Horribly.
We are in the process of putting our home on the market, so we had a paint contractor (Covenant Bros. Bob Brown) outside painting the exterior of the house, in absolutely no conflict with Veteran's contractors, who were scheduled to arrive around lunch or noon. Covenant did a fantastic job on our exterior paint. I will leave the details in another review of Mr. Brown's services.
We also had a handyman (Larry Bryant) doing some work on our outside porches and replacing two interior toilets and changing out some ceiling fans. Mr. Bryant also did a terrific job for us.
When Veteran's representatives arrived, they were a very young woman and man (both 19-20 years old). They arrived in a van at approx 11:45 a.m. When my wife, who had taken off specifically to be there for Veteran's (and not the other 2 contractors), welcomed them in, our handyman Mr. Bryant was in the process of completing a new toilet install in one of our upstairs bathrooms and had a water line which he was in the process of replacing. He did hit a snag and had to run to the store to get a replacement line. My wife actually went and purchased the line and was back by 12:15. Before my wife left to pick up the line, she asked Veterans's rep, the young woman, if this would present a problem. She said that it would not as they had to pull out their lines and equipment and that it would take awhile.
Note: Upstairs, Veterans was contracted to clean 2 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, and the main hall. Our handyman was in ONE bathroom for approximately 20-30 minutes of this time. If Veteran's had wanted to, they could have started in either of our children's bedrooms and would not have interfered with Mr. Bryant in the least, nor he, them. Again, my wife had been assured that Veteran's reps had no issue with Mr. Bryant's work in that one bathroom.
When my wife returned at 12:15, she saw the Veteran's representatives sitting in the van, with NONE of their gear out and was told by the young and ill-trained representatives that she was to call Tim at their office immediately. When she called Tim he first refused to say anything, then began screaming, "Do you have other contractors's at your home right now?!" My wife, taken aback, replied "yes", as if it was any of his business other than if these contractors were impeding Veteran's in any way, which they absolutely were not. Tim, their sales manager, in very belittling fashion, told my wife that "he didn't pay his people to sit in the van and do nothing. " My wife said she agreed, and that there was NO REASON AT ALL for Veteran's two teenagers to be sitting in a van, listening to the radio. NOT pulling out equipment or lines. NOT cleaning either of the two children's bedrooms, the other upstairs bedroom, or the first floor bedroom and laundry room. NOTHING AT ALL WAS GOING ON. In Tim's view, this was all my wife's fault, but any reasonable manager would have easily seen that this was the case.
Tim had also left, on my phone a message at 12:11, which said that I was to call him immediately in a very rude tone. As I teach and coach, I did not see this message until our lunch period. I did call him back, but he did not answer either of my calls.
Veteran's began work at around 12:25 or so after my wife go off of the phone with Tim. If I had been there, I would have told them to leave my property immediately, but my wife was a lot more understanding than most anyone would have been. To say their work was shoddy and substandard is an understatement!
First, our tile was cleaned in both bathrooms and a downstairs bedroom and laundry room. It was cleaned, but not particularly well. My kids could have mopped it and done just as well. It was certainly not the level of cleaning which was represented by Veterans.
The real problems were with our carpet. First, it was not cleaned well at all. And I mean, AT ALL!! None of the spots which Tim, on the pre-inspection process assured us would come up were removed, but it certainly wasn't from lack of using enough water, as our floors were absolutely drenched and soaking wet. We've had floors cleaned in previous homes and have always had a good response (especially with Steamex years ago). The process is wet, but most of the water should be EXTRACTED from the carpet as that is how the soil and stains are gathered back into the cleaner tanks. Our floors were so covered in water that they were still soaking wet the next night, over 24 hours later. It was as if they wet everything down to look as if they had done something and then just left. Plastic covers that were supposed to be put on the feet of our furniture in wet areas was only applied under under chest of drawers in one bedroom. Our bedposts sat in water, as did our cabinet and entertainment center. All wet and unprotected! We ran our A/C and ceilings fans at full blast trying to dry the floor, which took over 36 hours. When the carpet did dry it was brittle and crunchy as if there had been solvent left on it. Not sure if this is why, but I'd bet on it. It was obvious that they decided to get done fast, get paid and get out. I believe they were told to do so by Tim, but that is certainly nothing that can be proven.
Veteran's representatives rushed my wife into paying them and they hightailed it out by 3:30 or so. Funny, as we were told that this process would take over four hours to complete. Remember, they didn't actually start working until approx 12:30.
When my wife actually saw the mess and amount of water on the carpet, she know that she had made a mistake in paying them for completed and quality work. This was neither! She called me at the school panicking. I told her to call them back, but Tim did not answer her calls. I then called Tim four times and left two different messages to call me back immediately as we had a problem. Tim never called either of us back that afternoon or evening. Nor did he call the next morning, so we decided that the only recourse we had was to stop payment on the check we had given them. In our history together, over 17 years, neither me, nor my wife, have EVER stopped payment on a check. (Our other contractors, Mr. Brown -$2,000- and Mr. Bryant - $1,000 - were paid just as soon as their services were completed in full in cash, and we were very pleased with those services. They would both attest to this fact.)
Two days after the check was cancelled, we received a call from another representative at Veteran's, named Jim, saying that they wanted us to pay them for services rendered, immediately. There was no mention of our calls or complaints, just "Pay us now." Later, they sent threatening texts saying that they would put a contractor's lien on our home unless we paid them immediately. My wife called Veteran's and told them the problems and how absolutely shoddy their "service" was to us. They asked us for a chance to look at the work and to see about giving them a chance to make it up, but when my wife met with owners John & Jim at our home, taking off from work to do this at our expense, she was told that everything they did was good and that we shouldn't have expected to see those carpet stains come up, as had been promised. They even told my wife that Tim would not have told her that they could clean the stains and that it was probably from "animal feces", as we do have three very clean, and house-trained dogs in our home. These dogs are almost never upstairs and never unattended. This was obviously an attempt to call my wife a liar and say that our house is filthy. (A tactic called shifting the blame.) I can assure you the house is clean, except for the carpets.... thanks to Veterans. I also assure you that my wife did not lie as to her being told the carpet would come clean as that is what Tim point-blank told me on the same day.
Obviously Tim knew that if he had stated that Veteran's couldn't guarantee cleaning our carpet that he would lose this sale, so he told us