PENOBSCOT CLEANING SVC

Not good. The workers stole a log of personal and expensive clothing. They were told by my husband George Merz to not touch anything w/o his permission; they stole 3 expensive L L Bean items of clothing; they stole a very expensive huge queen size purple gold corded comforter (heavy duty) it was on our sofa in the family room where they worked has to be worth 200 dollars!! They worked in the family room pulling out sheetrock and carpeting; we asked them to help pack up our things as it was a huge job and we are 78 and 80; they did pack up a bunch of things but they stole clothing and threw out books from a bookcase in the family room that were not wet (only the bottom shelf and floor area was wet) the books are irreplaceable; and I did not have a list of them; one of them cost 81 dollars (Gregg Reference Manual); they heavily scratched our entertainment center that plays 8 track tapes and the Xmas album Readers Digest 8 Track album was taken (or thrown away) they damaged my daughter's 8 1/2 by 11 picture when they pulled the entertainment center away from the wall; and scotch taped the back together and then put the picture way up on the highest dresser in the empty bedroom w/o saying anything; I saw scotch tape dangling from the top of the dresser is how I found the picture! The metal baseboard heater cover is what severely scratched the entertainment center: they put f tear in one of my son's leather vests when the guy took all the clothes out of his closet in that bedroom and put them over the entertainment center and other things that were thrown together there; they took apart a 4/drawer multi colored hard plastic dresser and put a bunch of heavy wires in the bottom drawer and put that drawer in the garage and stacked a bunch of other things on top of that drawer to cover it up and then [put the dresser w/the missing drawers in the garage and refused to tell us what they had done; we told at least 3 workers about this and one worker took pictures of the dresser w/the missing bottom drawer; I finally found the missing drawer not because I was looking for it but because I was looking for printer parts and supplies that were actually on top of the missing dresser drawer. They threw away a hollow legged end table stand just because the bottom got wet and did not ask me about it; that stand cannot be replaced and had a built in lamp on the top; they left me the lamp shade! How nice! I would not recommend this company to anyone. my heart is broken over the stolen heirloom comforter that belongs to my son, not the worker who stole it for no good reason except a lack of basic morals and decency. We will never get over these losses and only took this company because we had used them in the past for drying out our flooded carpets 3 times before but the damage was not like this one because the waters were rising and we did not know that the crazy electrical worker who put in our gas line had unplugged our sump pump to play his crazy music from some radio he brought to work in our boiler room and this loon bag never told us what he had done and when he left he left the sump pump unplugged; he never told us what he did and he did not have to unplug anything; there was a plug in a few feet down on the very wall he was working from and on! I pray we can find a company that does not exploits and steal personal possessions or make off with a bathroom sink either and all the piping w/o telling my husband who needed those parts from all those pipes and screws but they never asked him or told him! I had to choose water and smoke damage but there was no smoke damage. It was flood damage from a failed sump pump that was not plugged in by an idiot who unplugged it ([name removed], an electrical worker) and not only water damage but he loss of personal items removed by workers who had no right to our personal possessions.

PLEASE use another company, and make sure you get at least one second opinion before spending this kind of money. These guys are AWFUL and they will argue with you, speak down to you, and blame you if you dare question the quality of their work. I bent over backwards to give these guys a chance to fix this, but they couldn't have cared less. I even reached out to the Owner who just blew us off. They remediated mold in our attic when we bought our home a few years ago. A mere 2.5 years later we found out it's essentially all come back, and they want another $7000 to remediate again. What a scam! They acted like this was normal and couldn't have cared less. After getting a second and third opinion, we found out just how bad a job they had done the previous time (something apparently they're pretty well known for amongst the local mold remediators). The other services couldn't believe it... Here's a list of everything they screwed up that you should look for. You can learn from our mistake: - They left two bathroom fan ducts exhausting into the attic. Even I know that this is the absolute worst thing you could do. It essentially guarantees mold growth. It is CRAZY that they missed this. - They didn't replace the insulation, which is also apparently mandatory for proper remediation. We found THICK mold they had missed under the insulation, and we were told mold on the insulation allowed it to spread again quickly. - The other services found many spots where they had missed in the previous remediation. You could literally see where the spray had missed on the walls. - They didn't seal any of the recessed lighting that was allowing air from our home to escape into the attic. - They didn't even attempt to address the airflow issues in our attic that caused the mold in the first place. We've now learned that our soffits were partially blocked and our ridge vent is nearly entirely obstructed. Penobscot Cleaning's only recommendation previously was to better insulate the attic door and monitor periodically. They even specifically recommended against installing a power fan. You can't make it up. If you are selling a home and want to resolve a mold issue as cheaply as possible at the expense of the buyers, by all means use these guys; You are guaranteed to have mold again in the near future. If you are buying a home, please insist on a different company. There are many other great options locally, please reach out to them. I was particularly impressed with Eastern Mold Remediation and Nason's Home Solutions. Both were extremely knowledgeable and helpful.

They did a good job.

The only thing I am giving one star for is that the company showed up quickly after the fire. As for the job that was done (I can't call it job completed) they were horrible. After the first day my wife and I spent going around the bedrooms after their crew to clean behind dressers, desks and under every bed. Our 4year old daughters room still had black soot on the floor and wall around her toy box and bookcase. The second day they showed up and continued on with us working beside them and having to redo parts of their work. The people who were assigned to the kitchen did a half fast job that my wife had to redo most of. The dishes were just thrown in the dishwasher with purple degreaser sprayed on them and run on rinse cycle then wiped with rags that left residue and lint all over them....we did not feel comfortable eating off from them so we redid them all ourselves. (The kitchen is where the fire was and got the most soot and smoke). The man who cleaned one half of the kitchen finished by taking a soaked mop and trying to mop up blown in insulation from our wood floor only to leave most of it behind so it dried in lumps all over the floor, I had to redo it and scrape the dried up stuff of the floor the next day so I felt comfortable walking on it, let alone our children. The woman on the crew had the gall to tell me that it had already been washed by them ( they didn't even have the sense to vacuum before they mopped). On the third and last day they showed up with half of the crew (3 people) that that had the previous days and they still had about half of the house to do. Most of the day they were crabbing that there was too much to complete in the time they were given by their leaders. So, they hurried through the last day leaving my wife to clean up after their mess they made in the cabinets and kitchen. I had to clean and mop up all of our downstairs floors because they did not have time to do them. They did get the living room done though. When their manager came by here on the first day he assured us that our Spring Cleaning would be done when they walked out, we were way over promised and way under delivered. We are still being charged for the things that were not done by there crew like the floors, doors that do not exist in the house, closets that the manager himself knew that they were told not to touch, an entryway and doors they did not touch, windows that still have soot all over them where you can see the lines from them just quickly going over with a wet rag, I can go in the living room and quickly wipe black off the walls in any spot, they lost parts to my lights in a bathroom and left vent hoses disconnected so the next time they were turned on they blew insulation all over the bathroom. When taking down a suspended ceiling in the bathroom of the business they broke some tiles and tucked them into trash bags to hide them then come up with a story of maybe we should replace them. I have gone down through their $12'000 plus bill that they sent us and can honestly say that they are charging 3-4 thousand dollars more than they did for work. When we called the company the stories changed that they were not here to clean dust but just soot from the fire and that we should be thankful that they came here and that they regretted taking the job. The manager was called during the process and informed that the job was not being done that he promised us, only to turn things around the next day when the crew had left, wouldn't even come here to take a look at things, won't take the charges off for what they did not do or what doesn't even exist in the house, only wanted to lie so he could cover his butt in front of his boss the owner. He even had the gall to tell me that the soot that I found just could magically reappear after they had cleaned and that dust couldn't contain soot from the fire. Incompetence at its best. I would not recommend this company to my enemies. Save yourself some trouble and check elsewhere first.