911 Restoration of Bellevue

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Mike Smith, the 911 Restoration rep, came out within an hour of me calling - that was good.  However, he was wearing a dress shirt and tie.  I thought that was odd because how can you go down into the crawl space to look at the water source and damage in that attire?  He said that he would have his workers go down there to take a look "later."  Anyway, I tell him that I learned about the problem from my pest control company who had been down there.  I new that I needed to have an estimate done first, but Mike wanted me to first contact my insurance company for payment authorization.  I thought that was odd.

The following Friday, I received a phone call from my renters saying that 911 had taken out insulation that was soaking wet. I went over to take a look and saw that 911 had put two electric heaters in the crawl space.  However, I did not hear the fans running.  Since there is no electrical outlet in the crawl space, I looked for an extension cord going into the only access - nothing found; the fans were in place, but not powered.  

At this point, I still hadn't received an estimate from 911 and wondered when useful work would be started. My renter called me the following Monday saying that men were there putting insulation into the crawl space.  I have no idea how they dried out the soaking wet crawl space in two days, but okay.  

Darrell, the inspector from PestFree, my pest control company, came out five days later and told me that 911 put in the wrong type of insulation, it was installed wrong (upside down and not up to code), and that not all of the wet insulation had been removed.  I immediately called Mike (911), with Darrell present, to determine what work, exactly, 911 did.  When Mike answered the phone, Darrell and I both noticed something very wrong with Mike's speech.  He mumbled and wasn't talking clearly; was this normally the way he answered the phone at 2 in the afternoon, we wondered.  Mike had great difficulty understanding Darrell's description of the state of the crawl space partly because Mike (911) had never been in the crawl space.  I managed to arrange for Mike (911) to meet Darrell (PestFree) on Monday to address the incorrect insulation installation concerns in person.  

The meeting was useless as Mike did not understand the terminology Darrell used for crawl space preparation and was unfamiliar that there were standard installation practices that should have been followed.  Mike admitted to not going into the crawl space, and that his team did things incorrectly, but defended his team since, as he said, "he has to trust them."

Mike didn't get back to me until more than three weeks after he learned that my insurance hadn't paid him.  He was ready to complete the job now.  I informed him that, since he didn't return my calls, I contacted another company to complete the restoration job (including fixing the source of the water leak).   

Despite the incomplete and incorrect work 911 performed, which required starting over water damage clean up all over, 911 sent me a bill for $6,000.  When I complained, Mike offered to take $150 off due to the poor work that was done.  Then, Mike texted, called, and emailed me repeatedly claiming that I owed him the $6000.  Further, Mike harassed (yelling at) my insurance representative so often that she had his calls blocked.  When I reminded Mike that his billing for incomplete and non-existent work constituted insurance  fraud, he respond that his mistakes aren't insurance fraud.

To me, it is clear that Mike has no idea about what was done in the crawlspace.  He agreed to meet me at the house to discuss everything where I offered to pay him $2,000 to go away, to which he declined. I had the contractor and my plumber (who fixed the water leak) look over the bill from 911.  In their judgement, the only valid charge was for the incomplete installation of plastic sheeting in the amount of $300.  However, the added work to remove the wet insulation (installed by 911without fixing the water leak) more than offsets that amount - 911 should reimburse me.  I kept trying to call the company to speak with a manager about my complaints, but I keep getting routed back to Mike.  Mike finally told me that I couldn't go over his head.

I called the 911 Restoration corporate office three times.  The first two times, I was told that someone would call me back.  No one did.  On the third call, I learned that the Corporate office talked to the local 911 Restoration business owner, who refused to contact me.  I was told that the owner would be sending the bill to a collection agency.

Pros:
Response was excellent.  We called at about 9:30PM and they were there as advertised within 45 minutes.  In about 3 hours they had a collapsed ceiling removed, and water extracted from the carpets.  A big relief.  In the following 5 more workdays my only complaint was that on one day they started late and finished early, but that was minor.
The workers that came worked very hard, took reasonable length lunch breaks and were very polite and professional.
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Cons:
When I signed the contract right in the middle of a real mess, I brought to the attention of the agent the fact that there was a line in the contract that specified they would not be responsible for any damage caused by their workers.   He said that they would take care of any damage, but didn't offer to line out that statement.  Given the situation I was in, I didn't press the issue, as I had previously called Servpro and they said they couldn't come.
They removed a damaged bathroom vanity but threw out the drawer pulls with it.  They should have kept those.  The answer that "insurance will cover it" to me isn't really acceptable as we still will have to do the leg work to find matching replacements, and higher insurance costs reflect everyones' premiums.
The baseboards were not separated by room and numbered, just put in a big pile, leaving quite a chore for the reconstruction company to figure out, causing them to have to order 100 linear feet more to make up the difference.  Again, increasing insurance costs.  The reconstruction company numbered, separated and ordered all the additonal baseboards that they removed.
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Additional:
The costs, (my deductable is $1,000) came out to over $10,000.  This equates (and I understand they have dump fees and other overhead) to $2,000 a day, for essentially tearing out and removing building waste.   I don't blame them for charging whatever the market will bear, I would too, but I think the insurance companies should crack down on this.

First thing they didn't use a contract, I actually had to ask multiple times for a contract and eventually, I had to summarize all the work in an email and made them replying to this email. I am glad I did that, because there were few times were they said that they shouldn't have done something but ended up doing it because it was written down.  
They mentioned the work will take 21 days and it took more than 60 days but not because they worked 60 days on my house, but because they had other projects along the way. One of the workers even mentioned that if he had worked on this house alone he would have finished it in less then 21 days.
All the finishes were terrible - 
1. Door's trims were not cut properly, leaving an inch space between the floor and the trim.
2. No caulk between some of the trims and in others, the trims were connected in an un-esthetic way.
3. After they finished the paint job, there were still cracks all over the house. 
4. The floor is still squeaking. 
5. A water pipe was not connected properly to the refrigerator caused a fluid in the kitchen . 
6. The swinging French doors are not align against each other. 
One of the workers mentioned that the re-grout can't be done, but after few discussions it became doable.
  
I wanted just one person as my contact person - but I ended up working with all of the company's workers.
They were asking for a punch list when the house wasn't even ready, obviously after fixing the punch list, we were keep seeing the unfinished items. When we asked them to come and fix it again, the manager said "I've finished working on your house, from now on I am only coming to collect the money". So it seems like they give no warranty for their work. 
Initially I thought I am getting a good price for the job, but now there are so many things to fix and I am not sure what will be the additional costs.