Sophia Kahill from Richmond Hill

It’s nice to be able to post a good review of a tradesperson for a change, after my many negative experiences during my renovation-from-hell in 2014 to 2015, some reviews which I posted on this site previously. (By the way, there are other reviews on this site for both "High Park Plumbing " and “A M High Park Plumbing,” as the latter is a name left over from the days when trades wanted the initial A in front of their firm’s name so they came up sooner in the old printed Yellow Pages listings.) I had used Mark from High Park Plumbing about a dozen years ago and was very pleased with his work at that time; one plumber then had wanted $100 just to walk through my front door, and another had wanted more than $1200, because he claimed that the plumbing repairs could only be done by demolishing a nearby wall to access the pipes, whereas Mark had accomplished the work for only $200 without demolition and had done a conscientious and careful job. So I contacted him again when it turned out that my contractor-from-hell 2014 to 2015 had botched the drains in my basement, so I had a constant stench coming from the floor drain in the laundry room. I got opinions from two separate plumbers, one of them Mark, and both agreed that the floor drains had not been done according to code, so that sewage was back-washing from the ground floor toilet waste stack into the laundry room drain, hence the constant smell. I decided to move forward with Mark, because I had used him before. Mark always returned my phone calls and arrived promptly (although his workers occasionally were delayed), did a careful assessment, and gave me a detailed diagnosis and estimate. He and his workers (Bob/Bogie, who has been working with him for 27 years, and his nephew Michael, as well as an experienced tile setter Ziggy) did an excellent job. They had to dig up much of the laundry room floor (granite tiles, concrete, gravel and soil, etc.), replace the faulty drain-work, re-do the floor, and re-stack the washer and dryer. Everyone was pleasant and conscientious, the work was accomplished in the expected time frame, and now there is no more embarrassing and unhealthy sewage gas and stench in my house! (I’m giving them 9 rather than 10 stars because there was a lot more dust everywhere than I had been warned about, and although Mark and his crew did a pretty good deal of cleanup, there was still quite a bit of dust left over for myself to dispose of, which was a bit tedious; I would have stuffed rags under all the doors and put plastic over everything if I had been warned.) However, I would certainly use Mark again, and I recommend him to anyone who wants a plumber with old-fashioned European values of a good work ethic, value for the money, and honesty.

Nusite was chosen by my contractor who was doing a major renovation of my house. Nusite lowered my basement floor and installed a waterproofing system, including a sump pump and backflow preventer. Initially I had planned to give them a good review (9 or 10 stars). I was impressed that they showed up every day (unlike my contractor and other subs) and worked steadily. The workers did the back-breaking labour of digging out a whole basement by hand, with apparent good humour, and their supervisor Ryan was very likeable and worked hard alongside them despite being the son of one of the owners. This was just at the time that a house in Toronto had collapsed while being underpinned, killing a worker, so I was reassured that Nusite was proceeding carefully in small sections. My contractor said they did a good job of pouring the new concrete floor. There were a couple of things that were not as great. For one, they did not supervise the bin collection (for the discarded dirt) carefully, and at one point the bin was dragged across my front lawn, badly damaging it and the front landing pavers; Ryan said he would collect the pavers and set them aside for me to make it easier to re-lay them, but he never did. The owner Geoff Steinberg agreed to give me some money in compensation, but it turned out to be nowhere near enough to do a complete repair. The sump pump they installed had no backup system, so in case of Hydro failure it would not have worked (which of course is likely to be the time it is most needed, when Hydro has gone out because of storms and flood water), and they named a substantial cost if I wanted the upgraded one; my own contractor had to put in the backup himself. They also did not lower the basement quite as much as they had promised initially, without telling me that this would be the case, so I barely got a floor-to-ceiling bookcase to fit. All this lowered my review to 8 stars. Finally, and this was what turned the tide, the paperwork they gave me was incomplete, leading to months of frustration and wasted time and effort on my part. The City of Toronto was giving a large rebate to homeowners who installed sump pumps and backflow preventers, and Ryan assured me that their work would qualify. Geoff came by himself, mostly I would guess to collect a final payment but also to give me the forms they had completed to pass along to the City as proof of the work. I duly filled out the application and mailed it to Toronto Water. However, the City told me that the information given to me by Geoff was only partly correct, as he was supposed to have given me the actual invoice for the backflow preventer completed by a licensed plumber not by Nusite itself. (I have to say, I have been impressed by the City staff. Despite some people thinking that city employees have easy jobs or don’t really give good service, the ones I spoke to went out of their way to be helpful.) When I phoned Geoff, he said he was away from Toronto but would see to finding the correct form when he returned. He expressed concern that I understand one aspect of his bill, that Nusite seemed to be charging more for the work than the plumber would list on his own invoice once I received it, telling me that this was a function of their doing the digging out for the devices which usually the plumber does himself; I wasn’t sure why this was the case, as they were digging out the whole basement anyway so why charge for one section in particular, but I let it go as I was still anticipating a large rebate. So more time goes on, and the City tells me that they still have no updated form. To add another twist, it turns out that the plumber used by Nusite had given a company name that was in fact not properly licensed to do this type of work, and although I called the plumber directly to see if I could expedite matters, he never followed through. I called Nusite’s office several times and left messages, and Geoff never did me the courtesy of responding to them. I finally caught the secretary Wendy in person, and she also sounded worried that I might not understand the discrepancy in the bill amount if I saw the actual plumber’s invoice. She said that they were trying to find the original invoice from the plumber, but that it had been put away in a box somewhere (in an era when everything is via computer!) She said she felt bad about the situation and offered a couple of hundred dollars from Nusite as compensation, but this is not a lot when I was expecting over a thousand dollars in rebate so I did not accept. Finally, the City notified me that because of all the delays in getting the plumber’s invoice from Nusite , they could not give me the rebate for the backflow preventer. (They did provide a rebate for the sump pump, as that was in order.) They agreed to keep the material on file and look at it again later, and apparently when they referred the matter to the Municipal Licensing & Standards Enforcement Unit, the plumber provided the City with a proper receipt (the one that Nusite should have forwarded to me in the first place) and at long last I received that part of the rebate. All this lowered my review to 6 stars. So be careful if you use them. The work itself seems fine, and of course I’m pleased that my house did not fall down, but make sure you get everything in writing, and double check any paperwork they give you for the city.

I used their store in Mississauga (the one on Dundas St. East) to buy some carpeting (broadloom that was cut down and bound into an area rug), and later to install some vinyl flooring with a skid-proof nosing. For the carpet, a very pleasant gentleman Suresh helped me, and gave good advice about colour to match my upholstery. He later also advised me about other matters (e.g. how best to protect some newly installed floor tile, although I had not bought the tile from their store). I can’t speak to their pricing, as that was not my primary concern, but their carpet selection seemed good. Another salesperson Tony went out of his way to help me choose the right vinyl for my basement stairs, even dropping by my house to show me samples, and although there were some delays and glitches in the installation, he was pleasant and helpful. The installer Jay was also friendly and professional, and did a good job when some tricky cutting and fitting was required. Finally, I used their cleaning service to clean upholstery in my house, and again the young man they sent was cheerful and did a good job. Having just had a major renovation done on my house, with many bad experiences with contractors and movers, it was nice to have a positive experience for a change!

I should have paid attention to the many negative reviews about GEM on this site! Last year (2014) I ordered an expensive glass patio door with interior mini-blinds and a phantom-type retracting screen. The salesman Phil assured me that the requests I had itemised (most of them in writing) could be honoured. I told him that I wanted a particular type of mini-blind with a single control, a regular handle on the screen rather than the fingertip pull ones in their showroom, and the screen’s tension needing to be reduced, as my physical problems make it difficult for me to open otherwise. When the door was installed (by my own contractor), I saw that almost all aspects of it were wrong. Although the door itself looked okay, with the three-point locking system I had ordered (that’s why GEM does get one point out of 10), it opened the wrong way, the mini-blinds were wrong, the screen handle was wrong, and the screen tension was way too tight. I phoned Phil many times, and he finally came by to see the door. He was extremely rude and belligerent and refused to discuss the door or mini-blinds or handle. He said that GEM could change any aspect of an order without notice because “it’s in the fine print—you should have read the fine print!” He said I could talk to my lawyer if I insisted, but it would do no good to pursue legal action against GEM because “We got lots of lawyers!” He did agree to send someone to adjust the screen tension, which he said would be easy to do. He never did. After several more phone calls to Phil's cell phone and his promising to call back and not doing so, I called GEM directly and was told that Phil was no longer with them. I spoke with Jim, who seems to be a member of the family business. He told me that Phil had been fired. He said that Phil had done many things wrong with other customers even worse than what he did with me, and they had kept him on because he was the same ethnic group (really!), but finally they had to get rid of him. Jim sounded very apologetic and accommodating and assured me he would do everything he could to make things right. This sounded promising. I went to meet Jim at their showroom, and he had changed his tune. He now said that the mini-blinds would only be replaced if I paid extra money to do so, because “there’s nothing wrong with them.” Well, I didn’t order this type–if you order a Mercedes and get a Ford, that’s wrong, even if the Ford runs well. The blinds also did not close tightly enough for full privacy, and he said that all interior mini-blinds have this defect, something Phil had neglected to inform me. He kept reminding me that my contractor had failed to get Phil to send a confirmatory e-mail about which way the door was to open (which unfortunately was true, but let’s keep in mind that an oral contact is as valid as a written one although harder to prove). In an earlier phone call he had kept insisting that my screen door handle must be screwed on when in fact it had been welded or glued on making it harder to change, and he did not want to agree to change it unless I proved to him that it was not screwed on by sending him a photo of it (how this would prove it I do not know). As by now it was autumn and the weather too bad to be going out on the patio anyway, after discussion, I agreed to wait until I had used the screen for a while come the next spring (that is, in 2015) to see if the tension loosened on its own and I could use it without changing the handle or adjusting the tension. Once used, however, I found that the screen tension did not loosen, and I continued to struggle. After a couple of phone calls earlier this year (2015) that Jim did not return, we finally communicated via e-mail and he agreed to send someone to change the tension. His men showed up, but it turned out they had no idea how to loosen the screen. After fruitless attempts to get Jim on the phone while his men were there, he finally sent an e-mail informing me that the manufacturer had told him that the screen tension could not be adjusted so there was nothing more he would do for me. So now I have an expensive door that opens the wrong way, with mini-blinds not the ones I ordered, a screen that is dangerously tight (it thwacks people while closing if you let go of it too soon), and difficulty getting onto my patio. I may need to spend money to replace the whole door and screen assembly, hopefully from a company that values customer service more than GEM does. It's not enough to say "it was all Phil's fault so we fired him so you can't complain about our company." Phil was acting as GEM's agent and representative for years, with their tolerating him, and they did not really do anything useful to correct the situation once he was gone.

AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS! This is the type of shoddy business that TV shows like "Marketplace" expose to their viewers! I have actually lodged a formal complaint against them with the Better Business Bureau. Their website looks professional, with many supposedly genuine positive reviews. The initial contact person Russell seemed reasonable, although he refused to accept payment by cheque. That should have been a red flag to me—a dissatisfied customer can stop payment on a cheque but not on cash! The movers who came on day one of a small two-day move seemed pleasant, and worked steadily, and because my background is similar to theirs (Ukrainian) we could communicate clearly. However, it turned out that they packed things wrong (putting files backwards into boxes, mixing up books, etc.), dis-assembled a floor-to-ceiling bookcase incorrectly with dangerous nails left sticking out, and wrapped my bookshelves in cheap plastic tape that took the next day’s crew hours to scrape off (and it took me many more hours to remove all the remaining residue myself). The next day they showed up with too few men–only two not the three agreed upon–so the actual move took hours longer than it should have and damaged a very expensive filing cabinet that was too heavy for only two men to take down the stairs safely. They did not know how to re-assemble my bookcase (and did not even bring the proper tools with them so I had to provide them—and then one of my driver bits disappeared with them!), left the bookcase damaged and unstable, demanded that I pay them while my boxes were still on their truck, then drove off and abandoned the remaining boxes in my driveway at 11 o`clock at night. Russell never bothered to get in touch with me, even after a lengthy email, and did not provide a receipt until I demanded one. I have still not received an apology or a refund.