From Brandi B.
PRDR Home Remodel
As a queer household rebuilding our home from the studs using only our own hard earned resources, when choosing a contractor to do our first interior remodel (after 2 years of investing in structural and foundational repairs of over $30,000, the stakes of this project very high). We reviewed 5 quotes before we met Woanda Ortiz, and felt such relief to be able to support a woman-owned family business- the values expounded from Wanda were ones of safety, transparency, and hands on support. She went above and beyond in the beginning of the process, with transparent change orders, drawings, and extensive communication. However, as the project extended well beyond the original timeline, it appeared Woanda’s team was over their capacity (perhaps from juggling multiple contracts). This is where mistakes began occurring and defensiveness, negligence, and deceptive communication overtook the previously delightful collaboration and established a new norm. In this new phase of partnership, we discovered (on our own, we were never told) a broken window, a broken valve which created a multi-day leak in our basement, cuts to a structural joist (which we had just spent $10,000 reinforcing with a specialized structural engineer), which caused the house to settle in a new and dangerous way. All of these things occurred while the bathroom remodel was in process and after we had paid well in advance of the end of the timeline in good faith to acknowledge the recorded delays and change orders in the project itself. When we brought these issues to the PRDR team, we were met with no apologies for the injuries themselves nor the omission of notifying us about them, but instead aggressive defensiveness, changing stories of how they happened, and denial of responsibility, sometimes up until we showed photographic evidence of the damage. As we continued forward in mediation there became a chaotic pendulum swing between apologies and accepted responsibility, with proposals for rectifying damage, and then back to denial and conflicting accounts of events.
We asked for a cash refund to cover the damages incurred by the PRDR team, and made multiple attempts for diplomatic and private mediation. After agreeing to commit to us to solutions for all damage incurred (which it is worth noting that the damage we are asking PRDR to be responsible was not exhaustive - there were multiple issues and delays we moved through amicably, including a flooded basement, an injury caused by a broken glass in our kitchen, and our kitten falling through the floor when the site was not properly closed up at the end of the work day, as well as leaving the house unsecured to potential intruders in the city of philadelphia), Woanda suddenly changed her stance when presented with the estimate of $5,000 refund (on a $14,000 job not including materials we purchased and coordinated delivery of). She then presented a bill (after the final invoice had been presented and agreed upon, of which we withheld only 600$ in reimbursements as a negotiating tool for mediation) of charges she “forgot” of over $3,000 additional , and threatened to counter sue us if we pursued small claims court, which we said would need to do as a last resort to recover resources for these damages. We find ourselves utterly heartbroken at this complete shift of character and professionalism as we prepare to file formal claims. It has been a devastating cloud over our first room remodel, a complete decimation of our long saved home project funds, and a traumatizing breach of trust that I’m sure will affect us as we try to look forward for future projects. We really thought we had found the company that would take us through our many remaining projects and now find ourselves back at square one, operating at a huge deficit. If you’d like to contact me for more information, my email is Brandi.Burgess75@gmail.com - I have everything documented - I will not include that here as we will need it as evidence to proceed with a formal case. I’m sad to say we cannot recommend PRDR with any confidence, not because of the mistakes that occurred - we understand progress is not always linear, but because of their refusal to accept responsibility and make things right, and their consistent emotionality and deception.
