a couple of weeks later and did a great job. He showed me inside the bathroom walls and there was no mold. Nothing. It looks like saying there is mold was either a way to stop working when they ran out of time or a way to keep us tied to them until they could get to our job. As far as CRS knows, I'm still waiting for the (in case you're reading this: you're fired!).

These insurance jobs are extremely good money and it looks like CRS had more work than it could handle but is greedy so they keep stringing people along until they can get to the job. They also shouldn't take so many claims from the insurance company if they can't handle them. We almost missed the Fall real estate season and opportunity to move because of them (putting an offer on a house tomorrow). My advice: if your insurance company assigns you Complete Restoration Services as their 'preferred vendor', look for someone else right away. Use Homestars and find yourself and honest, trustworthy contractor.