Complaint Review: A-1 Roofing & Gutters

On Sunday October 23, 2005, I noticed that the roofing company replacing the church's roof behind my house crumbled a large section of my driveway.

October 18, 2005 (Tuesday)
The roofing company started blocking the two alleys, my other small driveway, and my large driveway due to them working on the church roof. I was a bit irritated, my garbage day is Wednesday, and the garbage truck couldn't get through. I am doing major renovations to my house, so garbage days are very important to me.

October 19, 2005 (Wednesday)
The early morning work starts, complete blockage of my small driveway, and I notice that they are really adopting my large driveway as well. They parked a large forklift with a boom on my driveway. On my driveway as well, were a few pallets of roofing shingles, ladders, miscellaneous equipment, supplies, and a truck. No garbage pick-up that day.

Okay, so they are working on this church with not much room for maneuvering around, I have more property and space available than the church, so okay, how long can this roof replacement last anyway. I chose to stay neighborly and keep quiet.

October 23, 2005 (Sunday)
I keep quiet until Sunday morning when I see that because of them parking this huge forklift it has crumbled, I do mean crumbled not cracked, a 676 SF part of my driveway. I am pissed now.

I called A-1 Roofing (one can only leave a message with an answering service) and demand someone call me back and come out immediately to look at this crumbled driveway of mine. I get two calls one from a female, then one from a man. The man says that he will get someone out there now to look at this mess.

October 28, 2005 (Friday)
I hear nothing more from A-1 Roofing. So on the following Friday, I leave another message.

Still nothing from A-1 Roofing, so I call and leave another message, I don't remember what day this is, but I will guess at it being late the next week.

Between the calls and messages left with A-1 Roofing, I spoke with the roofing sub-contractors. Within these conversations I find out a lot of information. There are three owners getting ready to go their separate ways. The sub-contractor, named Juan has been paid meagerly for his work so far. One of the owners name is Kevin. Kevin came out and looked at my driveway on the Sunday that I first called.

Most interesting fact is that Juan is not licensed or insured. He also clearly stated that A-1 Roofing knows this. This is evident because Juan was talking about the different contract prices that can be charged for licensed & insured vs. unlicensed & uninsured.

November 15, 2005 (Tuesday):
I call and leave another message for Kevin to call me regarding my driveway. No reply or call back from Kevin. A woman calls me. This call consisted of pure arguing. In general, Kevin's location for the past few weeks and why he couldn't call, he was in the Gulf. I stated that while I was speaking with Juan, Kevin called Juan on his cell phone, Juan told Kevin to call me. Argued about the fact that Kevin couldn't call me his phone was out of range but could call the subcontractor. We argued about the Sub-Contractor's insurance, their insurance, responsibility of them reimbursing me for my driveway, etc.

I think this woman is Kevin's wife, the caller id pops up as Kevin McMenamin so I am assuming his wife and home phone #.

November 16, 2005 (Wednesday):
I start calling contractors to give estimates for fixing the damaged part of my driveway. One comes out that day and gives an estimate for $2,088.00.

November 18, 2005 (Friday):
Another company gives me an estimate for $2,088.33. While I was getting into my truck to leave, a man shows up and tells me that Kevin called him to look at doing some repairs. He follows me to the back of the house and along the way asks, If this work was outside? Yes, I reply back. We get to the driveway and he states that he doesn't do that kind of work. I thanked him for his time and we went our separate ways.

November 28, 2005 (Monday):
I faxed over to A-1 Roofing & Gutters, Inc. a copy of both estimates that I received and stated that their guy didn't do that kind of work. I also requested that payment be made within two weeks due to the fact that the estimates were only good for 30 days.

No response.

December 2, 2005 (Friday):
I came home to find that a patch had been done on my driveway. Shocked, almost speechless, I called A-1 Roofing (messaging service) and demanded that someone call me back. While the service was getting basic information, she almost started arguing with me with regards to getting a bill, and this not being important to get an immediate message to them. We hang up.

Kevin calls me back almost immediately. This goes nowhere quickly. I wanted to know who authorized this repair. What company did it? Why?

He stated for a moment that he didn't realize that it was done. He stated that he got bids and was handling this. I told him, I was handling this, this is my house. I never told you to do this. He replied, what's done is done. He also mentioned somewhere that he was not going to pay for my entire driveway to be done. I think in reply to me saying that this work/patch in unacceptable.

There were a few more conversations between us and Kevin after this. His attitude was almost chuckling. We asked for their physical mailing address so they could be served. He stopped chuckling in manner. Stating to Dave that this is what she wanted and what's done is done.

12/04/05:
I called the answer service and requested to speak to Mr. Jim Golob, the registered agent for this company. My intentions to speak with him are to inform him that there is a complaint against his company and that this unresolved complaint is being brought to a small claims court. We have never spoken with him and I thought this would be a courtesy call. He may not even be aware of what is going on.

Kevin called later that afternoon and much of the same conversation as previous occur again. You got what you wanted. I am not replacing your entire driveway. I mean look at it. I reply I never asked you to repair the driveway, etc.

12/05/05:
Dave makes a call to the answering service and specifically asked for Jim Golob to return our call @12:30pm

A lady calls back @ 2:20pm to speak with Dave. Dave informs her that he would like to speak with the owner. She said that she would give him the message.

______________________________________________________

The patch that was performed without authorization, approval, knowledge, or consent is quite bad. The entire crumbled section is not patched, the driveway was not cut out then patched, and it was just applied over the crumbled driveway. Another item is that it should not have been done because of a hard freeze that was going to occur Friday night and through the weekend. I am now told that this substandard patch will simply just crumble up.

I am incensed on a few items, their overall attitude and non contact since inception. I have never personally met with Kevin. I never contracted them to do anything. After tearing up my driveway, then attitude, then finding out a little bit of information on which type of contractors they use to subcontract jobs, I certainly did not want them fixing my driveway.

As a by note, when I got my two estimates, I requested two estimates from each company, one for the patch for the damage caused by A-1 Roofing, and one for the complete re-do of the driveway. I didn't want simply a patch, because the patch would look horrible and I wanted to rework the driveway so that we would no longer share an entrance with the alley behind the church.

Everyone seems to think that my driveway is their driveway or a parking lot for the church. Pretty much the same as what A-1 Roofing did and assumed. So I never wanted the crumbled driveway repaired by a patch. I wanted reimbursement for the damage explicitly done by A-1 Roofing, so that I could help cover the cost to redo the entire driveway in one shot in a nice uniformed manner. This was going to be done in the spring when the ground wasn't going to be frozen.

Today, I filed a small claims suit and have a date for March 3,2005

Opinions please, am I nuts, crazy, vindictive, or something similiar? I know I am long winded...

Kymberlei
Pueblo, Colorado
U.S.A.