MANHATTAN DESIGN & REMODELING GROUP

Tony Alessandro was the contractor who represented himself from Manhattan Design & Remodeling Group, as well as Medina Construction and The Landlord Contracting and Development Group. Please be advised at the outset that this is not merely a poor contractor, this man is a thief, a liar and a con man. He gave us a number of positive recommendations which turned out to be from years ago. During the last two years, he has scammed numerous people. He takes a large deposit on the job and asks for weekly payments to cover payroll and materials. Most weeks there was one man here, often doing nothing because there were no materials. Tony continued to reassure us that there was no problem. We started paying suppliers directly because we found out that he was not paying for the materials he claimed to have ordered and he was not paying his workers who often came to us looking for money. The man stole money from us and others without using that money for our jobs. He claimed that he was involved in a real estate deal that fell through and that was why the money was gone. Worker after worker quit because they weren't being paid, only the materials we ourselves paid for were delivered. After becoming suspicious, we questioned suppliers, his workers and other clients of Tony Alessandro and we found that everyone was being cheated. Most of his recent jobs have ended with him being fired and with new contractors being brought in to finish the job. We have done the same. He is being sued by numerous people, he owes many thousands of dollars to his suppliers and his workers. He is using the insurance and license number of a previous employer who he longer has anything to do with. The story is much longer and more involved but we do know that he is continuing to defraud people who are caught up by his low prices and his excellent "used car" salesmanship. BEWARE!

The first week started off well enough on the electrical work, which progressed slowly but was of decent quality. Then in the second week progress slowed to a crawl, and for the next several weeks they had people in the apartment maybe one day a week and very little work got done. I called a dozen times with no response. The only way I could get a call back was by leaving a message telling them I had locked them out the apartment and was looking for someone else to finish the work. The excuse for not getting started on the floors was that they were "waiting for specialized equipment to arrive" - this being the floor sander, which when they did finally start turned out to have been rented from Home Depot. When the floors were finally finished, they looked awful - rather than a dark stain (as in the sample) they looked as if they had been simply painted brown, with no wood grain visible, and the brush strokes were very clearly visible. To their credit, they agreed to do the floors over again, sanding the polish off and starting from scratch, for no charge. Which they did, but the results still weren't satisfactory - brush strokes visible, grit in the top layer of poly, too much stain so the wood grain was again not visible in many places. Also, for some reason the sanding was not at all smooth - the floor had clearly visible ridges. Additionally, the painting was slapdash - for example, I have adjustable wood shelves that they just painted in place rather than removing them first, and for the upper walls they just dabbed at it with a brush on a pole rather set up a scaffolding and doing it properly. The initial estimate from MD&R was that the whole job should take about three weeks. In the end, after two months, I started over with new contractors. I can live with (some) delays but not shoddy quality. I hired a specialist to handle the floors and am redoing everything. The floor is done (now having been sanded three times in the last two months) and looks great. Hope I have as much luck with the carpenters and painters I have coming in the next couple of weeks. Will be good to finally move back in after three months.

FOR THE LAST THREE MONTHS, THE CONTRACTOR HAS MADE ASSURANCES THAT THE PROJECT WILL BE COMPLETE IN A WEEK, OR TWO WEEKS BUT NEVER MEETS THAT TIME FRAME. HE ALWAYS HAS EXCUSES AND TAKES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS FAILURE TO MEET THE DEADLINE. THE WORK IS STILL INCOMPLETE.