Rossini Construction

There was extensive damage. The garage was totally destroyed, the roof and walls of the master bath, which was attached to the garage, had significant damage. The deck of the house was damaged when the fallen tree broke after hitting the house. The garage was rebuilt and the bathroom and deck repaired. This is a manufactured home and it has an I-beam that runs longitudinal to the length of the house, the impact from the tree caused the floor to buckle. The contractor would not fix the floor. I sued him in small claims and won. He would not pay. I contacted his bond company and they told him if he would not pay, he would lose his license. He said he would pay. He was sued by three of his suppliers for non payment of services and materials. The out come of these were the locksmith was awarded more than a thousand dollars for material and labor. He stiffed the tree service that removed a tree that fell on another property. It happened during a storm and they went on his word to remove the tree. It was a long way from their shop, it took travel time, three workers and a large truck with a crane. The total as $3,000 and he didn't pay. There was no written contract o the judge only gave them $500. He is also being sued by a local lumber company in excess of the small claims allowed. Caveat Emptor.

So, why did I rate Rossini the way I did? Well, I'll start with the good: we asked for a labor-only contract as we would be purchasing many of the materials ourselves. They accommodated us and offered to pick up paint, baseboard, and tile from the vendors we ordered from. We felt that the price was fair and the quality of the workmanship, with very few exceptions, was good. With one exception, every tradesman who came to do work was professional, friendly, and good at their job. The bad: we never knew when we would see someone to work on the bathroom. Sometimes we would see someone for an hour one day that week, one time someone showed up to work on the bathroom and we had no idea he was coming, and at the end we had two people work 10 hours to complete a job that was promised to be done a month prior. The company was not very responsive; sometimes more than a week went by before we got a respons. Overall, we felt that they were responsive to issues that shouldn't have been issues in the first place. The biggest issues we had from the beginning were with communication and professionalism. There were four people we ended up communicating with to coordinate the completion of our bathroom. We spoke to the person we understood was co-owner, two separate supervisors (both of whom had left the company by October), and the office scheduler. The only person who ever seemed to speak to anyone else was the office scheduler. She seemed to be the only one who really had her act together. Unfortunately, this lack of communication caused scheduling set backs and delayed work (I overheard many W** conversations between tradesmen, the office, and the supervisors when they got to my home and discovered the job was different than had been described to them or required different materials). In perhaps the worst case of this miscommunication, I telephoned the supervisor we had been working closely with to let him know my tile could be picked up (as he had instructed me to do). I called and left voicemail twice, texted him, and sent email. I didn't hear back until the following week that the gentleman had left Rossini. Unfortunately, during that time, the tile vendor I had purchased my tile from had gone out of business and my paid-for tile was stuck behind the doors of a defunct business. Had I been told that the supervisor had left, or to stop contacting him for work, my tile would have been secured (by me, if necessary) prior to the vendor going out of business. | |Another example of the miscommunication came when the painter came to paint. I showed him what should be painted (four walls and the ceiling) and also informed him that no baseboard had been procured nor installed yet. He told me he understood he was painting one wall and base board. For the next 90 minutes, I listened to the painter curse a blue streak over the phone as my job was not what had been described to him before he got here. He did this as he painted, resulting in a paint job I could have done myself (with one eye closed) but certainly not a paint job I would have ever paid for. Understand, I don't mind swearing and have been known to swear myself. My issue was the lack of professionalism; I don't want to know that the work isn't what was described to the tradesmen who came. I don't want to know that the supervisor who left "wasn't cut out for the business." I want to feel confident that we are all on the same page and everyone knows what's going on. I want to be able to recommend this contractor to my friends. Those conversations shouldn't happen in front of the client. Also, to be fair - my tile was, in the end, released from the vendor and the painter who cursed a blue streak came back to apologize and fix his work. So, these things were made right. Having said that, I never felt happy about writing any of the checks for this job and reiterated to the representatives I spoke to that I really wanted to be able to recommend them to my friends. While I stand by my statement that the tradesmen were all very good and the office scheduler was extremely good at her job, they could not undo the poor management of this job and the frustration it caused for four very long months.