Not happy Jan...

Hopefully by Monday afternoon the last of the 'fixes' will be done and we'll be able to start moving in. OH spent the whole day at the house on Friday waiting for various tradespeople to show up. Mostly they looked at what was needed and then told him when they'd be back to do the work so it was a wasted day for him.

By 2.30 the best that could be offered was for the plasterer to come on Tuesday and the painters some time after that. I was not impressed with this, given how adamantly the SS "promised" that everything would be done by the end of Thursday that we decided a phone call to the area manager was necessary. He of course didn't take my call and so after having an argument with the CSO, leaving numerous messages and having the receptionist and another manager physically checking where the area manager was I contacted head office and asked to speak with someone. Of course being a Friday afternoon getting a hold of anyone proved extremely difficult and eventually the receptionist - who was extremely helpful and understanding (a rareity in this company) - asked me to leave it with her and she would see that somebody called me before the end of the day.

Within 20 minutes the area manager did call me and in his 'nice-as-pie-butter-woudln't-melt-in-his-mouth-tyring-to-be-everso-helpful-to-the-customer' voice, asked "what the problem was". So I very calmly that explained that I had two issues - communication and follow-up and that these are the same issues that I'd raised with him approximately 3 months ago. I explained that whilst I understand that things don't always go according to plan, I didn't understand why we hadn't recuited a call on Thursday afternoon explaining the situation and that we still didn't get a call on Friday morning. I asked why it took us to call for any action to be taken. I explained that I felt like there had been no checks done by the SS on Thursday afternoon to check firstly that the required jobs had been done, and secondly that the quality is up to scratch. I also explained that it felt to me that if we hadn't called about these things that they'd have been left as they were. I told him that I didn't agree with the CSO's explanation that as a volume builder these situations are to be expected and that there were other worse off than us and that I didn't believe that this attitude was good enough and that with better though supervision of jobs (as the SS should do) and communication with us as the customer that these sitations could have been avoided.

He didn't have any answers but he listened and did agree that this was managed poorly (probably just so that I would quit calling and abusing his staff) which is more than I can say for the CSO who tried to give excuses(all lies), and told me that as a volume builder issues such as this are be expected (the second time I've heard this excuse throughout our build) and that there were other people who were worse off than us and also hung up on me twice. He promised to make some calls and to call me back in a few minutes. Within a few minutes OH had a call from the SS to say that the plasterer would be in on Saturday and they were still trying to get in touch with painter. The area manager didn't call me back but asked the CSO to call on his behalf...

So the plasterer came on Saturday and did his stuff. The caulking guy also came and did his bit (he did refuse to do the laundry tub which we are grateful for - the tub is dodgy and won't click down into the cabinet as it should and so the SS wedged some plastic scraps under the tiles and expeced the caulking guy to caulk over it - so hopefully that secures our arguement that it's stuffed and needs to be fixed properly). The painter has called and will be in on Monday morning (and probably most of the day judging by the number of bit os blue taping marking the faults). The electrician also needs to come back but we don't have a time yet.

It's not over yet, but we are making some progress. Once the painter has been we should be right to move our stuff in. When they (the builder) have done everything that they think is necessary, we will be contacting the building commission and asking for an inspector to come out and look at the things which we are concerned about. We will also be writing a detailed letter to the general manager, and CC'd to every person in the company that we have had any dealings with, telling of our appalling experience. We may not get anywhere but we feel that we can at least try to get it on record (both within the company and consumer affairs/building commission) about the discusting way that customers are treated and the pathetic standards that they have.