Complaint Review: Instar Services Group

In September of 2004 the Treasure Coast of Florida (Fort Pierce) suffered 2 devastating Hurricanes (Frances and Jeanne). By December 31, 2004 after much personal labor my condo in the Ocean Village Resort in Fort Pierce was fully restored such that it was rentable again.

Everything was hunky-dory until about June 5 of 2005 when my nephew who was staying there received an unannounced knock on the door from a disaster restoration service named InStar that my condo cluster elected to employ that was primarily replacing drywall and windows and doing roof work up to that point.

The purpose of their unannounced visit was that they had been contracted by our condo association to replace 4 balconies in our cluster and the balcony above us was one of the ones in question. (We are on the bottom floor of a 2 story building.)

They had to get in there and place our patio off limits by removing the screens and the screen door that I had spent so much time on the previous December and they also had to remove our roll-down hurricane shutters the perforated kind that can be easily rolled up or down manually. Next they erected plywood to protect the sliding glass doors and proceeded to break up the old balcony, erect forms for the pouring of a new balcony, pour the new balcony, let it cure, then reinstall the hurricane shutters, screens, screendoor and basically restore my patio to its original condition.

When we were contacted by our nephew on the phone that day, InStar promised us the entire project would take 10 days to 2 weeks. As you can guess when we arrived at our condo in late June for our annual vacation not only was the project not complete but the patio above us was not yet poured.

When I questioned InStar as to why the project wasn't even half done the only response I got was there was a shortage of cement. As Hurricane Dennis loomed on the horizon we noticed that the unit above us was open to the elements because their sliding glass doors had been moved out to the very end of the building years ago eliminating their patio/balcony in favor of a larger living room. All that separated their unit from the elements was a thin sheet of plastic. This obviously jeopardized both units because of the potential for a large amount of rain.

The only way I could get the InStar people to erect some form of plywood to add additional protection from the elements was to contact InStar thru their 800 number and complain to the company president. Hurricane Dennis fortunately avoided us and eventually, in late July the patio was poured, but by the conclusion of our vacation in mid-July we never saw the plywood removed from our own sliding glass doors.

Several weeks later we made inquiries as to the status of our patio as we had several rentals lined up for the fall. To our dismay we found that the screens, screen door and hurricane shutters had never been installed. When I called InStar's man on site (Russell somebody) I was told that replacing those items was the owner's responsibility. (So much for Instar promises) Again I was forced to call their President and remind them of their pledge to me in early June that everything on my patio would be put back in operating order.

Eventually and reluctantly the InStar people on site installed the screens, screendoor and hurricane shutters. But the screendoor never was installed properly according to our maid and would not latch properly. You had to physically lean on the door to get it to latch. It was damaged in a minor windstorm earlier in the fall and later was completely destroyed during the recent Hurricane Wilma.

Interestingly, the unit next to mine had an identical screen door that was installed by Home Depot (as was ours originally) and it remained intact. Then when we arrived for our Christmas vacation in mid-December we found that the hurricane shutters were not properly installed either.

When I called the Instar people over that still remained on site all I got was lies and denials. Yes they installed the screen door properly they said, but according to our maid it never latched properly. You had to lean against the door to get it to properly latch. Small wonder why it was damaged again in a minor windstorm that preceded Hurricane Wilma and then blown beyond repair during Hurricane Wilma, all the while the next door neighbor's identical screendoor remained intact.

The shutters (the perforated roll-up kind) are jammed and cannot be moved easily up or down. Their people on site came over and lied their asses off telling me that they installed them themselves and they were working just fine. Our maid told us they never worked fine after they re-installed them.

Most of the Instar employees (including Russell) are now off to the New Orleans area to further victimize the victims of Katrina.

Anyway, to any condo association or group who is need of "disaster restoration services" this is what you can expect if you hire Instar:

1) They have offices all over the south including Kingsport, Knoxville, Nashville and Memphis TN, Bradenton, New Port Richey and Tampa FL, Atlanta, GA, Lexington, KY, Austin, Belton, Dallas, San Antonio and Fort Worth, TX. You'll be employing alot of very dishonest good-ol-boys from all over the south who can't keep a promise or tell the truth about much of anything. Most of these good-ol-boys are in supervisory positions. They basically sit in the on-site trailer and accomplish almost nothing for weeks at a time.

2) The ones who actually do the work are the illegal (or legal)immigrants who don't speak much English. Most of their work is unsupervised.

3) Look for these employees to take a dump in your toilet when you condo is vacant, when the water is shut off, then go on their merry way.

4) Look for their employees to deposit cigarette butts all over your condo.

5) Look for their employees to use your condo or patio as a storage area or dumping ground where they store their tools, the replacement windows and sliders and to basically leave the sliding glass doors open all summer while your air conditioner is running. Look for them to leave all your doors wide open with the AC running.

6) Look for them to splatter stucco all over your brand new ceramic tile floor, never putting a tarp down, never cleaning it up when it was still wet, and never admitting that they did it, it was always someone else.

7) Look for their employees to steal anything from televisions to expensive jewelry including wedding & engagement rings.

8) Look for their employees to just walk right into your condo while you're there out of force of habit, to use the phone, or the bathroom or whatever.

9) Look for their employees to actually occupy your condo (live there) without you the owner knowing about it.

10) Look for them to punch holes or take huge gouges out of your brand new painted walls and not repair it.

11) Expect to have to remind them of every single last task that they owe you.

12) Look for them to be very good at tearing things apart but about as skilled as Laurel and Hardy with the piano when it comes to putting something back together.

Russ
Greensburg, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.