CYPRESS CONSTRUCTION CORP

At the beginning the experience was very positive. Bien Sanchez, the principal of Cypress, seemed reassuringly kind and professional. Having worked before with the architect, Cypress had performed the pre-renovation analysis and discovery, so we were quite confident that there would be few surprises.The demolition phase went by quickly, and Cypress was responsive to the complaints (mostly legitimate) from neighbors about noise and vibration-related damage. In retrospect, the trouble signs began shortly thereafter, with complaints about the building super "poking around", which usually turned out to mean following up on a violation of coop rules, such as working after designated hours, failing to clean up properly or damaging shared property. Cypress always started by denying any wrongdoing and ended with the curious excuse that they were only identified as the culprit because no other renovations were going on at the time. A similar trajectory of exculpatory nonsense accompanied the growing list of construction errors within the apartment. For example, an observation of messy plumbing work (dirty, solder-splattered joints, with char marks all over adjacent walls) would first be denied outright and later blamed on coop policies that forced them to hurry. As time went by, errors and delays accumulated, always accompanied with some fictional excuse. The comedy of errors surrounding our air-conditioning was especially ridiculous. The original line item on the quote was for a central air system. Some months into the renovation, they announced that the quote was for an inefficient system they now openly derided: it was so inefficient, it would require major and expensive electrical work to increase the amperage in our apartment. After much discussion, we agreed to pay an extra $4k for a system from a different manufacturer. Another month or two later, Cypress revealed that they had chosen a system that could not be installed because the compressor was substantially larger than the space outside the building where they planned to put it. Despite having performed all the initial discovery and measured every aspect of the space, they persisted in describing this as an unanticipatable setback. Eventually, we settled on a so-called ductless split system, and I was happy when their emailed quote was in fact $5k less than the original line item. Eventually, Cypress would claim that this quote was not to be compared to the original quote, but rather to an undocumented sub-component of it. I.e. we should pay them even more, rather than less. In addition, Cypress essentially suspended work on the apartment during the discussion, despite the huge remaining amount of construction unrelated to and unaffected by the a/c efforts, contributing to more than a month of delay. We quickly established a pattern of delays, excuse-making and history-rewriting, which can probably be generalized to the single biggest indictment of Cypress: they don't know how to manage. With infinite money and time, this might not be a flaw, but we had a budget and a deadline. The contractor originally estimated 4 months for the work; the contract was padded to 6 months; our lease on the temporary apartment we were living in expired in 10, giving us a substantial buffer we thought would be sufficient. In the end, Cypress panicked, cramming work that (at their pace) would have taken half a year into the last few weeks, doing incredible damage in the process. Most glaringly, the paint job was atrocious. Many surfaces were not primed at all, cracks were filled with globs of paint rather than properly plastered, adjacent surfaces were splattered and then violently gauged during cleanup. It is not an exaggeration to say that every boundary between two surfaces (wall/molding/floor/counter/cabinetry/etc) was botched. In the months since we moved in, the problems have accumulated. Cabinets have bowed and cracked, a range hood turned out to inject greasy fumes directly into the upstairs neighbor's apartment.... I could go on. We are now embroiled in an ongoing perdition, in which Cypress sends us incomprehensible demands for more money, while providing no credible suggestion for how to fix their horrible mistakes. The bright side is that their managerial incompetence extends to legal protocols as well. Absolutely none of their supposed "change orders" was submitted (to say nothing of signed) before work started. They also do not seem to understand that requisitions for payment need to be certified by the architect, who under the circumstances would have to be insane to sign anything related to the quality of this job. Be careful of these people. Cypress will line up some effusive recommenders for you to talk to, but there's an iceberg of dissatisfaction they won't tell you about. If you are choosing contractors, we would be glad to talk to you about our experience. We also have a flickr photostream documenting some of the mess (I'm now allowed to link to it here, but let me know if you can't find it).