SOUTHERN STATES CONSTRUCTION INC

We were starting the work in November 2007. The "team" came and did the demolition. We were told a few days later that not all of the city's permits had come through. Both my husband and I wondered why did they start the demolition if they did not have all the papers in hand. Designer had to have changes made for city approval. The actual construction started 3 months later. Yes we lived with all of the debris during those 3 months. No one came back for the garbage and soda cans left in the apartment. I am sure that they thought they would be coming back soon but neither the GC nor the project leader ever came back to make sure that all of the debris was gone. When the construction started, the people who probably would have worked on our place were on other jobs. By this time, there was a different project leader. We thought we were hiring the Yankees team and instead got a farm team. The subs that were used did not show pride in their work nor did they always use common sense. They arrived at their convenience not always when it was the right time in the project. We would see a worker and then not see someone for a week or two - a lot of gaps in the time and gaps in the quality of the work. As I mentioned before we got a farm team. The person who did the bulk of the plastering, painting, hardware, etc. was a very nice young man who only spoke Spanish. He would come in by himself to do all of the work. He was not a professional plasterer nor painter. He was a hard worker but not qualified to do interior work by himself. He would come for a few hours a day to do the work alone. When we hired the GC, we were told that there would always be a project manager supervising - that was not the case. Things had to be redone. We were the ones to find the mistakes. They often left garbage. One time there was some painting that was to be done - workers showed up the GC but they did not have paint so he sent them home! The plumbers and the electricians had to come back to redo some things. It did not make sense to us that we had to pick up the mistakes and not the GC. The backsplash in the kitchen had to be redone. I contacted the manufacturer as I knew there was a mistake. The GC said that the tile people followed the directions. They had not. The carpet and tile was put down early on. The workers did not protect the floor causing us to have a dirty new carpet. Workers did not care. The Carpet was also put in wrong. We could not wait for the GC to have the cleaning crew come. We wanted him out. Once the workers left, we found so many more errors -- one wall had a very visible line. It was never pointed out to us. Grout in the floor tile is gapping. The workers had moved our furniture during the remodeling. We have now found that they ripped the bottom of our couch and our bed. Again, this was not pointed out to us. There was no concern for our property nor the fact that our lives were on hold.