A Letter to our Home Builder

Dear Assholes,

Yes I do think every.single.one.of.you are ASSHOLES! Let me assure you that I make my feelings clear to EVERY SINGLE person I encounter, new or old, near or far... if you talk to me in a day odds are I told you that we have had nothing but a miserable time dealing with you all and if someone is looking to waste time and money than I highly recommend looking you up. My holiday season sounded like this... "Merry Christmas, Don't buy a KB Home!" ... "Happy New Year, Save yourself the trouble and don't buy a KB Home!"

From the beginning the promises you made us were all lies, you have yet to keep your word on anything and when called on that fact you are nothing but full of pathetic excuses. My thought on professionalism is that you don't make excuses for why things don't get done, you apologize and make them happen... is the customer not always right? When we signed our contract to build a home with you goobers I do not remember coming across the part that said we would bare the brunt of your staffing issues, under staffing, people quitting, people not knowing what in the hell they were talking about and saying things they couldn't live up to. I don't really care if he is new, maybe he shouldn't be dealing with the people if he hasn't had enough training. I don't care if he is busy, there is no excuse for bad or zero communication at all when promised.

Throughout this process you have lied, cheated and done the least amount you could possibly do. The craftsmanship of our home or more accurately the lack there of is pathetic. I do not believe you hire legitimate trades people but families to complete these homes at the least amount of cost to you. All the reasons we decided to go with a brand new home, the issues we hoped to avoid, the home you sold us on does not exist! If I could back and do things differently oh how I would.

My husband is not a yeller, without bias I say he is probably one of the nicest people you will ever meet. My husband is a professional and deals with construction based projects who generally hold similar issues and I have never seem him so frustrated or disappointed, at his wits end if you will. Dealing with you has caused my husband to yell, curse, get red faced and be less tolerant with people he has never met strictly because they are associated with your company.. that is not his usual fun loving demeanor.. not at all.

We walked into this process feeling hopeful and confident, we did our research, met with every single builder we could and were obviously duped because we stupidly decided on you. The contract portion of things should have opened our eyes to what the rest of this process would be like but again, we had hope. This is our first home, our first major purchase as a married couple and all the joy that comes along with that was taken away, by you.

I don't know what we could have done differently, I don't know how we could have been more flexible, more tolerant and more accepting of things that were too big of a hassle in the end to change to what we really wanted. The frustration mounted, tempers flared and now our patience is gone.

We closed on our home Labor Day weekend and it is now March, there has not been one month that has passed that you have no been in our home fixing something that should have never been an issue, making excuses for things that are completely unacceptable, and lying to our faces about what you will do to rectify our issues when you know damn well you wont. We never let up on our concerns, we have always felt that it is only right that you live up to your word and give us the home we were promised, a home we paid for! A month ago you told us to deal with the warranty people. I am confused as to why you are now pushing us on to yet another person, these issues were issues we have always had and were assured would be taken care of, I refuse to go through a long process and be hassled with warranty claims to make this happen.

Two weeks ago our master bathroom exhaust fan started leaking quite a bit of water, we called to make yet another warranty claim, assuming like the rest it would go unnoticed. Quite the contrary, to our surprise we were told someone would be out that day to check on things. Really? Great! We cancelled our plans for that day (we were basically packed and ready to go on a day trip but decided to stay home if someone was coming, knowing we were about to leave town). No one showed up, no one called. We called YOU back to ask what had happened and why no one had come to address our issue as we were told.. oh right.. things happen... our time isn't important anyways. We told you that we would be going out of town and we were assured that the vents on the roof would be checked while we were gone and that we would get a phone call with a full report. We arrived home still having heard nothing and of course we spent days trying to contact you. This morning with very little patience my husband tried yet again to make contact with your warranty people, we were told you didn't really know if someone had made it out or not yet and if it hadn't leaked again it was probably from the snow. Let me just be clear, 4 inches of snow does not constitute leaking roofs and if it does there is a big F&%(ing PROBLEM! I'll admit Jason was not very tolerant of that response and was extremely persistent in getting an answer TODAY. He was told that he didn't think it was fair that our past experience with your people reflect on how he dealt with this new gentlemen. On the contrary my friend.. you are all one in the same and you are guilty of the same games that have been played, hence us calling you AGAIN today to get an answer you should have had and come to us with. Later this afternoon someone called and said there will be people by tomorrow to replace all of our roof vents. Fantastic.

So now lies the question of why they believe the solution is replacing the roof vents, if they are not serving their purpose should we be concerned about water damage in the attic? If we never noticed water leaking profusely on to our bathroom floor, had we been out of town could we have been in for much bigger problems? How old is this house again? It is my belief that you will sacrifice quality to meet a quota, you are willing to put your name on crap just to finish a job. Pat yourself on the back, I hope you all can sleep at night.

I wonder when it is that someone will get to the rest of our warranty claims? Seeings how they aren't even legitimately warranty items but just shit you never bothered to do. Why is it that something as simple as properly installing and painting our front porch only got done last month. Seems a little unreasonable that we have to force the issues for months before finally something was done. By the way... you missed the front door. In case you were wondering, your "subcontractors" are as careless with your customers as you.

Dealing with you has been like beating our heads against the wall for months, actually almost a year! we dare not try it in this house though as god knows if the walls would even hold up. The higher we climbed the ladder, the more people within your company we complained to the more frustrated we became. Not a damn one of you cared, you never validated our concerns and when you did it never saw results. I wrote a million emails, we called everyone we could. I've taken to social media and other outlets to at least warn other people of our situation to prevent their own. At this point I have no hope for us, but why should others suffer.

If I meet prospective buyers on the streets looking to purchase some of the homes around us that are still for sale be sure I will tell them my story.

Still somehow believe it or not I still love this house! Regardless of all the crap we have gone through, still deal with and all that I am sure is yet to come I refuse to let you take away the accomplishment, the home that this is for us. We love the layout, we have painted room, we are slowly making this home our own and although sadly you are still apart of it, I marvel in what we can call our own. I kept telling Jason through this process that even though we HATE you guys, once we signed those papers none of that would matter... thank you for making me a liar. Although Jason bares the brunt of your bullshit now, because believe it or not he really is the more patient of the pair I still believe he loves this house just as much as I do.

I hope one day all our concerns will be rectified and we can actually not have to deal with any of you on a regular basis. I look forward to the day when all the houses are sold (those poor people who will buy them) and your signs no longer litter the side walks and streets. I will take the good and bad from this experience and the valuable lessons I have learned. I foresee us having this home for years to come, it would be hard pressed to get me to build another one after the hassle that has lead to this point, I hope to make memories in this house that will dilute the frustration and sadness. I hope with the issues we have already had that things don't get any worse then they already are.

You are a big company, you have a reputation that I would think should matter to you.. word of mouth is everything in your industry and sadly I know we aren't the only ones with issues. At the end of the day when money matters most you should consider that a problem, money may make the world go around but when you piss people off its still not a very nice place!

Although I know my words fall on deaf ears, as they always have sometimes I feel its still important to say what you feel and now I have.

Best Regards,

A very unsatisfied customer

I know I rant about this a lot here, although I don't believe it makes any difference it is my outlet. The issues we still have with this house I swear some days seem endless. The more we deal with incompetent tool bags the more frustrated I get.. somehow the issues just seem bigger and more frequent as time goes on. I think tomorrow if we get no where I will be making a few calls myself, a person can only take so much right? They think Jason isn't very nice.. haha the warranty people have yet to deal with me!

Sadly we didn't make it out to look for bookshelves today as we had an appointment at the bank this afternoon that took longer then expected. We have gone into Bank of America here and there in the last couple of months, Jason likes to go in to the bank and see someones face, I however think that is ludicrous and would happily do everything online. Each time we go in there they basically demand we sit and meet with someone about the accounts we have, I have never really understand if it was for our best interest or because they felt like selling us something. Well when we went in today they said basically they are no longer offering the account set up that we have and therefore if we didn't change to one of the new accounts offered they would change it for us in the next couple of months. I mean is this really allowed? You gave it to us in the first place. I suppose the account set up that we have was popular years ago but did not generate enough revenue for the bank so they were doing away with it. Selfish.. I think so! Anyways we got it all straightened out, ordered some checks, you know all the typical bank stuff you do when you drop in and meet with someone.

Then we headed over to Target.. man I was so happy to go to Target, I feel like I just haven't been there enough lately. I got some hair ties on sale, you know those awesome ones that don't leave the crease in your hair?

<source>

Ya those ones. I also got a new lipstick and if I like it I will add it to my next favorite products review! On top of those great finds I managed to fall in love with a new summer dress I plan to go back and buy, with our upcoming trip to Savannah I have decided our trip and my life in general will not be complete without it. I found a few other things too but at this moment I think I can do without them.. haha but time will tell. 

With hopes that things with the roof vents will be taken care of tomorrow morning I made tomorrows dinner tonight so we may still be able to get out and look for bookshelves tomorrow afternoon and when we get home can just pop a casserole in the oven for dinner. Poor Jason is working on our taxes, what a pain in the ass because he worked internationally this year... sucks to be him tonight. 

I am going to make a tea and quietly pin until Criminal Minds comes on, if you watch tonight is a new episode! We are in for some "frozen precipitation" tomorrow night says the meteorologist... did I mention how much I love that guy? 

Stay warm friends, stay warm!