Scituate Caseworks lies to customers SCITUATE Massachusetts

To Whom it May Concern,

As the owner of Scituate Caseworks I take great pride in my work and after reading this review it is crystal clear that everything written is false. The only problem with this project is the customers inability to pay his bill which was reviewed by him and myself personally in a “line by line” format. In addition to, all of the necessary inspections passed with flying colors. Please see my answers to all of his greivences below

Do not hire Scituate Caseworks! As the company hired by Traemand to assemble IKEA cabinets, SCITUATE CASEWORKS was not suited for the project. Their project managed lied to us, and tried to charge us for work without a supporting documentation. They charged our credit card for second (supposedly final) payment for the installation before we even had cabinets in the kitchen.

• The payments were scheduled and processed VIA Traemand Installation Services with a separate contract that was signed by the customer. Within the context of the contract there shows a date on which all payments will be processed. Customer was made aware of this at the time of signing and multiple times verbally during the process.   

The cabinets were installed with multiple issues: veneer was chipped in multiple spots, with cracks left around a screw, shelves were left loose, and gaps between the cabinets or molding and a wall. We had to point out the issues repeatedly, and every time it was met like a normal thing and some of it still not finished.

• As with any installation of prefinished product there is always the risk of chips or damage during the process. Before the project was completed any and all nicks and chips in question were filled and blended to match. The customer even remarked as to the quality of the color match and requested to purchase additional touch up product for future damage that may be inflicted by his children and general use. As to any gaps referred to- these are due to the extremely unlevel, un-square and un-plumb room. During a renovation you must work within the parameters of the space and pre-existing conditions. Many of the “adjustments” were brought to the customers attention and many customer requests that were far above and beyond the contractual scope of work were processed and taken care of at no additional cost to the customer. In response to the “repeatedly pointing out” remark- this is because the customer dramatically abused the contractor-customer relationship and sent dozens of emails and messages every day to multiple people asking the same questions over and over. As they were answered he would then send the same questions to other people, almost as though he was looking for a rebuttal to argue about.

Their subs did a terrible job. The electrician left AFCIs breaking from use of kitchen appliances. He did not label electrical panel correctly, and not even apologized when we brought it to his attention. He also started to run wires for under-cabinet lights, which we did not have on our kitchen plan, and we had to stop him, not the project manager, who was not on site every day. So the quality control was our daily task.

• The quality of workmanship has been proven during all of the required inspections. The inspectors also remarked as to the high quality of the finished product, I am more than happy to provide photographs of the completed project for review. It was also brought to my attention during the final electrical inspection (after it was passed) the customer called my office to complain and state that the inspector failed the inspection when indeed it passed. I called the inspector personally to hear the findings. At this point the inspector explained to me personally that everything was within code and the customer did nothing but complain about the plumbing and building inspectors. In response to the under cabinet light wiring, the customer changed his mind multiple times on this and it was my decision to run the wiring as a place-holder just in case. After his final decision to omit the UCL’s the feeds were safely removed.

The plumber did a lousy job with piping, and estimated other work which we asked about almost twice more expensive than other plumber that we selected later. He worked on a spigot and it leaked when we checked it afterwards.

• The plumbing was predetermined by the existing location, the condo was built on a concrete slab so the ability to relocate piping was not an option- espically since the customer was not willing to pay for cutting of the concrete. The extra costs he is speaking of is actually at his request of changes to the plan and contract during the process. At the time of final inspections all areas are leak and temperature checked by the inspector, since it passed all of its inspections no leaks could have been found.

Project manager did not like looking into drawings, so we had to ask them not to forget to remove an outlet or not to forget to add another one.

• Speculation… Not even sure how to respond to this allegation- The pictures show an amazing kitchen renovation and high quality workmanship. If the PM did not look at plans how could this happen?

 Their subs had to come multiple times to complete work missed because they did not look into the kitchen plans. She suggested us to have a hose to supply water to the fridge to run through the cabinets, as well as to keep exposed sewer pipe inside of another cabinet.

Countertop company came twice to take the measurements, as the project manager did not reschedule and the renovation was significantly delayed.

• The ONLY reason for delays to this project was due to the customer constantly changing the schedule. The reason for the countertop templators return was him cancelling the morning of the appointment.

It took them more than promised 8 weeks and still was not fully done when they left last time.

We love IKEA, but this experience shows that IKEA needs to excersice stronger supervision and not to tolerate Traemand hiring contractors that hurt IKEA's reputation.

To speak quite frankly about this project, hindsight is 20/20 is a gross understatement... The amount of extra time spent with this customer discussing the same things over and over became almost physically painful. In addition to- it all came down to how he could save a penny on everything. I agreed to review his project line by line and only charge him for any item we performed, at the same time if there was any additional items that were not on the contract that he would be responsible to pay. After his agreement to this he promptly declined/contested the payment request on his credit card. He still carries a significant outstanding balance.

This review should be titled “Contractor Beware”. Aleksander Kireyev also did not have the courage or decency to even list his name in the review,

Feel free to contact me at any time for copies of any contractual documents, correspondence or photographs you may wish to review in your decision of this matter.

Kind Regard,

Erik Knapp

President, Scituate Caseworks, Inc