NJ contractor ignoring you? Try this to get their attention

Have you ever had a project done at home before where something went wrong after the work was complete? It can be pretty frustrating, to say the least.

Especially if it was a big or expensive project like a deck or bathroom, if you're paying good money to have a job done, the expectation is that it gets done right. It's really as simple as that.

Some general contractors back their work, no questions asked. Those are the ones you want to try and get for your future projects.

Sometimes it can be a supply and material issue, whereas other times it might be an overlook with the craftmanship. The latter reason hopefully is only an overlook and not a shortcut to save time and money.

Regardless of the reason, if a problem should arise and the job is less than a year old, the general contractor absolutely should come out and take a look. And if the error is on the contractor, then they should absorb all costs to fix and correct the problem.

A situation like the one above played out recently for a New Jersey resident. Well, in a sense it did.

This particular New Jersey homeowner had a kitchen completely renovated but wound up with a huge problem when it came to the new floor. It wasn't known at the time, but the entire new floor was done incorrectly.

Before we get into it, let's backtrack for a second and go over how this unfolded. This will help establish how this problem came up not only once, but twice.

For the job itself, the homeowners wanted to renovate an existing kitchen. The old one was mostly original but falling apart.

Cabinets were breaking and the old floor tiles were cracking in spots. But instead of just repairing what was there, the homeowners decided to overhaul the kitchen with new cabinets, appliances, and tiles for the floor.

So a big job, indeed. In the beginning, the general contractor was fairly quick and efficient with great communication. It didn't take long at all to get the demo work done and move forward with the renovation itself.

Part of the reason the job went so quickly was thanks in part to waiting for all appliances and materials to be in before beginning the project. With such delays that exist with kitchens, this was a smart move that allowed the contractor to move at an efficient pace.

Fast forward a few months and the job is complete. That is, except for a couple of loose tiles that were discovered by the general contractor himself.

After that was detected, he sent someone out to repair those couple of tiles. Once that was done, the job was complete.

Keep that in mind because the issue with the floor was more than just a couple of loose tiles, which would eventually become evident. For the first several months, everything was fine.

However, those same tiles eventually became loose once again about six months later. But this time, it got worse.

More tiles started to come loose with some even beginning to crack. Quite clearly, something was very wrong.

Here's where the ghosting comes in. After multiple attempts trying to get ahold of the contractor, there was no response.

Didn't matter if it was by email or by phone or how many messages were left. Any emails that were received from the contractor's business were far between and never actually gave an answer regarding how to rectify the problem.

After over a month of this happening, the homeowner got frustrated by feeling ghosted. It was almost as if the contractor or their team was purposely ignoring them.

That classic feeling of once they have your money, the hell with you. Even if it was an honest overlook on the contractor's side, that's how it comes across for the homeowner.

So what did the homeowner do? After enough time went by, they went onto social media and started leaving bad reviews.

One of them was a direct public comment on their social media site. It wasn't until then that things started going in the homeowner's direction.

Calling out the general contractor online, and on their own social platform seemed to open up the red carpet, and suddenly the problem was being addressed. And the issue turned out to be a big one.

Apparently, the floor wasn't bonded correctly and none of the tiles were actually set right. So the entire floor had to be removed and redone properly.

Now, remember those two loose tiles mentioned earlier? This problem should've been caught then, but the person who was sent to repair it apparently wasn't knowledgeable enough to know what was actually happening.

So after all of that, the contractor honored the bill, which apparently was a very expensive overlook, and took care of the repair. So although it ended up working out, it shouldn't have gotten to the point of having to leave comments online just to get their attention.

It's both the ghosting and the improper repairs where the disconnect occurred. If the contractor had sent someone qualified for the job, perhaps that bonding issue would've been caught then.

But sending someone just to get it over with, then ignoring the customer once you finish the job is not the way it should be. If a customer is paying you good money to do a job, then you should back your work.

It took hitting them publically on their own social media sites to finally get them to respond and resolve the customer's issue. Fortunately, in this case, the contractor eventually responded and owned up to it.

Some general contractors won't even do that, and we hear stories about how quality issues pop up once the job is complete only for the contractor to disappear and never be heard from again.

But it's good to know that if you make your issues public on their own socials and stick with it you might actually get a response back. So if you're in this situation now of being ghosted and ignored by your contractor, try doing what this homeowner did above.

No guarantee it'll work, but it's worth a try so everyone sees it publically on their socials. Just make sure you're fair to them and give them some time first to respond to your calls and private messages.

The above post reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 Sunday morning host Mike Brant. Any opinions expressed are his own.