PROPERTIES BY PETE

I don’t even know where to begin with this review; my original draft was too long to post here. We found Properties by Pete through Home Advisor, but in hindsight, I should have done more research before settling on one contractor. We had been experiencing drainage issues from the town road which kept washing out the driveway. We ended up widening the driveway last fall and the town took care of the major problem at the street source early this spring. The idea now was to put in a retaining wall with proper drainage as backup. Pete showed up to the original walkthrough fifteen minutes early, which I thought was a good sign. This was in fact the last good sign during the whole project. Pete quoted us a price of $9000 and that seemed fair due to the length of the wall being 125 feet. He also left us with a catalog for Techno-bloc so we could pick out a style and color of block and cap we liked, which we did. Now for the list of issues: • Pete ordered the wrong style and color of the block even though I emailed him multiple times with our selection. It took him three hours to finally call me back to discuss this to which he claimed to be really confused as to why we got the wrong material. • Project didn’t start on time as communicated, nor did it finish on time – quoted less than 2 weeks total time – project started on 7/15 – completed on 9/2 (7 weeks total) due to all the issues • Delay in getting the correct material delivered due to Pete and block distributor having a disagreement over the restocking fee for the wrong material. • Material pallets stacked in front of the garage making it inaccessible despite being told not to stack it there. • Drove over our septic/leech field multiple times with the tractor even after two walk-throughs and a lengthy phone call describing in great detail where the septic was located and where I wanted to have them put the extra dirt from the excavating. This has resulted in an additional cost of +$600 to have the tank drained and inspected. • Cigarette butts all over the yard and trash not picked up and disposed of as stated in contract…until I said something • Tore up the driveway and left it that way, however they did fix it per my request • No ¾ drainage gravel behind wall as described in the contract • No Geo-grid retaining material installed as stated in contract • Thirty-six out of one hundred and one wall caps no secured • Hill not racked out and graded as specified in contract • Wall length was short by +11 feet, not the full 125 feet as specified in contract • It took three attempts to get Pete back to my house to go over everything listed above and have him agree to perform all of the repairs. Let me be clear, this was not a case of being overly knit picky; it was a case of Properties by Pete not building per the agreed contract for which they had a sizable deposit already. I had another contractor come by the house to inspect the work as a favor and his exact words were “you’ll be lucky if this wall lasts 2 years the way it’s been built”. Over the years I’ve had excellent, mediocre and bad contractors, but Properties by Pete was, hands down, the worst. Even basic communication was non-existent and not even the simplest of instructions or requests were followed. They either didn’t listen (even to questions they asked) or just didn’t care or both. There is so much detail that I could put in this review, but at this point, I am just glad they are finally finished. To his credit, he did send back a crew to fix all the issues, however this was due to A) I withheld the final balance and B) threatened litigation. By law he had 60 days to correct the problems before I could involve the courts. It is a shame because had he done a proper job, I had more several other landscaping jobs that he could have easily done, but that will not happen. Basically I believe that Properties by Pete tried to take advantage of us thinking we wouldn’t be paying attention to the details….do NOT hire this company!

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