WARNING : DODGY POLISH BUILDERS

MaxedOut · Joined: 31 Mar 2008 Posts: 2

Hi All,

I'm writing a cautionary tale here of some dodgy polish builders I've had the misfortune of using for my refurbishment. They're called Deco Company and are run by a guy called grzegorz (Gregory) Chmielewsi (07821 609 694 - deco_gregory@yahoo.co.uk). http://www.decocompany.co.uk

He sold me on the quality of his work so I decided to accept his relatively expensive quotation. On the monday of the project start, I expected a team of professional builders to begin but instead I had 1 guy show up. Remember, this is a full refurbishment on a timeline quoted for 6 wks.... I had 1 guy for 3 weeks ! During this process, they managed to damage the common areas of our building and set off the fire alarm, whereby our management company asked for his personal insurance number to make good the damage.
Prior to accepting the job, he confidently stated he had PI insurance but the truth was, he didn't have any ! Some of his workers also managed to take out the power cable in my building by DRILLING into a 500W cable !! I'd nominate him for the 2008 darwin awards but that would be insulting the people before him.

After pleading for more resources on the project, we had 2 guys at work but within a week they had a falling out and we lost many days while they "moved house". I guess all these guys live together??

Even though the project was running late, the workers continually turned up at 10 and left by 5.15pm. I realised that not only did the company have several projects going at once, but the individual workers had their jobs on the side they had to get to after a hard days work... NOT!

They also managed to cock up my kitchen installation. I have shown the work to some kitchen professionals and it appears they have broken several regulations which will be very expensive to rectify.

On top of the poor work, by the seventh/eighth week I had paid the full amount of contracted progress payments but they insisted that I continue to pay more ! I argued that I shouldn't have to pay more than the contracted amount considering that he wrote the contract. At this stage the workers downed tools until they were paid. Yesterday I paid them and today as I returned to my property to find they had LEFT the house and taken all their tools !!

If you would like to know more about their dodgy practices, you can contact me but I implore you to stay away from these charlatans and liars.

basharpak · Joined: 17 Mar 2008 Posts: 5

You can put your adverts in this category in the gumtree where put adverts this peopel.
I will start from today.

Fugley · Joined: 29 May 2007 Posts: 75 Location: West Sussex

can you email me at wevet.com@gmail.com

burger · Joined: 21 Apr 2008 Posts: 1

wow maxedout that sucks. would like to find out more though cos i haven't heard bad things about them and was thinking of using them!
can i email you?

lemonadedrinker · Joined: 06 May 2008 Posts: 3

Hi

One of the reasons I don't work in London any more is because so many workers flooded the labour market our wages in the building game stayed the same for the last 7/8 years !

You went to your Polish builder as he was probably a bit cheaper perhaps than you were expecting, although you do say his estimate was quite high. I can understand Companies using foreign labour as they can max their profits by keeping wages lower than they should be, but for private individuals to use people who cannot possibly understand a foreign (to them) way of building seems perverse to me.

Andy.

punk rocker · Joined: 10 Jul 2009 Posts: 171 Location: London

irrfan · Joined: 26 Oct 2009 Posts: 1

Removal-Man2k9 · Joined: 08 Feb 2009 Posts: 37 Location: London

kukurino · Joined: 03 Nov 2009 Posts: 1 Location: Georgia

I just can not understand you guys. Where do you find these kind of people. I used to work in London for 4 years and we were trying to do some maintenance work. We were really responsible and hard working, but anyway, as we were foreigners not many people wanted us to do the job and I understand that, cause people do not know much about Georgians and they think we are all dodgy, but than they turn to some Polish or other people and get themselves into a scam. Just sew then straight away

Russet Guzzler · Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:09 pm Post subject:

I reckon anyone wanting building work done in London is entering a minefield - "gerry builders" was a term coined here after WWII and it still applies in a big way to small and large companies

About ten years ago I got an end-of-terrace repointed and the roof repaired by a local company of cowboys - one big expensive disaster - so forget local newspaper ads and trade association certificates

Since then, I've had two houses completely renovated, both done by mostly east European teams - the Boss of last one was actually Polish

I recommend approaching people who've had work done and see if they'll recommend the company that did their work

dafney · Joined: 12 Nov 2009 Posts: 1

ALWAYS ask for a reference! Obviously someone could get any tom dick or harry to call but you can tell by there response when you question them about any work they have had done whether or not they are lying..

It works for me anyway... If you need a trade I have built up a collection of trustworthy people/companies around loughton/epping/south woodford areas so post a reply and i will give you there details!

Going back to what happend in this case its horrible to have that happen but consider how many people have used this type of cowboy trades person(s) and are completly unaware that the work they've had completed is a ticking bomb..