A-1 Services

Good afternoon,I called back [redacted] at approximately 4:30 PM on 2/25/2015 shortly after her call to me at 3:10 PM. No complaints were made to the technician after either repair or to my company until 2 days after the... work was completed. This was brought about after the insurance company’s refusal to pay the additional work deemed as maintenance neglect. All conversations up to this point has been done with her husband [redacted] who has approved all work and potential charges prior to performing any work. She insisted that ***, her husband, would have never approved thousands of dollars of work, that and she would talk to him and call me back last night, which never happened. She went on to tell me that she only had $11 in her check book and the check was going to bounce due to insufficient funds. I explained it is company policy to explain to the customer the service fees prior to dispatching technicians, especially when it is on emergency overtime service. Her husband [redacted] approved the rate and a technician was dispatched. Upon arrival the technician found several areas of the home heating piping were frozen and burst not allowing water to flow through the piping. After assessment the tech gave [redacted] an approximate estimate to make the repairs and also suggested that glycol be inserted in the system to help prevent this occurring again. Apparently they have had the same frozen piping in the past and the previous company failed to give them the option to protect this situation by adding glycol. By this time it was later in the day and all the supply houses were closed. I had some glycol at my shop and sent another technician over to the house without any additional charges. Unfortunately the glycol had expired and I would not risk putting it in her system, it also was not the right type for his system. As far as the diverter valve, that was not available either and ultimately would have cost even more to install and was not part of the original assessment and rough estimate to make the repairs. Also, if he stopped repairing the frozen piping and installed the diverter valve he would have spent more time on overtime rates. Regardless of all of these extenuating circumstances the technician was able to get there heat on and they did not have to go to a hotel for the weekend. What most people don't realize, when your piping freezes due to poor installation practices, it is impossible to determine how much ice has formed in the piping and where it all is located. This is what my tech was up against, as soon as he started repairing and soldering with a torch, more ice would melt and come through the piping. It is the nature of the repair and every situation is different. Suzanne thinks’ that this would be an easy repair and rerouting the piping was an easier fix. If this was the case we would have done it immediately, this was definitely not the case. It would also leave her with other piping running outside as well as piping in her garage that was frozen and would freeze again and again. We have a "pipe de-thawing machine" which expedited the thawing of the areas we were able to get to. It does have limitations as per the manufactures recommendation and in the essence of safety it only worked in some of her instances. [redacted] called today, 2/26/2015 @ 8:37 AM and he completely acknowledged the fact that he did agree to pay the amount given to him before we sent a technician to his home. Even after the work was done on Monday [redacted] offered a piece of cake to the technician, which would purvey the sense of a happy customer. In the end, after a minor accommodation to his last bill [redacted] paid me by credit card. Sincerely, [redacted] President A-1 Services Incorporated%3

Complaint: ***
I am rejecting this response because:
As I stated originally, the carpet was damaged on day one due to a faulty washer installationThey have the maintenance records as I do, where no action was taken to dry, or clean the carpetDuring the move in period, the carpet was soaking wet all weekend, and was made worse by the constant traffic of moving furniture into the apartmentEven the floor below the carpet was squeaking, and did so for monthsThe neighbors below constantly complained of that noise. As far a the water bill, when I complained to *** about the high bill, she sent me the nwp forms , because she couldn't explain how the water bill is calculatedI have the email that shows she didn't understand the way the water rate is calculatedIf she doesn't know, how do they explain it to future residents ?All keys were turned inIf they communicated with each other in the office, they would find out that my wife's keys were turned in , then mine a day later. As far as the admin fees are concerned, I still want an explanation for each one , for each date.The last water bill did indeed include days as they stated, but we moved out to a another house on the 1st and the apartment was vacant for the last daysThis is exactly the kind of fraudulent billing that continues to happenThe water rate is determined by everyone's usage in the complex, yet this is not explained when signing the leaseEven *** in her email, as I stated above , did not know how the water rate is determined
Regards,
*** ***

*The carpet needed to replaced solely due to pet damage.  We have a third party vendor who comes out to determine whether a carpet can be saved or not.  These professionals can clearly see and understand the difference between water damage and pet damage.    *We have never received a complaint from the downstairs neighbor for noise.    *For a better explanation of the fees, please refer to the attachment from NWP in our first response.  Again, the water is sub metered and not allocated like you are stating, which is exactly why everyone has their own meter.  You do not pay for any common area water usage, only for the water usage in your apartment home.   *We have documented that 1 front door key, 2 key fobs and 0 mailbox keys were surrendered on move out day, 10/14/16.  All keys are to be relinquished on the day of move out.  Thank you,Deerfield Management

Hello,*Their carpet was brand new when they moved in and upon move out, we have a professional carpet vendor come in to assess all carpet charges.  The carpet cleaning company determined that they would not be able to save their carpet and it would need to be replaced solely due to pet...

damage.  Paragraph 18 in the Animal Addendum states that the resident is liable for the entire amount of damage caused by the pet which includes carpets.  It states that if an item cannot be satisfactorily cleaned or repaired, the resident must pay for us to replace it.  A pet treatment was necessary in their apartment which was performed on the subflooring of the apartment home in order to get rid of any and all remanence of a pet as we do to every single unit that has had a pet inside of it.  Paragraph 19 of their Animal Addendum states that upon move out, the resident will pay for de-fleaing, deodorizing, and shampooing to protect future residents from possible health hazards.  They began with a $450 credit at move out which included their $200 pet deposit which went towards their pet treatment charge.  As far as their pet rent goes, that is simply a monthly fee to have the pet inside of the apartment home and would not cover any damage caused by the pet upon move out.    *Their water and sewage charges are based off their own specific meter which measures their exact usage.  The residents complained of a high water bill back in August 2016 and we then discovered that their toilets had been leaking. The toilets were repaired right away and I was able to issue them a credit in September 2016 to offset the additional expense due to the leaking toilets from the prior month.  Their meter was recently inspected after that in September just as an added measure and there were no reported issues with the transmitter per NWP.  The resident was informed and even agreed that their bill seemed normal again.  Their final utility bill might seem a bit higher due to the fact that it was a longer billing period than their monthly bills which occur in arrears.  Their final billing cycle was based off of 41 days as opposed to the typical billing cycle of around 30 days.    *The administrative fees that the resident is referencing are the same fees that they have paid every month for a year.  Those fees are assessed from NWP (our water billing company) and they are all stated in their lease contract.    *The resident was issued 2 front door keys and 2 mailbox keys upon move in.  Upon move out, they only turned in 1 front door key and 0 mailbox keys which is why they were charged $30.00 ($10 per missing key).  In paragraph 40 on page 7 of their lease it states that the resident will be liable for charges due to unreturned keys.  Thank you,Deerfield Management

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because: I also have two carpet professionals who will provide information confirming that once a carpet has been flooded, it must be replaced , most importantly because of mold growth, and because staining will occur more frequently and cleaning will become more difficult.Im not disputing the sub metered system. I'm disputing the method of determining the rate of each unit. THat is calculated based on the consumption of all tenants, something that isnever explained to prospective tenants  and obviously the management at Deerfield still struggles to comprehend this system. And by the way, I just received my 1st water bill at my new house, (including a lawn) and it's $33 foe both water and waste water. That's 10 times less of what Deerfield charges. I'm still waiting for a response regarding the 3rd party classification of NWP and whether Deerfield profits from those revenues.The first set of keys were dropped of on the 13th and the second on the 14th. Do you have a signing off sheets documenting key drop offs?
Regards,
[redacted]