Designs By Elyse Santoro

We met a couple of times, and she recommended an electrician and window treatment professionals. We started the electrical work. It was a disaster, since he got the wrong information from Elyse, and had to redo the work in the kitchen, leaving big holes in the ceiling, left to be repaired by us. Her curtain professionals were about 3x more expensive than regular prices. Since we were in a time constraint, and her specialists could not meet our deadline, we decided to get the window treatments installed by a local company who charged a fraction of the price and could get the job done within a week (excellent company - which I will review later). During our critical time, the week before move-in, Elyse was nowhere to be found. We called, left messages, and could not get hold of her to finish and order furniture and fix the problems with the electrician (also an excellent guy, although he was provided wrong instructions by Elyse). We moved in, and tried to get hold of Elyse again. She finally got back to us, told us she had been afraid to tell us she was in a workshop for a week !!!!. Nevertheless, I decided to stick with her - although my husband disagreed already then. After living in the house for a month, we finally got some of the design plans she had been contracted to do. Others are still missing. Our main concern is the fact that we put deposits down for light fixtures and electricians work, and she owes us about $750 from this deposit. She claims we owe her, she added fees that were not in the contract: 25% commission for items bought on regular websites (she is only entitled to commission when she uses her trade discount), and 15% commission on electricians work - that was not in the contract either. She has now decided she will no longer work with us (which we agree to). This means that all the plans she made was a waste of money and effort, since we can not find the items she suggested for the house. We will have to start from scratch. Apart from the contractual issues, she has a rude demeanor, and told us about several items we own, that they are ugly or not our style. We told her we disagreed, but she kept insulting us. We asked to get our deposit back - and a cancellation notice to the contract, along with the fees she charged. We will be filing a BBB complaint, along with a notice to the Florida Licensing agency (we have not been able to find her license number, and she did not provide it when we asked).