Carriage Hill Construction poor customer service, won't take resposiblity Ripoff LONDON Ontario Canada

Firstly, I would like to make clear that we did not build a home for Mr. C therefore he cannot with any truthfulness make any statements with regards to the quality of our customer service. We don't know why Mr. C (who is an office with the London City Police force) and who should be upholding moral public standards , is acting in such a childish and immature manner.



Following is a a copy of a letter sent by Mr. C to the Better Business Bureau of Western Ontario with regards to the same issue (spelling errors as written by sender):





Better Business Bureau of Western Ontario

COMPLAINT ACTIVITY REPORT Case # i046897

Consumer Info: xxxxxxx

Consumers Original Complaint;

In July 2006 Carriage Hill Construction was building a house a couple lots behind me and the backhoe trailer ran over my lawn causing a rut 16"deep and 3' wide and is approx 20-25 rolls of sod to be replaced. I saw this happen and when I went to their house down the street from me to bring this to their attention they said they will take care of it. They came to take pics. Three weeks later I stopped Carlo the owner as he was driving by my house to their site they were building on and I asked him for an update on when the lawn was going to be repaired and he said he wasn't going to. I was displeased with that response and said that he has a responabililty to The owners of the property that border his construction sites that he's building house on that if damage is done that he should repair it. His response was that it was the drivers fault and that if the driver got in a accident on the corner of Boler Rd. and Southdale it wouldn't be his fault. I agreed BUT it happen at a site of his behind my house doing work on or for his property.



At a later date my wife and I phone police and the contacted him and the trucking company and they admitted fault and said the repairs would be made, which has never happened. We finally got restitution from the trucking company for the damage but It took 9 months of fighting and legal action to do so, the trucking company said t was the responability of the builder to repair it and back bill the trucking company which was agreed upon by The London Police forces Officer Kok upon his investigation.



Consumers Desired Resolution:

None, to much bad blood between us. Just file a complaint to warn other of a irrisponsilbe builder.







Further to the above letter and the one posted on this website, I would like to state the events more accurately than Mr, C presumes them to be.



As a background, we are a local home builder in London, Ontario, Canada and actually live in the same subdivision that we build in. We pride ourselves in the quality of the homes we build and we can provide numerous references and testimonials from customers, suppliers or trades as to the integrity of ourselves and our company in the manner in which we conduct our business. Our service record speak for itself and we have achieved an excellent service rating from the Tarion Warranty Program (new home warranty program in the province of Ontario) and have also been awarded a certificate of excellence from the same program.



In July of 2006, Mr. C came to our home and commenced to speak to my wife in a raised tone of voice of what had happened to his sod, this without initially introducing himself or identifying who he was or where he lived. Once he had completed his tirade, my wife calmly asked him who he was and where he lived. She made a note of the information and told him politely that we would look into the situation as no one from our company or any of our subtrades had called to inform her of the situation. In being proactive, she also immediately went to his home and took pictures of the lawn. She then called me and told me of what had happened and I was also unaware of the situation and told her that I would immediately go and see the lawn.



When I went to see the lawn, it was evident that a large truck or trailer had indeed travelled over the lawn. It should be made clear at this point that the lawn in question here is not Mr. Cascadden's property, but on a portion of city property. Mr. C lives on a corner lot, so that the city boulevard extends to the west and south side of his home.



I immediately went to see the operator of the trailer that was excavating a home for us. The property that was being excavated is not adjacent to Mr. C's property, but down the street from where he lives. I spoke to the owner of the excavation company and he told me that in bringing the trailer to the site, the trailer operator had taken the corner too sharply and had run over the lawn. He told me that he would take responsibility for repairing the damage.



The following day as I was entering the street, I noticed someone across the street waving their arms at me in a manner as to get my attention. I stopped and this person introduced himself as Mike and told me he was the owner of the house that the trailer had driven over the sod and questioned me as to when I was intending to repair the sod. I told him that my intention was not to repair it as no one in my company had actually done the damage. I pointed over to the truck that was down the street at the excavation site and indicated to him that the truck did not have my company logo on it and suggested he speak to the owner/operator of the company because I knew him well and he would repair the damages. He then tried to threaten me by saying that "he had referred many people to view our model home", as to say that if I did not repair his sod, he would not speak kindly of our company to potential buyers. He insisted that I should immediately perform the repairs and I told him that I did not think that I was responsible for the damages because this was damage made by a person on his way to a jobsite on public property and not by someone working on an adjacent property. He did not agree so I made the comparison of someone going to a jobsite and getting into an accident and then placing blame on the owner of the company that the person was intending to work for and expecting the company to pay for the damages. As stated in his letter to the BBB, he agreed that this made sense, but was still not happy about having to speak to the excavation contractor. I told him to leave it with me and that I would speak to him again and that if the sod was not repaired by the time the excavation contractor had completed his work, that I would have the sod repaired and deduct it from his invoice. I also informed Mr. C that in any event, the work would not be carried out immediately, but since we were in the process of completing another home 2 lots behind his home, and would be installing sod there shortly, that we would repair the sod at the same time as we installed the sod on the property behind him. His comment was that he did not want to wait all summer before the sod was repaired and I told him I could not guarantee him a date, but would get it repaired for him.



I left it at that and two weeks later, my wife called me to inform me that a City of London police office had come by our home as someone' had called in to file a complaint about some damaged sod. My wife was surprised at this because we have had difficulty in the past getting the police out when there has been theft or vandalism at our various projects and now we had the police arrive at our door over some damaged sod. (We later were informed that Mr. C is a police officer and had send his police associates to attempt to intimidate us into repairing the sod for him.) My wife told the officer that we had nothing to do with the damage but willingly gave the office the name and contact information of the excavation company for him to pursue his investigation' of the matter. At this point we had no further intention of assisting Mr. C as we do not take kindly of being harassed to perform work for people.



A few weeks later, we had a grading machine to the home behind Mr. C's home to prepare the lot for sodding. It was 8:50 a.m. on a Sunday morning. We had not commenced any work as the bylaws clearly state that no noise can be made before 9:00 a.m. on Saturdays or Sundays. The operator had simply stared his machinery to warm it up. We believe Mr. C immediately called another of his associates at the police department who then called our home demanding that we turn off the machine or else they would impose fine against us. We did this and waited the 5 minutes before turning Mr. C had the audacity to approach the grader operator and ask him to bring a rock from our property to his so he could use it in his landscaping. Our operator refused to do so.



In order to continue to harass us, a few weeks later, we believe Mr. C again decided that since he did not get the rock for his landscaping, that he would contact the Ministry of Labour in an attempt to possibly get myself or one of our subtrades into difficultly with the Ministry. The representative came to the site, spoke to us of what a great job we were doing and left, much to the disappointment of Mr. C.



In the course of the next few weeks we were ready to install the sod at our property a couple of lots behind Mr. C. Mr. C approached our sod contractors with regards to repairing the damage, but they declined as they did not have a work order from us.



This further infuriated Mr. C to the point that he began to write letters to various forums and speak disparagingly of our company to neighbours in the area.



What Mr. C also fails to mention is that in the summer of 2007 he built a fence and a pool in his backyard and used our lot behind him as an access route and a dumping ground for various materials without our permission. In trying to keep the calm, we never said anything to him and let him go about his business in completing his various projects.



Our excavation contractor did repair the sod in question. We are not aware of any legal action he refers to in his letter to the BBB or investigation reports made by an officer Kok, as we were not contacted by anyone with regards to these.



We maintain that we attempted in every way possible to assist Mr. C with his problem, but he was not responsive to our proposal to resolve the issue in a fair and reasonable manner.

It malicious destruction of property. If some drunk did it he would be responsible same as the construction co. If the co didn't have authorization by you to trespass on your property then they are responsible for repairs. You'll need to call the police and file a property damage report first. Hopefully, you have another witness such as a neighbor who saw it, otherwise now its your word against his and they'll say they didn't do it. Its probably not worth an attorney so I might help myself to the new site for any tools or materials I want in compensation.