No Call, Complaint letter sent

Well, we were supposed to get a call today letting us know a date and time that the form would be fixed, and when the pour was supposed to happen. That call never came.

Teresa got upset and wrote a complaint letter to Shasta. Here's the letter that she sent.

My husband, Jason, and I decided it was time to remodel our swimming pool. After much research, we decided to call Shasta for a few reasons: our friends had a Shasta pool built a few years ago, longevity in the business, and in house construction crews. We were so excited when we signed our contract on March 10, 2006.

Our excitement quickly faded when nearly a month passed without contact from anyone at Shasta. According to our contract, only 14 working days were needed to go from paperwork to actual construction. On either 03.29.06 or 03.30.06, a message was left on our answering machine stating that we were scheduled for a pre-construction walk through on 04.03.06. Wow, something was finally happening and again we our excitement built. I changed my work schedule for that day so that I could be home. A man showed up in the afternoon. He spray painted “out” on some of our pool deck. Then, he used a saw to cut the pipes to our pool pump. Finally, he took a few pictures and left. That was pretty deflating. Our excitement started to fade again.

The week of 04.10.06 was very frustrating. Because the pipes to our pool pump had been destroyed, we were unable to run the pool. Consequently, our pool turned green with slime floating on top several times. We have two dogs that love to be in the pool. This slime can not possibly be healthy for them. We could also have been turned in to the county and been fined. To keep our money and our dogs safe, we had to purchase shock and use it in our pool. My husband tried several times to speak with our customer service agent regarding the status of our pool. He only spoke with the operator and was never able to speak with Tina Abbey. He did, however, leave many messages. Out of frustration, we called our salesman, Thom Andreozzi, on 04.14.06. Jason spoke with him about our experience so far with Shasta. He apologized and said that he would look into the matter.

The following Monday, 04.17.06, we had a message on our answering machine from Tina. She said in her message that she did not call us back because she had left early for vacation. She also said that she would call us back the next morning, Tuesday, after 8 AM. She called us back on Wednesday. Her message said that we were scheduled for draining on Friday and demolition on Monday.

Her information was only half correct. Nobody ever came to drain our pool. A man called on Saturday evening to tell us the time to expect the demolition crew on Monday. Jason explained that the pool was still full of water. The man wanted to reschedule the demolition. We didn’t want this delayed any further, so Jason went to Home Depot and rented a pump. We drained the pool ourselves. (We ended up giving Roger a copy of the bill. We were told that we would receive an amended bill that would credit us for the pool drain, but we are still waiting for that to arrive.)

On Monday morning, 04.24.06, the demolition crew arrived and started to work. We tried not to get our hopes up.

The following day, 04.25.06, we received a message that we were cleared for plumbing and that someone would call back with the date and time. This phone call never came. Friday, 04.28.06, the plumbing crew showed up without warning. Luckily, Jason had slept in that morning and was home. He was able to secure our dogs. This is very scary, because Shasta will not be responsible for our dogs – yet Shasta is also not responsible enough to follow through and communicate with us so that we know when to expect people in our backyard.

The lack of communication continued. On 05.05.06 we heard from Shasta. We were cleared for form and pour. Someone was supposed to call back with the date and time. On Monday, 05.08.06, the form crew arrived without that phone call. Thankfully, we were having some other work done around our house and Jason had come home at noon to meet this person. He was able to secure the dogs. Jason tried several times to tell the form crew that they were forming the areas around our pool wrong. They said that what we planned was too hard to do and they were going to leave it the way they did it. Then, they left without finishing all of the form. Roger Clemo, our quality control superintendent, was called. He agreed that the work was not correct and said that he would be by in the morning to inspect the work.

The next morning, at 0630, the form crews returned with a cement mixer. They had planned to start pouring the concrete without Roger’s approval. They were upset to find that because they didn’t follow the plan they had broken our sprinkler lines in three different places and the backyard was flooded. They abruptly left. About 15 to 20 minutes after they left, Roger came. He seemed very upset to find that the form crew was prepared to start pouring the concrete without his approval. He agreed that the form was done incorrectly. He spray painted the correct lines and said that they would have to come back and fix it.

After this happened, Jason was complaining to some people at work about our experience. He found out that someone else there had just signed a contract with Shasta for a new pool. They got a copy of the plans. Wow. That sure would have come in handy. Maybe, if we had had a copy of the plans to show the form crews some of this could have been avoided.

On 05.16.06, we heard again from Shasta. Courtney Shea is now our customer service agent and she was calling to tell us that we were scheduled for tile. She didn’t know that the form and pour was yet to be completed.

On 05.19.06, Courtney called again to say we were on the list for tile again. We told her that we were still waiting for the form to be corrected and done as well as the concrete to be poured. Later on in the day, two guys came. They walked around looking at things in the backyard and then left. Jason called Courtney to find out what was happening. She said that they were the wrong crew, because they didn’t have a large enough jackhammer. Someone else would be sent out to our house.

On Wednesday, 05.24.06, two guys came and added some concrete to one area of the deck. Roger told Jason that it was not correct and someone would again have to return and correct it. Nobody showed up on Thursday. On Friday, the extra concrete to the deck was finally done and approved. The forms that still need to be corrected and finished were spray painted again.

June is just one day away and we are still basically stuck in the demolition stage of our remodel. Our grass, trees, and plants are dying because our sprinkler system is disabled. We are afraid to water or repair the sprinkler system, because we never know when people are going to show up and we want this over with and not delayed any more. We were hoping to go on vacation in a few weeks, but at this point feel unable to go. We feel that we can’t leave until the remodel is done. According to our contract, the pool should have been done on or about 05.25.06 which was 40 days from paperwork to orientation. Since we have no idea when this is going to be over, we can’t even reschedule our vacation.

Yes, this letter is long, boring, and frustrating – just like our experience so far with Shasta. We certainly hope that this is not the norm or to be expected when building a pool, because we would not want anyone else to have to endure this. So far we can only say two good things: Roger has been very good about communicating with us and Courtney, who inherited a mess when Tina left, has also been pretty good about trying to give us information.

Teresa & Jason Bartosch 1462 N 62^nd Place
Mesa, AZ 85205