Toomey Contracting

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My house was recently purchased and while the home was structurally sound,  little maintenance or updating had been done to it in many years.  Rather than just fix it up here and there, I decided to completely renovate the house and make it a more comfortable home to live in.  I contacted Matt Toomey and asked him to put together a plan and an estimate that would give me the home that I desired and within a budget that I felt was affordable.  Matt was very prompt in putting a plan and estimate together for me and explained that he was a 'hands on' contractor who would personally be working on the house and not just over-seeing sub-contractors.  After considering other contractors, I decided to have Matt do the work on the home.  Over the course of two months, I was able to observe Matt and his crew from initial tear-out thru the final finish work.  Matt always kept me informed on the progress of the work, answered all of my questions, conferred with me when unexpected problems arose (such as sewer lines that were discovered to be crumbling under the basement floor ) and made sure the work was done to my satisfaction.  Matt uses licensed sub-contractors for the electrical, plumbing and heating work and he appears to have a very good working relationship with them.  His sub-contractors and his crew always cleaned up after themselves and left the property as clean as circumstances would allow.  Matt and all of the guys who work with him are friendly, polite and went out of their way to may sure that I was completely satisfied with the finished work.  I would recommend Matt to anyone who needs work done on their home and I would not hesitate to use him again in the future.

Prior to the final sign on our home, we had a walk-through with the lead contractor of the flip Matt Toomey. We used the pre-flip Truth in Sale of Housing (TISH) report for talking points. A big red flag item on the TISH was water damage and we wanted to make sure that was taken care of before we signed. He assured us he addressed and fixed those issues so we should have no future problems. After less than six months in the home we discovered black mold on the drywall in a closet in our basement. We continue to get black mold in that closet and we run a dehumidifier next to it year-round. The next Spring thaw we had more water damage on our main floor. Granted the Spring thaw of 2011 adversely affected many homes in the metro, but the damage we sustained had obviously happened previously as you could see the patch work now that it was highlighted.

As a flip, when we moved into our house, everything looked brand new. Lipstick on a pig, really. The contractor told us our main floor bathroom was, indeed, all brand new. The bathtub in that bathroom started peeling in less than a year. Tape and nails on the drywall that was not properly mudded, or maybe not even mudded at all, began to pop out in the bathroom and almost every other room in the house after about a year. The same matte paint was used on every wall in our house except for the small downstairs bathroom. This was our bad - we should have known that flat paint is cheap and good at covering imperfections. As soon as we started repainting with a more expensive satin finish paint in our more high traffic areas (hallways, bathroom, and kitchen) we started seeing what the flat covered up. Paint on our exterior steps leading into the rear of the home started peeling after a year. Our hardwood floors that were beautiful when we moved in, started wearing down to the wood after less than a year. Because copper had been stolen from our home when it was vacant, the contractor had to replace some pipes and fix the general plumbing. Before summer came we had Centerpoint come out to inspect our air conditioning unit (outside) and he stated the unit was non-functioning as the copper had been ripped out and not replaced. Thankfully we had the Home Service Plus plan and this problem was remedied for free.

After living in the home for almost two years now I have gotten so fed up when I look around and see more and more evidence of Toomey Contracting's shoddy work that I just had to purchase a subscription to Angie's List so I could write this one review. If only in writing this review all the wrongs that were done could be righted...

As a disclaimer: I have no idea how much Toomey was contracted for by the previous owner for the flip of our home, so I did a ballpark estimate of $30k. Also, I don't think Toomey performed all of the work on the flip but he was ultimately responsible for the final product.

UPDATE: This past week my husband started repainting the walls on the main floor to cover up the flat paint so I can wash the walls when needed. He found, in multiple places, tape that had been placed down over cracks and simply painted over. He could actually peel the pieces of tape off. The cracks and water damage to the ceiling were old and poorly patched over. We ended up have to take the old plaster down and replaster the area. My husband used to be a commercial painter and he said that he's been rushed on jobs before, but never would a quality contractor put their name on this job.

Matt's Construction Built the house from start to finish. Was completed in four months from the day of ground breaking. It is a 2 story 4 Br 2Ba home in Mpls. The house was built to fit its neighborhood. Matts Construction did a great job from start to finish.