Robert's New England Company L.L.C.

Review: I hired [redacted] to paint the interior of my house, the living room and dinning room ares.

He place down paper on the floor with masking tape to protect from spills.

When he removed the paper and tape the tape pulled up several lines of finish along the floor through out both rooms.

We virbel spoke that he was responsible and would take care of the damages. He even canme to see if he could repair himself but made an area worse.

He had a long time friend(30+ years) who owned a floor refinishing company to give a quote. [redacted].

The quote was about $2500.

As we were ready to ingage in contract with the floor refinisher he said I needed to speak to [redacted] to discuss.

[redacted] stated that because the flooring guy stated the floors were is bad condition to start he was not resposibily and would not pay to have the floor repaired to our satisfaction.

We are looking for full repair cost of the floors.Desired Settlement: I would like full reimbursment of the cost of reapirs to refinish the floors.

Business

Response:

We were hired by Mr. [redacted] to remove popcorn acoustic texture from two ceilings. As a natter of course we covered the entire floor to protect against spills. At this time we noticed that the floor was in terrible shape. There were numerous stains, gouges. worn and discolored areas but we protected it anyway. Mr. [redacted] indicated that he new the floor was in need of refinishing. Upon completion of the painting, which came out perfect, we removed the masking on the floor and discovered that the masking tape had pulled up a small portion of the finish. I explained that we stand behind our work and arranged to have a professional floor finisher with over 40 years of experience, assess the damage. Please see attached report. After his inspection he informed me that the floor had been recoated improperly without being washed, or screened in preparation for the new finish and as a result there was an improper bond of the new material to the old floor which resulted in the tape peeling part of the second finish. In over 40 years of business I have never had masking tape pull the finish off a polyurethane floor finish that was properly installed. I also checked with the masking tape distributer and they have never had a complaint of that nature. They explained that the only problem with tape is adhesive transfer when the glue seperates from the tape and glue residue stays on the floor. The residue can easily be wiped up with denatured alcohol without disturbing the polyurethane finish. Mr. [redacted] explained that the floor need to be redone but that we should not be responsible for the whole floor being refinished. We offered Mr. [redacted] $600.00 toward the price of refinishing the floor. When we got the inspection report we realized that we were not at fault and the offer was withdrawn. We suggested that Mr. [redacted] should contact the people that refinished his floor improperly for any recompoence. Mr. [redacted] then filed his complaint demanding total coverage of a complete floor sanding and refinishing. To be clear, based on over 40 years of experience, the floor finisher's report , and the report from the tape distributor, we do not accept any responsibility for damage to Mr. [redacted] improperly installed finish

Consumer

Response:

Review: [redacted]

I am rejecting this response because:

Mr. [redacted] description of the condition of my floor is an

exaggeration. While the floor was not in the great shape, the fact of the

matter is that the tape he applied pulled up the finish of my floor. If Mr.

[redacted] had concerns about the condition of the floor before he started the job,

one would expect that his 40 years of experience would tell him to use a tarp

, blue painters tape, like most painters use or not leave masking tape on the floor

for over one week. To be clear, we did not have a conversation about the

condition of my floor before he started the job.

When I contacted Mr. [redacted] about the floor damage he was

adamant that he would fix or repair the damage he had done at no cost to me and mentioned that

he would go through his insurance company if needed. Mr. [redacted] suggested I have

his long time friend and business associate come to give an estimate on

refinishing, and we discussed a $600 credit that Mr. [redacted] would pay directly to

his friend. Based on this conversation, I allowed his business associate into

my home and he did give me an estimate. I suspect that Mr. [redacted] and his

associate had planned this outcome and I regret extending that level of trust

to both of them.

Mr. [redacted] states that the painting job was perfect. This is

inaccurate; I would describe the finished product as good, with some

imperfections. Mr. [redacted] or a crew members had to return to my home on 3 separate

occasions to do final touch ups. On the final visit he insisted on coming at a

time when neither me or my wife could be home and left without correcting 2

spots that my wife had pointed out to him the day before, and left marked with

a post it as he had instructed. Additionally, Mr. [redacted] verbally agreed to patch

and paint a soffit in my kitchen while he was doing the ceiling and he did not

do this, but left a post it note saying he did not do this. After the 3 touch

ups visits we decided that the finished job was ‘good enough’ because we cannot

take more time off from work to have Mr. [redacted] return again.

As an aside, I would also like to mention some other

experiences with Mr. [redacted] which we overlooked at the time, but now seem like

indicators of the lack of professionalism we are seeing now. One of Mr. [redacted] crew members drank water straight from my kitchen faucet (my wife asked that

this not be repeated). The next day, the extension hose that attached to that

faucet became detached and needed a quick repair (which we did ourselves). We

are a non smoking home; so clearly noticed the odor of cigarette smoke in our

garage and found cigarette butts in the driveway after his crew had visited.

Coincidentally, our garage door opener broke during the time Mr. [redacted] and his

crew was on site. Upon inspection it was clear that the flywheel was ground

down indicating that the door was held open while the mechanism was turning.

When mentioned to Mr. [redacted], he denied any responsibility, which now does not

seem surprising.

At the end of the day, the damage to my floor is a result of

Mr. [redacted] failure to appropriately protect my the floor. It is expected that a

contractor leave a home in better condition after a job, not worse.