ServiceMaster and Elite

I would like to take a moment to send out a few words of praise to the folks at ServiceMaster of Nashua, NH. They were professional and courteous, and they were understanding of our situation. They made us feel at ease quickly, and they did very good work. As is the case with any company, they had a few hiccups and accidents, but they maitained their professional attitude throughout.

However, ServiceMaster has a sister company called Elite Construction. I assure you that, in my opinion, the only thing elite about them is their name. They started out really well "out of the gate". Elite had just started a few months before we had our fire, and they needed the business and the references. However, after an ice storm and a few episodes of heavy rain, they had more work than they could handle.

Instead of turning away work or hiring additional people, Elite spread themselves way too thin. There were periods of a week or more when nothing of substance was done at the house because workers were at other jobs. When they got a very skilled carpenter on the job, he was let go, apparently because he spent a little bit of overtime to finish off what he was working on.

The job foreman did a walk-through with us to discuss what was going to be done, and then they did things completely differently from what had been discussed. They installed a footing in the basement that was for the specific purpose of moving one of the support columns to open up the space. We ordered furniture that would fit properly without that column there. What a surprise it was when we saw that the column wasn't moved! They forgot to insulate the attic. They removed the old insulation, and neglected to replace it. When we contacted them to ask about it, they said that was what we had asked for. Insulation is not an option in New Hampshire, it is an absolute must. They have a nasty habit of trying to put the blame on the homeowner.

Elite broke fixtures (screens, fans and a sink) in the house, and then charged the insurance company to replace the items. They also waited over five months to send us the bill for the services. This may sound like a small problem, but we spent those five months wondering how much we still owed them.