Tell us about the worst RESTORATION job you ever did.

[Bob Foster]

You know the one.... where you wished you never answered the phone and when you got there to the moment you left it was the toughest one you ever did.

Also tell us what lessons you learned.

Now don't start getting on each others cases - show a little respect and play nice.

 

[Guest]

Re: Tell us about your worst, ugliest, meanest one you ever did.

We contract for a housing 2 projects with 750 units; my mind is like frozen numb from crap carpet; guess this one sticks out the most; 2 bdrm 1200 sqft.; when your walked on the carpet you could barely keep your footing the grease was so impacted. I used a half gallon of orange solv to degrease; and extracted before I could prespray with normal chem. It took 7 hrs to do this place!! Rumor was it was a crack cooker apartment; but that had to be the worst. carpet looked new; manager told me the carpet was 8 months; nearly fell over backwards.

I extracted with pad dryer wand.

 

[Jack May]

Re: Tell us about your worst, ugliest, meanest one you ever did.

Every time I take a suicide or homocide job... I do them but would prefer not.

John

 

[cmaster]

I love shovelling out the garbage for a couple hours before we start cleaning the blood and shit off the walls and floors :shock:

 

[Desk Jockey]

2 AM call in the middle of the summer, nice home in an affluent lake community.

Homeowner walks us down stairs to show us the pipe break.

Bugs are everywhere, in the corners of the room, around the light fixtures, spiders, moth's, June bugs, it was nasty!

She never closes the sliding glass door all summer, maybe not at all.

She leaves it open for her two big dogs to go in and out all the time.

While extracting we found a live turtle underneath the divan and a petrified frog in the closet.

Carpet had been wet many times and need replaced but she wanted it extracted and dried.

The lady had some issues, so I asked if I could call her insurance agent.

She gave me his number and after speaking with him and trying to explain the situation, that removal was in their best interest he sternly said the customer had a large policy with them and do what she wanted and he would take a look in the AM.

I met him out the following morning, he was stunned. Out by the truck he thank me for calling him and apologized for being short with me. He said he had no idea what I was talking about.

Driving by that home still makes me feel like something is crawling on me! :shock:

 

[Desk Jockey]

You young guys always know how to get rid of the cooties! :shock:

 

[J Scott W]

Fire damage job. Major kitchen fire occurred while couple was in the middle of a divorce. They waited almost 9 months to give us approval to clean and rebuild. Soot can do a lot of damage sitting on things that long. Never could get the two parties to agree on how to handle things.


A fire job in a community upon a mountain top known for being unfriendly to strangers. (Do you know the song "Rocky Top?)

MOst trauma jobs. Would prefer not ot have to handle.

Scott Warrington

 

[John Watson]

Before I went to work for this company, they had been trying to kiss a certain adjusters ass, He controled an independant adjusting co. After I was hired and been there about 6-7 months I got to meet him and ask for a job or two to prove ourselfs to him.

I was just about told to forget their work, leave and don't bother to come back, I was also told flat out that he had a great thing going with a couple restoration co now. (Big payoffs back then)

About 3 months later I got a personal phone call from him. Hey Asshole, he said. I figured I would give you a try. Lately, I have been hearing good things about the sewage clean up you have been doing for the Municipality. This one is also sewage related.

(I later found out he had called the Muni's Risk management Co to ask who was doing their work because this was a State of Alaska job.)

We had some Chinook winds and a big 5-6 day thaw (from 20 beow to 45-50 above) in the middle of winter. Mass thawing of the snows on the hillsides creates millions of gallons of run off, it flows to the deep ditches along the Seward Hwy and continue down untill it dumps into Turnagain Arm.

On the journey to the sea, right in the DeArmin St. area, the State had installed a massive culvert which directed the run off under the Seward Hwy and to the bay,

Well it went under the Hwy Ok, but, it didn't finish making the left it was supposed to----but

instead, went into Mrs. Brandal's back yard, created a lake which thawed her yard and entered her septic drain field to gain entry to the house..

When we arrived with our shop vac's and SteamWay PowerMatic, to pump it out, The basement level was flooded ground level, The State just finished re-diverting and draining the lake.

We called and hired every Septic pump truck in Ancorage that we could get, This water needed to be treated, They already told us no draining into the bay. After pumping out for hours My brother Gary, in chest waders was helping with the suction hoses when we met the home owner for the first time.

Mrs. Brandal, First thing she said was, pointing at my brother, tell him to stop walking, there is another stairwell over there in the corner to the basement!! What did you say??

We just found out it was not a 3 story house with 2 1/2 above ground, but there was another basement with a total of 1 1/2 under groound and we had just pumped out the second floor and still had one to go...

Remember this was in 1981-82, It was an $80,000.00 job without contents.thats $250-300 Grand today.

Now I can tell you why it was the worst RESTORATION job we did:

1. Mrs Brandal had a smoke damage on the top 2 floors 2 months earlier, the contractor just finished painting all walls and ceiling and all contents were in the bottom 2 levels. She wasn't happy with her first contractor. The day before the flooding he was supposed to have everything back in order and they didn't show. We had to contend with their problems too.

2. Her older Daughter was a good friend of ours from one of the butt bar we frequented, where she worked as a stripper, in fact she had been out parting with us the night before and was telling us of her moms smoke damage. Her stage name was Cherrie Popper.
We were into day 3 of the job when we found out when she came and visited her mom.
Now her mom didn't like us cause my partner and Cherrie took off drinking and partying 30 minutes after she got there.

3. We were given a $30,000.00 progress payment so we could but in the new furnace and materials after gutting the lower 2 levels to their studs and concrete.
The $50,000.00 was paid oupon compleation and homeowner sign off. When I called the Ins. co to see if we could pick up the check I was told that Mrs Brandal had came in as planned and signed off that we had completed the job to her satifaction and she was also given the check....Our name was also on the check.

We could not locate her...All our bills were due, contractors to be paid, employees to be paid


3 days later Mrs.Brandal called her daughters from Vegas, she was broke and needed plane fare home...

She had gone to the bank, signed our name and then her name and cashed the check. Went to Vegas to double or tripple the money..No one told us Mrs. Brandal had a serious gambling problem. In fact Mr Brandal had just died 3 months before and left a sizable insurance policy which she had already lost in Vegas also.


Through legal advice we were going to file a suit against the bank which illeagly cashed the check to begin with. It was also our companies bank, This would take time so we were also advised to file for chapter 11 our selfs.....

Mr Brandal saves the day (and our ass) He had a pay off type policy with the bank so the house was free and clear. so the bank had her sign a $50,000 note against the house so we could be paid and they would not press charges against her for forgery.

 

[LeeCory]

Wow John, that's a great story!

 

[steve g]

here is mine I worked for a large local restoration company. we get called out to a restaurant that had a sewer backup. we get there and are showed to the basement I start to walk down the stairs and just about bust my ass. there was so much kitchen grease coating the stairs I had to hold on to the railing with a death grip just to get down there once down there we find that sewer had backed up in the entire basement which was about 4k sq ft, no biggie right?? only problem was this sewer was mixed with kitchen grease, then there was a big pile of backed up sewer right by the drain. we had to shovel and bag the sewer some how make it up the greasy stairs and throw them away. then we comendered some of their buckets of degreaser used fpr washing dishes, because we sure didn't have enough chemical on the truck to break down all the grease, so we used this stuff everywhere and then flushed with hot water. it was an aweful job we were covered in grease before it was all done ourselves, it was the kind of job you think I am just going to quit my job now

 

[Bob Foster]

That would have been a very messy stinky job.

Having owned a vac truck that serviced grease interceptors (grease traps) I can tell you that most anyone in that industry would much rather pump shit than a grease trap.

 

[Jim Pemberton]

I used to think our trauma clean ups in the summer were the worst until we had one where the person died in the fire and there wasn't much left of him......

Except as a coating everywhere.

Note to new restoration company owners:

Burnt people smells worse than decayed people.

I don't miss doing either, both for the visceral feeling and the sense that someone's life ended tragically.

 

[Larry B]

Last year we gutted a 2 bedroom 1 bath apartment that had 2 nut jobs living in it. They both had went off their meds and trashed the apartment out. The man at some point cut his foot open on broken glass and to get rid of the pain sliced his hand open with a knife.

When the building owner called we met the health dept worker at the door as she put the stickers on to condem the unit. Everything in the building was boken to pieces. They threw food all over everything and plugged the kitchen sink and flooded the floor. The walls and junk on the floor were covered in blood and one of the people crapped in their hand and put hand prints down the hall walls.

The smell in this place would gag you! With the health dept people watching every move we made we had to bag everything and take it up to sets of stairs to a trash truck on the other side of the parking lot. After all the junk was out they made us spray bleach all over the carpet, cut it into strips and bag it then remove. We spent the next 2 days removing all the drywall, all the electric outlets & appliances. They then had us fog the unit and all the common hallways in the building because of the odors in the place.

The real shocker of all this came about 4 days later when the building owner called and asked if we could come pull all the ductwork out and have the furnace ready for it to be cleaned. We opened the air intake vent and removed the filter and there was the peoples cat wrapped in take and ooooozzing juices all over the place.

 

[Ed]

We were called to an apartment by the state. One of their mentally disabled clients (schizophrenic) was deemed stable enough to live on her own. She decided she was well and quit taking her meds. We were told it was really messy and there was "some fecal matter". When I opened the door and stepped in, the smell almost knocked you over. The cleaning company (as in a maid company) who had been hired before us ,their supplies were sitting right there in the foyer. They dropped them and left, never to come back. I still have some of that stuff. Anyway, when the lady went off her meds, she became extremely paranoid. She thought the FBI was watching her. She refused to use the toilet. She used everything else in the apartment, but not the toilet. Tub, all sinks, buckets, trash cans, all floors, sofa. You couldn't walk in this place without stepping on crap. State almost crapped themselves when they got the bill. Shit dries as hard as a rock. We went through a lot of enzyme on that one.