HomeWatch, Inc

Every job, except interior painting all the rooms, went poor to fair. The company offers a wonderful variety of services which could be very helpful to seasonal residents, but the company did not often deliver timely or high quality work. There seems to be a lot of employee turnover in front office staff, home visit staff, construction and landscaping staff. I suspect that staffing problems led to the punctuality and work quality problems. Specific issues included the purchase and installation of a new front storm door. I was told that the job was completed and billed for it. However, when I arrived at the house a week later, I found that the old door as well as the cardboard box for the new door were discarded in my driveway and the new door was without an inside or outside handle and latch. These problems were corrected the next day. The company was unable to provide the requested and promised storm watch house visits after several nor'easters. Other contractors that I hired had difficulty making appointments with HomeWatch to be let into my house. HomeWatch was an hour late to one appointment. Another issue was year round landscaping including snow removal, lawn mowing, pruning, weeding and mulching, spring and fall cleanups. It took 3+ weeks after I took the landscaping manager around the property to receive an estimate. Two other landscaping companies provided similar estimates within 2 days of visiting the property, We decided not to use the HomeWatch landscaping services after the quote timeliness and the storm door issue. The painting job was excellent. The company has a gem of a long time employee who does outstanding work including all prep, painting and cleanup. Unfortunately, he is currently the only painter, so there can be a delay before he is available to start a job. I would definitely hire the painter again. My wife and I made an appointment to meet the owner and office manager in their office to discuss our concerns. The office manager was very attentive and apologetic. However, the owner did not seem interested in talking to us other than to say hi.

unknown

.

unknown

They have been very reliable. They have high quality work.

HomeWatch is reliable.  They check on my property, inside and outside, on a weekly basis when I am not at home.  Weekly checks include making sure the furnace is working, the telephone is working, the electricity is working; making sure that the windows and doors are secure; and making sure that the house has sustained no damage.  The do extra visits after storms.

WORST GENERAL CONTRACTOR I HAVE EVER WORKED WITH!  The quality of the work was so bad it was almost comical but it was way too expensive to be funny. I could have built a new house for what he charged. Justin quoted firm prices for most of the work, then tried to push us to do time and materials. Then just started sending bill after bill without any proper backup tying back to the hours. We finally agreed on a price to finish the job and I wrote him a check for all but about $8,000. Big mistake. He stopped coming back to fix all the things that they did wrong. We finally had to fire them and bring in a competent contractor to finish the job and fix all the mistakes.

Some examples:

In the Bathroom, his workers left a one inch opening in the half wall of the shower. You could see the studs above the rough edge of the sheetrock. They even painted the wall and left the opening. When I pointed this out to Justin he said to me 'well that's not my fault'. REALLY JUSTIN, who's fault is it?

They didn't miter the corners when they did the tile. so the pencil molding that is supposed to finish off the edges of the tile were just laid next to each other with the rounded edge up against a flat side. It was total amateur hour!

When I finally fired Justin and brought in a new contractor, all they could do was laugh.

The Kitchen was the worst. Justin was supposed to be the GC, but he never wrote anything down, so everything got screwed up. He ordered the wrong Microwave, we caught the mistake the day it was ordered and immediately send him an email to correct it. When the Microwave cam in it was still the wrong one and it was too big for the opening in the cabinet.  So instead of reordering the correct he had one his people shaved down the opening of the cabinet. So picture this, a finished white cabinet now has a shaved side that has the dark brown underlying cabinet material showing through. These 'professionals' were so incompetent that they ruined a brand new cabinet instead of calling us (we live 5 hours away) and telling us that the Microwave that came in was too big.

Plus, They couldn't measure anything correctly, or if they could they didn't communicated it to the guy from Mid-Cape Supply who ordered the cabinets. The cabinets were supposed to go from the wall to the window over the sink, they came in 4 inches short. But Justin hung them anyway and tried to get us to believe that was correct.

Do not use them for any big contracting project. Prior to this job they had watched my house for 3 years. We had a great relationship. If this is how they treated a long term customer imagine how they will treat you.

unknown

WORST GENERAL CONTRACTOR I HAVE EVER WORKED WITH!  The quality of the work was so bad it was almost comical but it was way too expensive to be funny. I could have built a new house for what he charged. Justin quoted firm prices for most of the work, then tried to push us to do time and materials. Then just started sending bill after bill without any proper backup tying back to the hours. We finally agreed on a price to finish the job and I wrote him a check for all but about $8,000. Big mistake. He stopped coming back to fix all the things that they did wrong. We finally had to fire them and bring in a competent contractor to finish the job and fix all the mistakes.

Some examples:

In the Bathroom, his workers left a one inch opening in the half wall of the shower. You could see the studs above the rough edge of the sheetrock. They even painted the wall and left the opening. When I pointed this out to Justin he said to me 'well that's not my fault'. REALLY JUSTIN, who's fault is it?

They didn't miter the corners when they did the tile. so the pencil molding that is supposed to finish off the edges of the tile were just laid next to each other with the rounded edge up against a flat side. It was total amateur hour!

When I finally fired Justin and brought in a new contractor, all they could do was laugh.

The Kitchen was the worst. Justin was supposed to be the GC, but he never wrote anything down, so everything got screwed up. He ordered the wrong Microwave, we caught the mistake the day it was ordered and immediately send him an email to correct it. When the Microwave cam in it was still the wrong one and it was too big for the opening in the cabinet.  So instead of reordering the correct he had one his people shaved down the opening of the cabinet. So picture this, a finished white cabinet now has a shaved side that has the dark brown underlying cabinet material showing through. These 'professionals' were so incompetent that they ruined a brand new cabinet instead of calling us (we live 5 hours away) and telling us that the Microwave that came in was too big.

Plus, They couldn't measure anything correctly, or if they could they didn't communicated it to the guy from Mid-Cape Supply who ordered the cabinets. The cabinets were supposed to go from the wall to the window over the sink, they came in 4 inches short. But Justin hung them anyway and tried to get us to believe that was correct.

Do not use them for any big contracting project. Prior to this job they had watched my house for 3 years. We had a great relationship. If this is how they treated a long term customer imagine how they will treat you.

Quick, hassle free service.

We asked for recommendations for suppliers to work on our home which they advertised as part of their service when we selected them for home watch.  However, the two times we asked for recommendations they did not respond.

They do a wonderful job. They have sub categories under services and when they don’t provide the service themselves, they have people who do it for them. They do everything for the home that I need to have done like plumbing, electrical, painting, roofing and much more. The only concern is that they are not cheap but they do quality work. When they say something, they get it done.

They specialize in people?s vacation homes. They brokered my cleaning woman out there. If my in-laws show up and say they want to spend the week in our cape house and I wasn?t in town, I could call them up and ask them to go in and turn on the heat or make sure the AC is working, put a bottle of wine on the counter and note from me and they would do it for me. It is a concierge service. It makes having a vacation home possible for people who work. They do my landscaping. Not living there and not knowing who the good landscaping service or good general contracting or good plumber, I have used them and they have vetted all of these contractors so they are sort of my super. We locked ourselves out once and I called them and they came with a key and let us in. They do a lot of different services but they specialize in helping you to manage your second home. They just redid my deck for me. They would grocery shop for me and fill my refrigerator if I gave them a list.