We contacted several companies to do a fence between 4 neighbours, and First Choice came in at the best price so everyone decided on this company. We all deeply regret our decision.
Primarily, there were several delays due to weather. This is not in their control, however communication between the company and myself (I coordinated for all 4 households) was awful. We would be given a timeline, and when that time came I'd have to call and follow up, only to hear of another delay. I would stay home expecting them to come the day they said, only to call after 10am to find out they were not coming and were only then getting around to calling their customers. Very unprofessional communication.
The poor communication was just the beginning of what we consider to be a very unprofessional job. Our Bell line was cut, and although we don't currently use it, the foreman told me she would call Bell to have it fixed. It's still in pieces over 3 months later. One of her workers used our washroom a few times, and left it in disgusting condition. Some of the posts were not set deep enough, and most of the posts are cracking and splitting in several places, making us question the longevity of the fence as it has only been 3 summer months. Some portions of the fence are not level, and the boards are nailed on in a very sloppy fashion. One board fell off of our one neighbour's fence the very next day, and they attempted to get ahold of the company but never heard back from her so ended up fixing it themselves.
When it came time to pay, the foreman was very disorganized. She had no paper with how much we owed, so I went out to do the math with her. She continually messed up the math, and thankfully I had done it before I met with her so I was aware of the actual deposit amounts otherwise we would have overpaid.
And finally, when they left the job "done", our backyard was a mess. There were a few fence post bases in concrete from our old fence still sitting in the back yard, tons of nails, debris, etc, half eaten sandwiches and food wrappings, and cigarette butts. We had 2 small children at the time (I was 8 mos pregnant with #3) and we were unable to allow them to play in the back yard until my husband was able to clean up their mess. They left nail ends exposed in our neighbour's back yard as well on their side of the fence, and she has a child as well. Things were left in a very sloppy condition, both the fence itself as well as our property.
We have been warning our friends and neighbours to never use this unprofessional company.
The only upside is that the fence looks decent from far away, when you can't see the nails and cracks. Lets hope it lasts...
- Approximate cost of services:
- $3,000.00
- What could this company do to improve their services?
- Any advice to offer fellow homeowners facing a similar project?
- Company Response
Thanks for taking the time to write your review about First Choice Fence. We are very surprised to hear about these concerns,as we take customer service extremely serious. It is important to clarify our policy around weather as discussed. If it is raining in the morning,we will wait until 10am to see if it clears up in hopes that we are still able to work on the job.If it is not cleared up by 10am we do call to communicate that we will not be making it out that day. We leave the time frame in hopes that we are able to come to do work every day possible. We stand behind the quality of work and are more than willing to correct any issues that may arise after installation. We did come by to replace the missing board, however found that it had already been replaced. I personally do a walk through of the site with every client before we accept payment for the job in order to ensure that you are pleased with the outcome. There are no indications of the mess or poor bathroom conditions during the final walk through. We would have been more than happy to handle these problems if we were made aware of the issues. If there is anyway to resolve, please feel free to contact us directly, and hopefully we can find a fair way to move forward. Thanks again!