On July 8th 2013, the house that my fiancée and I had bought in April was hit by the Toronto flood.
We were told by our insurance company (Belair Direct) that we would be contacted by On Side Restoration to handle the clean up and rebuild of our basement.
A few days later, Bill O’Callaghan showed up at our door and reassured us that his company would take care of us.
Being new to home ownership we had no idea what was in store and how to proceed but again we were told not to worry.
Over the next few months we had workers show up sporadically to do the demolition. At first they showed up for a few consecutive days, but as the weeks went by, we saw less of the workers and heard nothing from our Project Manager Bill.
We were getting Married October 12th. When we did speak with Bill, we were told that we would have our basement back in order for the wedding so that my out of town family would be able to stay with me. We were a “Priority” he said.
As the days got closer to the wedding, there was absolutely no progress so we had to start making alternate arrangements for my family to stay in hotels.
We were patient up until that point because we knew that the flood had give everyone extra work, but again, we were supposed to be a “Priority.”
We spoke to Bill days before our wedding and we were told that he could START work on our basement as soon as we returned from our Honeymoon on Oct 29th. Up to this point , he had never come by to give us the contract to sign. During our Honeymoon we had to pay for internet service on a cruise ship just so we could constantly email On Side to confirm they were coming to start our basement when we returned. After a week of bombarding them, we finally received a digital contract to sign.
We returned on October 29th and immediately contacted On Side to make sure they were coming. It took another week to get a response....
Finally, 2 weeks after our return Bill showed up with a dry waller to check our basement.
At this point WE ALL decided that to do the job right, more of the drywall would have to come out. Not wanting to wait for Bill to get his demo guys in, I demoed the last of what needed to be done. Then we waited at least another week to hear from someone. When I finally got a hold of Bill, I was told that the dry waller who came to measure was not going to do the work because he was “too expensive,” so Bill was going to send someone else.
Days later a different guy (Spiro) showed up and went over what had to be done. He told us he would have a crew of 9 guys come in and have it done in no time.
We waited a few days and no one showed up. Finally 3 kids showed up and started prepping for insulation.
I came home from work and saw the work they had done and instantly tried contacting Bill or Spiro.
They had used small pieces of insulation jammed in the framing any which way they could, some parts of the wall the insulation had gaps of at least an inch, and also no one ever bothered securing some of the framing to the exterior walls (broken from the original demoing) so the frame would just be swinging around when touched.
I was told by Spiro that he would oversee the rest of the work because Bill “was swamped” and “he was doing Bill a big favor by coming to do our basement.”
Spiro told us he would come by on the Friday to meet me because it was my day off, but he never showed. Only 2 of his workers came. Throughout the day we would randomly get a hold of him and he kept saying he was coming.... he never showed, and never had the courteously to tell us he was not coming. I had wasted my day off waiting. We left him a message telling him I would be around Saturday too, but we never heard from him again. At this point I called Bill to find out what was going on and Bill said “this isn’t like him,” and that he would try to get a hold of him and let me know.... I never heard back from either of them.
Finally, on Monday Spiro came and I had to leave work early to meet with him. I pointed out everything I felt was wrong and at first he defended his workers but then he reluctantly said he would make it “all right” even though framing isn’t what he’s supposed to do. And he reassured us that we would be able to have our planned First Family Christmas in our new home.
It has now been over 2 weeks since all this and we are clearly NOT having Christmas in our home. We have drywall up that is an embarrassment. We have a wall that I asked be fastened to the concrete because the frame was loose, but they just dry walled over it so now our main wall looks like a wave and moves when pressed on.
When I brought this up to Spiro when he finally showed up, his response was “we’re not here to reframe your house” so I replied, “if you see there is a problem with the framing then shouldn’t that be brought to the attention of the Project Manager so it can be fixed?” that is if anyone could get a hold of him....This got so frustrating that we had to contact On Side to get the name of a manager, Randy Hyde, who told us he had spoken to Bill and assured us that he would keep everything on track from here on. He also told us to make sure we did not do anything to delay the process, to go out and pick paint colours, flooring, doors, molding and so on, all of which we have done but our basement is so far from that point that it’s yet again us rushing around and nothing being done.
The only thing we can count on is that every time we try contacting someone, we never hear back from them. We have 2 kids doing all the work and there is no one there to supervise or go over what they have done at the end of the day. And to add to the embarrassment, these workers have been seen outside our house by neighbors smoking up in broad daylight...
We have not heard from our Project Manager in over 2 weeks (he sent out a quick email this morning saying we would hear from him by the end of the day.... it’s past the end of day right now and still nothing)
We went with On Side because we were told the work would be done promptly and it would be done PROPERLY....
Had I known it would have taken this long, I would have taken the settlement from the insurance and done it myself with the help of many people I know that are contractors but were busy at the time.
Now we have WASTED what I’m sure adds up to a good chunk of the money On Side, plenty spent on useless demo because I did a lot of it, bin rentals and so on... we had bins taking up our driveway for what added up to months but yet we had no workers here to use them so I’d love to know who's paying for that...
We also had workers who showed up at whatever time they wanted (that sometimes meant arriving at 5pm) and would leave as early as one hour after getting here and most of the time they would just leave without saying anything so my wife would be sitting around waiting to go out not knowing they had already left.
We asked to have a Backwater Valve installed... there has been no word on this, yet it is something that could have been done separately from what was being done inside and we were told it was not a problem, again, we went and paid for and obtained a permit from the City of Toronto for it... and still nothing has been done. We were told we could have our windows changed since we were already redoing the basement, but we haven’t heard about that either.
What we have heard is that WE are being blamed for delays. The workers keep telling us that Bill is saying that we “KEEP CHANGING THINGS AROUND” ...well yes, we have changed things around, but everything we’ve changed I HAVE DONE THE WORK so there is nothing to delay ON SIDE.
We moved a gas fireplace... so we brought in our own Gas and Furnace guy... We decided to change a wall, so my friends and I spend a weekend Framing a new wall... trying to rush to get it done for a Monday, thinking that was when the workers would show up but they only came a week later... I had to get my own electrician to come in to fix issues we found because no one else found them or was willing to help out.
And there is just so much more to all of this.
This whole experience has taken a toll on us. Instead of enjoying the beginning of our lives together, this has added so much stress to what should be our “honeymoon year.”
We are constantly trying to get a hold of people, doing some of the work our selves or we are sitting around waiting.... this is not right.
We are completely frustrated that we are at the mercy of this horrible company, and we’ve decided that since communication is NOT what you people are about, that we are going to devote all or time not trying to communicate with you but ABOUT YOU.
At this point our basement will not be finished this year so we don’t care anymore. We will be going to the insurance company, media, social networks, and where ever else we can find an outlet.
