On October 13th, 2015, our home suffered an extensive flood from the 2nd floor laundry room. Our insurance company sent out Winmar (Markham) to do the emergency services and to assess damages.
Winmar came out on a Friday and immediately went to work with tearing apart walls, flooring, ceilings, etc for the drying process. They also sent in a crew to pack up our kitchen and other affected areas. Several drying out fans were set up throughout the house and our home became an extremely loud and uncomfortable place to be in.
Their demolition crew are a young group. They tore off the sopping wet walls of the hall closet and stuck a fan in there to dry out the wood. Later that night we heard a loud crash. Got up to look and saw their crew had left the sopping wet ceiling in the closet (and it crashed down to the floor). If one of my cats were there, it would have been severely injured(!).
Winmar treated our chattels like garbage. Property was not packaged safely with paper or bubble wrap. Our vintage wood wall hangings were taken down and stacked one upon another and then slid under our dining room table. Boxes, prints, chattels were stacked on top of our antique Asian furniture in the sitting room. In fact, our entire sitting room was used as a huge dumping ground for all our Chattels whilst our furniture an wool carpet was NOT adequately protected. I have photos.
With Winmar, our chattels were not always treated with respect and it seems their crew was more interested in cigarette breaks. A lot of demolition took place without our chattels being properly protected. Our dining room table was used as a dumping ground for odds & ends (without any protective cardboard being placed on the table top). Even our live plants were simply placed under a plastic sheet. Our sitting room (aka, house museum) was used as a storage site for pretty much everything. Imported antique furniture had heavy boxes and odds and ends placed on them (see photos and you'll understand what I'm writing about). Wall hangings were not properly protected. The piano had a thin sheet of plastic laid across it (which kept falling off). Dining room chairs were used as a place for Winmar crew to rest removed baseboards (which ultimately caused several punctures in the fabric of chair tops). Shoes in the hall closet were tossed into boxes. Everything but the kitchen items were tossed into boxes. Kitchen boxes were marked in such a way that made zero sense to us. They were then stacked in front of the picture window in the house museum with labels facing the window and then boxes upon boxes stored in front. In other words, those boxes became completely inaccessible.
Upper kitchen cabinets were taken down and the breakfast area in the kitchen became a second dumping ground.
Winmar's idea of home restoration: Move all the furniture to one side of the house and replace the floor. Then move it to the other side of the house to replace the floor. Move the furniture around to paint the walls. So much shifting of furniture. Not professional and not respectful of chattels.
Jim L. (the project manager) and I had a falling out. Although I initially thought he was a take charge kind of guy, he turned out to be more of a cocky guy who was more interested in his own opinions and not those of the homeowner. We were not happy with the lack of communication from his 'floor guy' and so we wanted to hire our own He said no. Either Winmar does all the work or they do none. I don't take too kindly to ultimatums. At that point, I looked up reviews on Winmar and decided I did not want to use them for the restoration part of our home. And I'm very glad I made that decision.
We also noticed Winmar had scratched up the front and dented the side of our stainless steel refrigerator (in addition to punctures in our dining room chairs). Brian B. (owner) came over to view the damage. He was adamant Winmar did not cause the damage even though they were the only crew in our home that did demolition while we still had furniture in the house. I even showed him photos of how the damage could have been done (and was done). He had a horrible attitude. Walked into my home with his nose out of joint. He was very insulting.
I would never, ever hire this company. If we were privy to what we were in for with respect to a house flood, we would have hired a company with a good reputation. Team Winmar Markham is not one I would ever want to deal with.
Please note. Winmar may respond. But photos are louder than words. And the ones I attached below are just a few of the many that I took.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $25,000.00