Wendy in Aurora

I had a few odd jobs that needed fixing at my property and called Matt and Rafael. They are both excellent at what they do, and involve the customer in discussing options as they work. All jobs were done efficiently, and at a reasonable price. Highly recommend!

I hired this company to do deep cleaning after tenants moved out of my property. Aida and her friendly crew did an excellent job. They were on time, showed attention to detail and were very accommodating and apologetic, when I discovered a stubborn spot. Aida prides herself on customer satisfaction and with good reason! I would not hesitate to recommend her.

Templar inspected my attic for mould after a ceiling water leak. David, the inspector, also recommended having the old insulation tested for asbestos, as it included vermiculite. Templar provided a very competitive quote and was able to remove the attic mould the next day. I received a certificate of completion and asbestos analysis from an independent lab (luckily asbestos free!). From start to finish I felt comfortable with this company. Highly recommended.

I contacted Accu- Star Environment to inspect the attic of my rental property after a ceiling water leak. My initial phone contact, Amanda was positive and upbeat. Elizabeth arrived with her ladder, the next day. She did a thorough inspection of the attic and determined that there was some mould localized to the area where the leak occurred. Accu-Star's quote was detailed and competitive and offered price matching. This was not the major problem, costing thousands of dollars that I had feared before getting quotes. Elizabeth also spent some time answering questions about other areas of my house that could be environmentally problematic in the future. This is a full service company that deals with all kinds of environmental issues, including issues that may plague landlords. Had I not needed the mould work completed the next day; Accu-Star would have been my first choice for the remediation. They will be my first choice in the future.

On New Years day, my tenant called to let me know that water was dripping from the bathroom ceiling. Yikes! After leaving several messages with various roofing companies, the first to get back to me the following day, was roofrepairs.ca. Kim, in customer service, was incredibly helpful and understanding and Brad, the roofer came out to inspect the roof and vents that day! Both the bath fan and the kitchen fan were venting into the attic, resulting in condensation. Brad properly installed the bath and kitchen vents with insulated flex line and roof dampers. He also installed two more attic vents for better circulation. The work was completed two days later, unfortunately for Brad, in the bitter cold. I cannot say enough about this company. All my questions were answered promptly. A detailed invoice with pictures was provided. Pricing is very reasonable. Both Brad and Kim are very knowledgeable and professional. I wouldn't hesitate to use their services again. Highly recommended!

This review is for Handyman Connection Etobicoke, ON. I hired this franchise on June 17th to do the following tasks at my rental property and the work was completed by June 29th when I received my final invoice: "-Tuck point an area about 3X3 standard wall brick Red in color and pull out cement wall plugs and fill in holes -Remove one panel lattice at front deck and create a removable access panel to allow for cleaning under the deck Remove an area of (24X6") of Cement" (a temporary overlay due to trip hazard) - Parge area on garage wall" I spent time with the "Craftsman" they sent to my property, walking him around the property and clearly outlining what needed to be done, He took notes. I requested that he send my pictures as he completed tasks and that he phone or text me with any questions, as well as send pictures of completed tasks. Unfortunately, this was not enough. My assumption was that a craftsman is skilled and creates functional work; knows how to prepare his work area; cleans up after himself; will leave my house looking better than he initially found it; and will complete the tasks as outlined on the invoice and nothing more. This craftsman did not know how to frame a panel; make the frame flush to the porch and when it was clear that the panel stuck out and was uneven, decided to alter the panel on the other side of my porch, without my permission. He filled brick holes left from screws in the brick, by slathering mortar over the brick. He left a puddle of cement on my driveway, after parging a section and for some unknown reason, added cement to my brick wall. He also tuck-pointed a corner brick without aligning it to the wall. The owner of this franchise handles customer service. He did send the craftsman back to try and clean up the cement spill on my driveway, but I will either have to paint or resurface it, to get rid of the remaining white spots. As to the rest of my issues, his customer service style is defensive: Deflect: How would you do it? It had to be done this way..." 2. Deny: The Craftsman did not put cement on the yellow brick by the garage. It must have been there. 3. Ignore: Despite phone calls and emails (the last dated Jul 13th), I am still waiting for a copy of receipts used to purchase materials and I am still waiting for a copy of the "Total Home Protection Plan" referenced on the front of my invoice. Although I am a senior without any knowledge of the trades, I am quite capable of recognizing inferior work and damage to my property. It will cost me at least the amount charged by Handyman Connection, to restore my property to its pre "Craftsman" state.

Outstanding service and response! I phoned The Appliance Guy on a busy Monday morning and had a response within the hour. Our dryer was not dispersing heat consistently. Joe spent time on the phone asking questions to ensure that the problem warranted a service call. He called twice to clarify the situation, as well as to let us know when he would be able to arrive at our home. He demonstrated complete professionalism: knowledgeable, courteous and just an all round friendly guy. Highly recommended!

Sam repaired my crumbling cement front steps and the walkway leading to them. At no extra charge he created a slope to ensure the walkway was safe. Sam also offered wise advice as to other areas of my walkway that I was concerned about. He was quick to respond to my request for a quote and professional in terms of completing the job on time, invoicing and payment. I would not hesitate to recommend his services for exterior repairs.

This is the second season Larry has closed my rental property pool, and once again he has provided knowledgeable, professional service at a reasonable price. After many years of trying to find a reliable pool company, I have finally found the right one. This year Larry went out of his way to fix cement cracks and offered sound advice regarding future maintenance costs. He is efficient, works hard and cleans up after his work is done. I would not hesitate to recommend him.

I had Wei, from Greenerland Garden Services quote prices for removing a dead cedar tree, and a blue spruce that I want to replace with a shade tree Two tall cedars in my backyard were covered in Virginia creeper and one of them had died. I wanted the dead tree down as soon as possible to ensure that the second cedar wasn’t at risk and to find the roots of the Virginia creeper. Wei was able to cut down the cedar that day and at a very reasonable price. He removed all debris and left the area clean. I would highly recommend his services.

In early June I decided to bring my weed infested lawn back to health and called several companies for quotes. Most believed new sod was the way to go but as it was more expensive than overseeding, I chose to believe the wonderful Homestars reviews of Lawnsavers and went with overseeding, and weed and grub control applications. Lawnsavers was the only company that did not actually come out to evaluate the lawn. They evaluated my lawn based on pictures, ever confident that it could be brought back to health. In theory, overseeding works but in practice, it can be too labour intensive and prone to variables that the homeowner has no control over: watering in a drought is expensive and if the overseeding is not intensive will yield you a lawn full of crabgrass or Creeping Charlie; after a flood, grass seeds and seedlings may be swept away especially on slopes, and you always have the birds to take their share; mowing – how and when depending on your turf (seedlings, weeds and healthy lawn all have best practices) and if you have a mulching lawnmower be sure to pick up the clippings, even though the city of Toronto wants you to mulch and doesn’t want your clippings in yardwaste; weed control – their blanket applications work best but the spot checks were completely ineffective as my Creeping Charlie just bounced right back; if you decide to pull the crabgrass as recommended, be prepared to look at bald spots for some time as there will be a best time to overseed for the second time, and with that comes the expense of watering religiously again should the weather not cooperate, and hoping that more weeds will not rise from the lawn, as opposed to grass seedlings. I learned a great deal from this experience: do your research prior to purchase and know your lawn – do it yourself is probably the best way to go and avoid the frustrations of depending on a company that can’t possibly meet your lawn’s individual needs. Don’t waste your time or your money following their schedules. Lawnsavers has well-trained customer service reps who will dazzle you with “horticulture speak” and confusing service notices but thus far have not allowed me to speak to the owner. Aug 29, 2013: My original intention was to inform the reader that your renovation package may work in an ideal world but that people might be wiser to do it themselves, and while we seem to agree on many points, you chose to blame the victim, or at least my tenant. To be clear, my tenant did not provide primary maintenance for this project – I did! As I’m sure you can understand, any landlord is responsible for general maintenance of their property. My tenant was on holiday the week after the renovation and most weekends throughout the summer. He was primarily responsible for turning on the sprinklers I set up, if I wasn’t there. He also mowed three times, later in the summer. I enlisted family and friends to mow, water and pull weeds and all of this was done to your company’s specifications on my watch. I put in hours and hours of hard work to try and make your service worth the cost. Although you state you have “premium” products, I have used an appropriate and sufficient quantity of store bought grass seed and organic topsoil to fill in some of the bald spots with great success; a $2.00 roll of sod has been successfully laid on a slope with a layer of organic topsoil underneath and 10 days of minimal watering in a drought. At no time did your company offer me sod. Customer service recommended against it as “the sod could be contaminated with weeds!” Ha! The sod is the healthiest piece of my lawn! Doing it yourself allows you to concentrate on small problematic areas; doing it yourself avoids emails and phone calls to a company that doesn’t respond effectively when needed, possibly because they are top heavy on marketing and customer service while clearly less concerned about adequate product and service delivery. Oh, and by the way, according to our service agreement, you not only need to overseed again but also, as stated by customer service, provide the following: “Late Summer/Fall visit including fertilizer + Fiesta weed control - we will also touch up seed/top dressing LATE AUGUST/MID-SEPTEMBER -Nematodes grub control - late August to mid-September -Late-season visit including winterizing fertilizer, Fiesta weed control, and soil conditioner - we will also touch up seed/top dressing MID-LATE OCTOBER.” Doing it myself, would have avoided writing the 27 emails I wrote requesting everything from after service information, to another weed application, to my air miles, to a return phone call from you, to a time to meet with the technician who was doing the weed application. To be fair, I finally got my air miles and you finally agreed to speak with me.

I needed one downspout relocated and a small portion of my eaves redirected to flow into the new location. After phoning a few of the large eaves and aluminum companies for quotes, I realized that they were not really interested in small jobs. The large companies were slow to respond, and quoted exorbitant amounts for what was at most, a two-hour job. I found Gutter Bros on Homestars and was pleasantly surprised that they could come right away to quote the job. Scot and Andrew may be just starting out with their business but they are doing everything right! They provided a written, very reasonable quote, demonstrated knowledge and experience, were able to start within the week, showed up as scheduled, provided an excellent installation, cleaned up after themselves, and even went out of their way to accommodate my neighbour, who needed a small eaves part. It rained today and the new downspout is working perfectly. Gutter Bros are true professionals.

Outstanding! As a landlord I have been dealing with numerous contractors and by far and away, dealing with Larry has been one of my more pleasant experiences. I have a rental property with a pool in Etobicoke that needed a new vinyl liner. After the Toronto flood the liner buckled badly, exposing numerous holes, and it needed to be replaced as soon as possible. Surprisingly what I read about Larry in Homestars is true: he is responsive, knowledgeable, courteous, accommodating, and he doesn’t try to sell you something you don’t need. He spent time educating both my tenant and me, about our ancient equipment and pool maintenance needs, demonstrating the ability to assess a situation and offer an outcome that meets the needs of everyone involved. He is a professional, offering excellent pricing and service delivery. Thanks so much Larry and see you at closing.