SCITUATE CASEWORKS, INC.

Scituate Caseworks is a disaster. They were contracted through Traemand to install my Ikea cabinets. The contract called for the installation to take place between May 29 and June 1. When Linda Bate from Scituate finally called to give me the date for the installation that date was June 2, one day past the contracted date. My kitchen is small and she as much as told me that I was being tucked in between bigger jobs. This was for a kitchen on the lower Cape and we live in Somerville so it meant going to the Cape on June 1 in order to be there at the promised time, 7:00 am on June 2. On June 1, when we were already on the Cape, in a home with boxes all over the place and no kitchen, we received a call from Traemand in Colorado inquiring whether we were satisfied with the installation. I told them that it had not even been done yet but that it was scheduled for the next day. The Traemand person promised to call me back. When I had not heard from them by 4:00 pm I called them and they said they had not been able to reach Linda. Shortly after someone from Traemand called me to let me know that I would hear from Linda by 6:30 that evening. She did call me to let me know that they were not coming the next day. Nor were they coming on Saturday, nor even on Monday. In fact she would not give me a new date for the installation. My partner and I, who are very busy realtors in the midst of our peak season, took two days off in order to be there in time for the installers. We had to take all our meals in restaurants. I did not learn until the evening before they were scheduled that they were not coming and I wonder if she even would have bothered to call me if I had not called Traemand.. It cost me money in terms of lost earnings and the cost of coming down to the Cape--we were there ONLY to have the cabinets installed--and considerable stress and aggravation. The reason for the delay, she explained, is that other clients' jobs had taken longer because although they said they did their inventory it turned out that they had not. Well, I did do my inventory--I spent hours doing it--and don't see why I should have been penalized for the incompetence of others. When I told Linda that she responded that she could not pull her workers off a job to come to mine because those people have contracts. Well, I had a contract too and it says that the work will begin on May 29 and be completed by June 1. Neither happened. I should point out that Traemand is not entirely in the clear on this. My contract was with them, not with Scituate, and they obviously do not stay on top of their projects. Just the other day I received a request for an evaluation of the work that had been done--so the person who sent it did not even know that the work had never been done. When it was clear that we would never have a kitchen if we waited for Traemand and Scituate to honor the contract I called my trusty Somerville carpenter who actually gave up his weekend to go to the Cape and install my kitchen. I have not yet received his bill but I'm sure it will be much higher than the price contracted with Traemand. They have told me to let them know once I have the final bill and we'll see if they make good on their commitment to compensate me for additional costs.

Watch out for Scituate Caseworks. They were contacted through Ikea to install my Ikea kitchen. My contract said the installation would be done between May 29 and June 1. However, when their representative, Linda, called me she set it up for June 2 and assured me that the job would take only one day. The installation was at a vacation house on the Cape so we took two days off from work so that we would be there at 7:00 am on the 2nd, when we were told they would arrive. At 6:30 pm on the evening of the 1st Linda called me to tell me there was no way they would be there the next day. Further, they could not come on Saturday or even on Monday. She never explained why they could not come on Monday but this represented a further inconvenience for us since we had set up our countertop templating for Tuesday--it meant that we would have to reschedule that, possibly a two week delay in an already long process. She was totally indifferent to the inconvenience she had put us through and basically let us know that because our kitchen was a smaller job it was not important. We ended up bringing our carpenter down from Boston, at considerable expense, to do the installation.

Our experience with Scituate Caseworks was filled with many instances of miscommunications, unprofessionalism and lengthy delays – we have outlined a few details below: 1) Issues with Design Process a. Design process – we had issues getting our original designer (Will McGrath) to understand our requests – often times he would make some changes and ignore others. We also had issues getting timely responses to our emails which delayed the design process. It got to the point that we had to complain to Traemond and considered changing companies, however, the owner of the company, Erik Knapp stepped in to take over. b. Changing designers was a bit of an awkward situation because even after Erik came to our home to finalize design decisions, our “old” designer was still contacting us to find out if we were interested in continuing with the renovation. c. After switching designers – we spent a lot of time making decisions and learning how to do the IKEA software on our own (despite paying for this service). Even after requesting changes and discussing what we wanted with Erik, the changes were not made. So, to be proactive and not delay due to the wrong parts being ordered, we learned to design the kitchen all ourselves. We likely spent about 15-20 hours designing our kitchen cabinets, layout and countertops etc. 2) Issues with Timing/coordination and Communication a. Project was estimated to be 6-8 weeks – the project actually took 12 weeks –there were no delays on our end (no delays in product delivery, no extra damage, no changes to design, etc.) – just mismanagement of subcontractors schedules. The final punch list items were not complete for 6 months post start date. b. Example: Our entire team was subcontractors (countertop, cabinet installers, electric and plumbing). The coordinating of subcontractors was ill-managed –there were many days when contractors were scheduled to work but they never showed. Several days where they were not expected and they would show up. Turns out Scitutate Caseworks was working on other projects in other locations despite the original schedule that was given to us via the online calendar. c. Example: It was very difficult to communicate with our cabinet installers - There were several instances where we left detailed punchlists and notes all over the kitchen and the work was not done to satisfaction or completion because of not understanding. Towards the end of the project we re-arranged work schedules and long-weekend vacation in order to be present. We lost out on an entire pre-planned vacation trip and approximately 5 days of work due to this mismanagement of time and also poor communication. d. Example: The countertop installation (IKEA subcontractor) was quoted as taking 1 week to 10 days from the time it was measured and templated to installation – it took us 4 weeks to get ours installed – no reason except they didn’t have available appointments. Our project manager did not do anything to help expedite the process. e. Example: Plumber quit SC in the middle of the project and they were not able to replace him – so we were forced to wait for him to get time off from his new job to come to finish our job (this delayed us about 2 extra weeks). Despite our request, they would not get us a new plumber during the project because they didn’t have anyone else to work with. f. Example: Communication between what was in our contract and our electrician was poor - Several times the electrician had to be reminded to follow our contract for number of lights, size of lights etc. – They began to install the wrong size light fixtures even after discussing what the contract said – they also installed the incorrect bulb color/kelvin also after discussing what we wanted. We ended up having to purchase our own supplies to replace the incorrect ones. 3) Issues with Professionalism a. SC Project Manager (Linda Bates) took parts that were ordered for our kitchen (and paid for) and brought them to use in other projects they were also working on at the same time. They took 2 hinges, without permission, and also entered our home unexpectedly when we had told them we were getting our floor refinished. Dates and times were emailed and confirmed. They walked across our newly finished floor to take the parts (which is how we knew they were there). They did replace the parts a few weeks later when we needed them for our kitchen. b. Scituate casework requested contract payments based the project timeline they developed and not necessarily based on whether the work was actually completed. Several times Linda asked for payment despite there being incomplete work up until that point. As the project progressed we continuously developed concerns relate to the project timeline and overall quality of work. Since Erik, the owner, was our designer, we wanted to discuss these concerns with him. Despite several phone calls, texts, voicemails and emails Erik never responded to us. We had issues with the design and the quality of work and wanted to address them while the project was ongoing – he never returned our calls. c. The electrician (subcontractor Michael Sarat from MTS Electrical; assisted by Rich) was vaping in our home – when we realized this was happening, we asked him to only do it outside of our house and asked our project manager to also deliver this message – he continued to do it on the job despite our multiple requests. i. The electrician worked in our home while we were out of town and left our refrigerator electrical circuit off for four days which lead to all the food in our refrigerator/freezer spoiling. We lost approximately $300 of food in the fridge and freezer and had to deep clean our brand new fridge. ii. The electrician mislabeled the electrical box circuits and it took him several weeks to come back to fix it. iii. Electrician refused to find a solution to a humming/buzzing sound coming from a recessed light he installed. After much complaining a new electrician come over to resolve the issue. iv. Electrician left a mess in our basement (debris, dust, etc.). Had to ask several times for him to come back and clean it up – electrician often stated that it was outside of his job to do the cleaning and it was the cabinet installer’s responsibility – the cabinet installer denied this duty when the mess was caused by the electrician. Obviously there was miscommunication about who was doing what… and instead of waiting weeks for them to return to clean up the mess, we ended up doing ourselves. v. Electricians overall personality was rude from the start. He had a negative attitude when he walked in the door (even commenting on how he didn’t want this particular job and that he was forced by the owner to provide the electrical quote). He constantly complained and was unpleasant to work with –Linda our PC, actually had to step in and ask him to step outside of our home during one particular day because he was being inappropriate and insulting both the cabinet installer and us (while we were in his presence). d. Our credit card was charged without authorization (Traemand) for installation that had not even occurred yet. We had to contact Traemand to explain that the installation had not occurred – obviously the communication between SC and Traemand was not up to par and we (again), were being charged for things that had not actually occurred. 4) Quality a. The overall quality of the cabinet work was poor quality – there are excess holes and dings in almost every cupboard door, excess holes in the decorative trim, trim is not aligned at the seams, trim is crooked at the top, cabinets and panels are not in alignment (crooked and gapped). Despite going through many of these on the punch list with the cabinet installers, they refused to fix some of the issues because it was “too difficult” or “too late”. (Note: we called the owner/designer several times to discuss these issues to resolve, without any response). i. Also, when we had to fill out the satisfaction survey – they had not yet finished the job, and also stood behind us waiting while we filled it out – as someone who wants the job completed, we did not feel comfortable telling them how I felt on the satisfaction survey – b. We wrote detailed punch-list and walked them through the kitchen several times to go through the issues with them while the installation process was underway – some things were addressed, while others were not (see above, we did contact the owner without success). c. Our brand new fridge was “dented” due to workers not being careful with equipment moving in/out. d. Our brand new stove was scratched and damaged upon installation. e. Our brand new sink was scratched due to contractors storing excess parts in it during construction. f. The counters were not protected when grout was applied to backsplash. The grout was left to dry on our new counters and it took us over 6 hours to scrub it off. g. The countertop and cabinets do not line up (the overhang is different depths at different places on the countertop). h. We did not pass final city inspection due to the finishes for the cabinets not being within code (flammable material was installed too close to the stove). The flammable material had to be removed, new material ordered, and then installed – we were delayed almost 6 weeks from completion due to this error. This is a code compliant issue that Erik and his team should have been aware of when making the design. Instead, we lost an additional six weeks of time to re-design, order new materials, demo, reinstall and get re-inspected. i. Scituate team left debris and trash outside our house for several days. We had to remind them on several occasions to pick up after themselves.

They finished the remodel in March or April and we are still working on finishing one last thing. They were the contractor that handled our kitchen remodel. While their work was good and the contractor who was on site was really great the management was kind of difficult to deal with in terms of scheduling. We had to call them quite a few times to get certain things moving, to get certain permits and things like that. Their prices were about average.