Complaint Review: Carrafa Properties - NJ

This company and Gio can be best described in four words: Fraud, Con man, Liars, Extremely poor quality. Summary: I hired Gio in October to complete a full rehab for a 4 bed, 2 bath. He started work in December and still was not done at the beginning of August. He claims to be an expert but failed every single inspection several times. He was caught doing electrical work without a permit and fined $2,500. He took 2 months to do electrical and kept making excuses.

He took 2 months to do plumbing (which also failed several inspections). He took another 2 months to clear the rough-in inspection. He failed the insulation inspection at least 5 times. During this time he lied to me several times and now I have proof. I tried my very best to be reasonable and work with Gio, but the lies continued and the delays followed. Example" Gio: Plumbing is 100% approved. A minute later I call the town - they said plumbing failed. Then he makes up some excuse about why he lied.

The most disturbing thing about Gio and his company is they took no responsibility and always blamed the town or someone else. During this job he displayed extremely poor project management, his workers did a really terrible job, and he took $60K of my money without completing any one single scope. Not one thing I hired him for his complete (electrical, plumbing, drywall, paint, flooring, windows, bath 1 and 2, kitchen, exterior paint, etc.). On top of that he has extremely poor communication.

They claim to provide daily logs and pictures and don’t. When I called Gio to complain and get updates he would use various tactics to deflect and make it personal. Poor Communication Example: 7 months into the project, Gio and his employees refused to answer basic questions like: What’s the status of the windows order? How have you spent the thousands of dollars I gave you for material (material audit)? When I did, they said they were busy and my questions were distracting them. I have records of all these emails.

Poor Quality Examples:

1. Poor drywall and paint: He claimed to paint the first floor but there are stains everywhere and the drywall work they did is so bad you can see the ceiling lines of tape. Look at the drywall pictures. Another contractor who came to help me said this is the worst drywall and taping job he's seen in his life.

2. Bath 1 - He purposely tried to trick me in believing the bathrooms were done, but upon further review I found he installed the tub with a drain. Now I have to hire a plumber to redo the entire thing. Look at the picture.

3. Bath 1- he installed the toilet too close to the wall so it doesn't fit. He then went on to blame the "house" for that. Meanwhile Gio redid the entire bathroom so he should've known the toilet drain needs to be 18 inches from the wall.

4. Bath 1 - He installed a hot and cold water pipe for the sink but the cold water isn't connected to anything. He hid the open pipe in the wall so I couldn't see it.

5. Carpets - He installed brand new carpets when drywall wasn't done. Look at the pictures. He ruined the new carpets.

6. Bath 2 - he installed a cheap tiny vanity and mirror. He hid the light box behind the vanity - open blue box with open exposed wires (not even covered)

7. bath 2- He cut a plumbing pipe and hid the opening of that pipe in the wall

8. He took more than $1K for landscaping and put 15-20 bags of mulch outside (each bag cost $2-3)

9. He took $8K for windows and didn't deliver them. He made up so many stories about ordering windows since January and at the end claimed I told him to cancel the order. I have voice recordings which will be used in my lawsuit.

10. He took $3,200 for bay windows and didn't deliver them.

11. He failed to deliver one complete aspect of my house and took $60k of my money.

There are so many other items but I think you get the point. If you want to work with a liar, a fraud, a cheat who takes honest people's hard earned money, that's Gio. I would recommend you walk away. Last, but not least, Gio broke into my house yesterday and stole my materials. I caught him right in time and called the police. I'm pressing charges. Yes. I'm suing him and have filed a complaint against his company with all the agencies.