Complaint Review: Brett Jone Island Dream Homes - Edgewater Florida

This narrative is in reference to Bret Jones, owner of Island Dream Homes. Our experience was nothing short of a nightmare! In the interests of brevity I will limit this to the major examples of ineptness and attempt to leave out as much of our emotions as possible. Presumably this will lead you to the same conclusion: Bret Jones is a deceitful, dishonest, self-serving person who has no business being a general contractor.

Our saga began in September 2016, after we bought a 980 sq. foot condo in New Smyrna Beach, FL. Bret Jones was the first person we interviewed and he came across as a very jolly fellow, with a background at NASA and prided himself having built the Tree House at Norwoods, which we were familiar. With him was his administrative assistant, Micki Mansfield, who was very attentive and as we live out of state, she offered her services with decorating, colors, etc. As time went on she, somehow, took over the job of Bret Jones as our contractor. She has absolutely no training or business as such, and was difficult to work with.

Bret Jones written contracts are woefully inadequate. He prides himself in working the numbers “in his head,” which leaves you clueless as to allowances. When pressed for a number you'll get a range, "about $8 to $12 a square foot.” How do you plan/budget that way? To renovate our two bathrooms he quoted from his head $10,000 each which we found to be industry standard. When we received the printed change order it was $24,000. Things tend to change rather conveniently inside his head…

The primary job of a contractor is to develop a plan, keep the project on schedule and have material on hand as you sequence in your skilled workers. Bret Jones has no plan, no schedule, no materials purchased in advance and he avoids the use of skilled craftsmen using general handymen instead. His work is line of sight. Major items such as cabinets sat in warehouses for weeks as his preparation dragged on and on.

We used 1x6 tongue and groove slats to cover a ceiling of poured concrete. Anchor boards were secured directly onto the concrete slab and half the ceiling slats were installed before anyone thought to pull out a level. The roller coaster had to come down, anchor boards shimmed and a week later we were back where we started. Where was my contractor?

When the ceiling was eventually finished my wife and I flew down from Atlanta to have a look. It had taken several weeks but it did look nice. I asked what was next on the agenda, not knowing yet that Bret Jones had no such agenda. He said floors. Seeing no stack of material anywhere, I asked where the flooring was. He replied, “We will order it”. I said you know it takes 8-10 business days to have it delivered. He said, “then I'll order it tomorrow”... Two weeks down the drain.

Our project was quite simple, 980 sq. ft. condo. Our flooring arrives two weeks later, and is installed in a couple days with one little problem. Bret Jones only ordered 700 sq. feet of material. We came up one bedroom short on a two-bedroom condo. He reorders 300 sq. feet to be delivered in, you guessed it, 8-10 business days. NOW we start figuring out what we're dealing with and a week later we decide to follow up. The order had been placed but not yet submitted for lack of the required down payment. It has now taken three weeks to do the ceiling and five weeks to lay the flooring. Had we not already paid Bret Jones $50,000 by this point, we would have pulled the plug and been done with him.

We are now flying or driving to the condo weekly, as nothing seemed to happen without a visit pending. With finally some signs of progress it’s onto the bathroom tile. A week into this project another condo owner happens by and asks why the soundproofing wasn't installed under the tile floor as required by code. Out comes the jackhammer... Where is my contractor???

In the guest room we took out a wall to convert the owners closet into extra floor space for the bedroom. The light in the closet needed to have the switch moved into the bedroom. The new wall was sheet rocked and the wiring and switch forgotten. Where is my contractor?  From day one we wanted a cable line run from the living room to the guest bedroom. It could easily be run up behind the dry wall, along the tong and groove ceiling, and drop down the bedroom wall. Thirty minute job, max. Every time we visited I asked about the cable. “It’s in my head…” When they finally ran the cable the trim had to come down and the cable was jabbed in and out of cracks in the ceiling, behind the trim thru the air ducting into the room. Totally low rent. The only reason I know of this is when the cable guys came to power up they got no signal to the back bedroom. Down comes the trim and they find the cable had been cut in two, TAPED together and shoved back into the wall. The cable guys had to run a brand new line.

With left over tong and grove from the ceiling, I asked if we could use it in the ceiling of the two closets to spruce them up a bit. The closets are 18 in. by 5 ft. Make ten cuts on the 1x6's 18 in. long for each closet and air gun them in place. Easily a one hour project. The Change Order was $580!

From the beginning we wanted custom doors, Lowe's solid core, simple design, with a two-week lead-time. December 1st we sent him a picture with skew number. December 15th Bret Jones calls and says "Doors. We need doors. Now.“ Special orders now have a four-week lead-time due to the holidays. Unable to delay progress further, we had to settle for doors well below our standards and now our doors are pressed cardboard and I clench my teeth every time I open and close them.

I asked multiple times spanning four months about the waterline for the icemaker, now on the far side of the kitchen from our water main. The day of our FINAL INSPECTION they drilled holes thru every wall throughout our brand new cabinets to run a line to our refrigerator.

During our initial exchange we discussed ideas and design styles for blinds throughout the condo. They contacted the installation company for pricing and set up the instillation. After the install Bret Jones tells us he didn't factor blinds into our contract. That is a $4,000 oversight! All in the head… We paid.

Tile for two small bathrooms and kitchen backsplash took two months. SERIOUSLY – TWO MONTHS! The tile guy was a nice fella, but no tradesman for sure. It was a four-day job for someone who knew what he was doing. The tile in the Master shower stopped a half inch shy of the ceiling, a rookie mistake. They wanted to calk the gap and my wife said no. They wanted to put trim over it - in a shower. My wife said no way. The only proper fix was to tile the ceiling in the shower. The space is less than 3x4 feet. Bret Jones billed us over $600 dollars to repair the blunder he himself never even saw. He charged us $67 per hour for his guy that he pays $15 per hour, and then added his twenty percent override, all to recover from his own mistake! We refused to pay.

From the beginning we wanted an extra outlet in each bathroom. With drywall removed to bare studs, an electrician could have installed the outlets in minutes. Bret Jones was seldom on site and this too went undone. I eventually had to refuse to make my final payment until the outlets were installed. It was one of the final things done before we finished the project, and it took two electricians half a day and the painter a day to repair the drywall and a day to paint.

We paid Bret Jones top dollar for our remodel and expected the plumbing, electrical, trim, and tile work to have been done by certified professionals. Instead these tasks were performed by his handy men, all be it with their best of intentions, at a fraction of what we paid him and he pocketed the difference. Trouble arose with the kitchen electrical. The wiring had been done by one of his handymen and a qualified electrician came in to sign off his work. While working inside one if the electrical boxes, the electrician got shocked and thick black smoke shot out of the box. Bret Jones and the electrician exchanged words in front of my wife before taking their heated discussion outside. The electrician then returned, collected his tools and left. Bret Jones told my wife to her face that everything was just fine, that the electrician was just hot headed.

One of my conditions prior to my final payment was to have a qualified electrician confirm the wiring in the kitchen was done properly. Two new electricians came while I was there, Bret Jones nowhere to be found, and they both shook their heads at what they saw and said it was totally incorrect. Three days prior to our first rental the kitchen walls were cut open and the two electricians spent two days correcting all the mistakes they found! Bret Jones was willing to lie to our face and put my family and my tenants in harms way to serve his own personal agenda - greed.

In summary, Bret Jones engagement in my project was minimal at best. His skills as a general contractor are virtually non-existent. He is lacking in all aspects of planning, managing and has no sense of time and money management. His inattentiveness cost me weeks of lost revenue, which never seemed a concern of his. This project should have been fun. Instead it was so disturbing I had to put aside writing this letter for several months just to clear my head. While it may seem cold-hearted to submit this near Christmas, I have only to remember how he destroyed mine last year. The sadist part of all this to me is that Bret Jones never got it. He never accepted any responsibility for any shortcomings. He never saw any of my concerns from my vantage point. An extra month or two added to the project was never a concern of his. If you’re considering a remodel or, heaven forbid, new construction, if time and/or money are of concern, I would reconsider any involvement with Bret Jones and Island Dream Homes.