DiNicola Contracting

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The people they employ are unprofessional?..its my number one complaint about this experience, not the actual job done, even though there were a few questions/issues there as well. 

I know it has been a bit since the work was completed, but I have better things to do than deal with unprofessionals and their antics.  We have been making sure people know about this in other ways - thank goodness for social media- I loved that it helped us spread the word a huge deal more.

My mother in law is 65 years old as well as on her own and hired DiNicola Contracting to remodel her bathroom?.our biggest disgust, was that the employees tried to take advantage of her because she is elderly- they offered her $2 for an authentic Nolan Ryan autographed picture.  This was just one of the many things that they ?offered to help get rid of? including signed baseballs, framed prints, baseball cards, collection of antique foreign beer steins and other items, clearly knowing they were worth more money than what they offered.  My husband went over there and was put on the spot by their offers and let them buy the junk that we were going to get rid of anyways, but he said absolutely not to the purchase of the higher valued items. 

Once the job was completed my husband had some questions about the work that obviously a 65 year old woman could not answer......My husband called the Owner to ask these questions and mainly to tell him that his employees tended to help themselves and "shop around."  When asked the first question, the Owner got really defensive and instead of listening or being concerned with an unhappy customer the Owner asked my husband, ?Who are YOU?? ?Your name wasn?t on the contract, the contract is with your mother?.and she said everything was fine when we left, so I have nothing to say to you.? and proceeded to hang up.  My husband called back and asked if he was disconnected.  The guy flat out said ?NO. I hung up on you.?, and hung up again.  My husband wanted his mother to tell the contractor that he could ask questions on her behalf, and when she called him, HE HUNG UP ON HER.  Of course, he had his payment, so what did it matter? 

Talk about unprofessional, disrespectful and rude?.and that was the end, never heard anything back?.to sum it up, picking DiNicola Contracting was by far a very poor decision and we 100% regret it!!!

 

Dinicola contracting started September 1, 2012 and to date (March 12, 2013) it is still not finished.  There  have been problems from the beginning.  The crew smoked heavily and after they left everyday I had to clean up cigarette butts all over the yard. Soon after they started we could see that their work was not quality.  They used gravel instead of cement for the crawl space floor which still emits an odor.  There is still insulation missing.  I wanted the living area changed from 12x12 to 12x14 and a larger deck.  The charge for that was $3000.00 extra bringing the total to $33,000.00.  To date we paid him $30,000.00 (should have only been 2/3 payment until finished) and also paid for updates (French door, over $600 extra and sink, counter and vanity for BR over $900, etc).  The BR and LR were to be 5x8 each which would have made the total 22 feet in length.  He made the BR and LR smaller to make the living area larger and charged us for that.  I wanted to change the laminate flooring to hardward (willing to pay the difference) but was told that was a tedious job.  They got the wrong size French door and it does not open all the way to the wall.  He also threw trash in our bushes in the backyard.  He denied it but my husband and I watched him from a window in disbelief.  He said the excavators did it.  I said they were here 2 weeks ago and it wasn't there 2 days ago because I go back there with my dog.  Reluctantly he cleaned some of it up. On September 28, 2012 he said he needed $2000.00 that day to get more material.  I just wanted the job finished. I gave him a check and never saw him again.  I finally got in touch with him several weeks later and he said he needed even more money to come back.  When I asked him what he did with the $30,000.00 he hung up on me.  Dinicola told me he ran out of work to do until the tile was here (which he never picked up, I have the dated order) but Jason, his assistant told me they had another job to do. There is so much more to do. He also took a window and the sliding glass door out and kept the oak trim.  The new contractor said he only uses new trim so Dinicola can keep it.  Dinicola also did not replace some of the siding on the house. Old glass door among other trash still in back yard. We now have to pay to have that removed. Since there is no heat in the addition we had to have the room closed off from the rest of the house. If we wanted to enter that area we would have to  go outside.  We never do go back there.  Actually, Dinicola leaving worked out  good for us because we had time to really inspect and we had his shoddy work inspected .  Also there are things the inspector won't pass but Dinicola said he wasn't finished, yet he said his workers ran out of work until they got the tile.  We got an estimate to remove the dirt and seed the area from our landscaper at a cost of $1400.00.  We knew we would have to seed but not remove the dirt that was dug up. We told him we didn't want him back and he said we still  owed him over $2000.00 and over $4000 to come back and finish.  We now have a competent contractor who is fixing and finishing the job costing us more money.  After finishing the inside he will also replace the sides of the deck with vinyl so it doesn't look like a stable anymore.  This was a total disaster and a hugh nightmare.