Disaster Recon

We were contacted by Disaster Recon very quickly after our insurance company called them. Two women came and went through everything in the kitchen documenting everything that was ruined including taking photos. Everything that was undamaged was individually wrapped in bubble wrap, then in brown paper and placed in good grade cardboard boxes which were labeled with the contents of the box. The boxes were of uniform size and stacked well. They cleaned everything in the kitchen. On the third day there was a third person and they finished up in a few hours. When they were finished, everything had been thoroughly cleaned and there was not even the smell of smoke in the house. I thought they were excellent and very polite and professional. My insurance paid for the cleaning so I didn't do any comparison shopping to know if the price they charged was a good price or not.

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Summary of my assessment: They definitely cleaned my basement, but the disorder they left in rearranging my possessions will take me months to undo. Background: We had about an inch to two inches of rainwater, with some mud, on our large basement floor. The areas were used for laundry, book sales, hobbies, and storage of my mother's and my son's estate items. Plusses: 1. Polite and reassuring 2. opened a basement drain for me 3. cleared debris from a porch drain 4. returned and redressed some of the more egregious mistakes 5. Dan speculated on how to prevent further flooding. I'm not sure how much of his advice was good. Problems: 1. I asked for an estimate and a list of what they would do, but Dan dodged the question, saying he couldn't be sure at that point. He said he'd try to keep it under my insurance limit. He did say things would be returned to the approximate area from which they had originated. I managed to dissuade him from boxing up several thousand books which were well out of the water, and which were alphabetized. If they had boxed these, I would have had to hire a librarian to restore order, and I doubt it would have even been doable. 2. They packed my belongs out at random in 74 boxes. They originally charged me for 100 boxes, but we settled this when I offered to take them for my nephew's use. 3. Boxes were filled at random. In one I found an empty water bottle, half of a toy, and a blouse. That was all. My telephone headset was missing for an entire week. 4. They packed the items back in but did not return items to their proper places. In many cases, I found items from the laundry room in the opposite corner, where I have an office for shipping books. They left a bottle of chlorine bleach upside down in the laundry tub over several items were were not benefited by this. I still have not found my supply of my own books, which I sell at conventions and on the web. 5. The boxes were not taped. The bottom fell out of at least one. 6. The boxes were place on the floor. When I pointed out that this was an invitation to disaster, since another flood would soak them, Jennifer implied that I was being insecure. However, they did return and put the boxes up on chairs and tables in a row as I directed so I can reach them and unpack. 7. They pushed a heavy bookcase in front of the door to our wine cabinet so we couldn't access it. They did fix this. 8. They installed very noisy 15 fans and 15 dehumidifiers (I'm not sure of the exact numbers because of their weird billing nomenclature) and ran them for several days. I was only charged for three days, but they ran longer than that, and not only were my cats afraid to enter their litterbox area because of the deafening noise, and I was unable to sleep. I finally had to ask if I could turn them off. 9. They asked me to pay for the storage pod. This appeared to be to reduce the amount they would charge to insurance. I'm not sure how this was beneficial to me. I think they just wanted the bottom line to look good. 10. The invoice was very hard to understand. They kept charging me $0.00 for something called "Remove" and various prices for "Replace." 11. The floor was still covered in a thin glaze of mud when they finished. I asked them to fix this, and they sent a company called Orion over with the proper machine. It still wasn't perfect, but at least it was presentable. 12. They left the bathroom sink and the laundry tub clogged with miscellaneous items from all over the basement. I couldn't even wash my hands. 13. wooden items were left near the furnace. They did come and move those. I truly think if I had not had a leg injury at the time that my husband and I could have fixed the problem with the help of Matt Baron's Maid Service, and I would have been able to find things in my basement.

This company responded to my urgent needs promptly, unlike several similar competitors who didn't even bother to acknowledge my calls. Having a basement flood unexpectedly is a very stressful event, and all the employees at Servicemaster were very polite and professional. Jen at the home office was very well organized, smart and exceptionally kind and empathetic. How a company treats its customers is the key to its success.

They were well priced of the couple of different bids we had. They responded very quickly. It did a take a little bit longer than we wanted for a quote but they were just very busy. It took almost two weeks and we know that our sewage and the basement needed taken care of right away. The only difficulty we had was not an immediate response and it took longer than we expected to get it fixed. They were really professional and really easy to work with. They were very responsive while we were choosing what to put in the basement. We were really happy with the quality of work. Their price was very competitive. They were lowered priced. We had one issue that they came back and fixed it and were very responsive to that. Especially in the storm disaster, we expect the response to be very quick but that was our expectation, so that was the only disappointing part. They showed up on time every day. We did have a little bit of an issue of people going in the basement and not covering my floors when they were coming out.

The owner (Greg) responded promptly to our request for an inspection/estimate. He was on time and very professional, luckily it turned out that we didn't need mold remediation. We appreciated him being up front and honest about services that were needed. He provided some advice on how to clean the area and how to prevent the possibility of mold going forward. He also provided us an estimate on some ceiling paint water damage we had as a result of our shingles blowing off. The price was very competitive, but in the end I've decided to try and make the repairs myself. If I had a need for water damage/mold/etc services in the future I would definitely contact Disaster Recon again.