How to choose an organization for building a house. How scammers work
We begin the selection of the Contractor.
The choice of a company, the performer of your building fantasies.
There are so many firms offering a full range of construction services that the choice of an executor is perhaps the most difficult stage in making your dream come true, after the creation of the project itself. The offices trying to suck all the blood out of you, i.e. your money is like horseflies on the body of a drunk resting near reservoir, which just want to bite into... your wallet and suck everything without a trace, i.e. rob you of all your savings. There are a lot of such construction offices. The first company that signed a contract with us for the construction of a house was located on the territory of the “Mytishchi construction market”.
First advice. When you are told "where is the forest from", listing many cities and regions of Russia, then boldly close the office door behind you, becauseThis company does not have its own forest. But if, nevertheless, you were convinced that they are the best, and doubts have not yet been dispelled, then ask to make a calculation of the proposed house, take a contract and go home to conduct research, find similar firms, and compare the terms of the contract, and pricing.
Many offices for the season, when everything is starting to be built, recruit people as "looking" suppliers, who can be entrusted with a little money, for settlements with workers and for the purchase of material: boards, fittings, cement. As trustees are involved: neighbors in the village, classmates, former losers, classmates and other people who can be entrusted with the transportation of guest workers and consumables.
We also encountered two such fake offices at the first stage of construction - the construction of the foundation.
Mytishchinskaya "Horns and Hooves" signed a contract with us, received an advance payment and attached it to the construction project ...
Bruise and Gudgeon.
A team of contractors arrived at the site.
So, the first character - the "invisible foreman" of our construction in all appearance just fit the description of the "looking" and in appearance - Bruise. In fact, Sinyak was a representative of the contractor's company, which was supposed to deliver gastrobeiters (Belarusian Taliban) and expendable construction material: boards for formwork, reinforcement for the foundation and other equipment to start the first stage of the construction of a house - construction foundation.
The man I named Bruise was a thin, frozen, over-aged repeat year, without the slightest plaque on the presence of a brain, with a black eye, and a very wrinkled appearance. The impression was that he left the last object unkindly, and the previous client by hand made it clear what he thinks about the quality of the preparatory work he and his team of builders works.
The bruise appeared for the first time on the phone on the day the team was to arrive to build the foundation. He never tried to strain his brain, not on the day when it was necessary to look at the map and clarify the location of the village, where the construction will be, nor on the days when the work was going on. He did not specify the location of our site, although the address is indicated in the contract, he drove past the turn to a section of more than 50 km., only after that he still decided to call us and clarify our actual address. Bruise was able to drive past all the landmarks marked on the map. Having received an explanation by phone that he missed, and that it was necessary to turn around and return to the starting point, he an hour and a half later, he called again from the highway, once again missed the turn, trying to "feel" to still find us. After three hours of wandering along the roads of Russia, Sinyak finally decided to use the district map. We decided to meet him at the intersection of all roads in order to catch him on the next search circle. As a result, we met the beholder.
The invisible foreman brought a couple of workers from Belarus, some boards for the formwork and part of the reinforcement for the foundation. The boards he brought back half of the estimate, and the workers did not have a single tool with them, except for mattresses with pillows and the desire to go to bed right away.
I never saw Bruise again, although traces of his appearance at the construction site showed up a couple of times.
As a result, a team from Belarus of two people remained to live and work in our old village house. To our surprise - not drinkers, smart, neat and conscientious, without extortion and hohlyatsky cunning.
A little advice. Trusting relationships should be built with the workers, and not with the representatives of the contractor, because only a worker will tell you what you might have missed due to your inexperience, such as ventilation foundation. The preparation of the formwork with ventilation holes for the worker for 5 minutes, and often they simply do not remember about the ventilation of the foundation during construction. You simply do not know this, but the workers do not need anything - why unnecessary movements?
By the way, a little recommendation trick.
If workers appeal to you, as workers, and you want to encourage them, well, in any case, do something so that your gratitude works for the future, let them earn extra money.
There are many opportunities for this: building a foundation for a barbecue, breaking an old fence, fixing a gate, leveling a plot - whatever you can pay for so as not to offend the workers. And you benefit, and a hidden opportunity for encouragement. Ask them to do the job so that the money you give them will be an incentive to do a good job at the main site and without further commitment to each other.
The second type, who appeared instead of Bruise, was a foreman for foundation works. I named him Gudgeon.
I got the impression that this chela, Pescari, was ordered by the owner of a construction company from his collective farm, where Pescari was his neighbor in the village.
And in connection with the problems that have already arisen, I have with the Contracting Organization (failure to start work, not the full scope construction material), then my attitude towards Bruise, as a representative of the Contractor, to put it mildly, was negative. The bruise with all its appearance was supposed to smooth out the misunderstanding that had arisen, i.e. Gudgeon was attracted as the pacifying force of the obstinate Client.
Gudgeon was above average growth, not sickly built, with a deposit of beer below the chest, where they turned blue clumsily impaled drawings from the criminal world, indicating Pescari's involvement in the category "Men". The hands were not distinguished by the elegance of speech. Although with his hands, fingers-sausages, he spoke more clearly than those sounds that came out of his head. Fingers, with vague bruises from prison signet rings, clearly not made at large, confirmed the blood-pinching story of his youngster at the stage.
Maybe in another place the appearance of Pescari and his promises could somehow affect my further attitude towards construction and towards the Contractor as a whole, but this clearly did not work. It was clear what this textured personality was aimed at, yes, yes, it was precisely for this image to pacify me.
The purpose of Pescari's visit to the construction site was determined for him as, figuratively, to calm down the Client so that the Client does not get excited. But the appearance of this image of Gudgeon blue from tattoos and a tight stomach from beer on the construction site was not achieved by them. Maybe it would have made an impression on someone, but it was funny to me, and the future of my construction was becoming more vague.
Gudgeon began an active search for cement to fill the foundation. He bought all the local "from hand to hand" and began calling organizations in search of cheap concrete. When he got tired of hearing the same price and delivery terms, he said that he (OH) considers it expensive to buy concrete at 3350 rubles per cubic meter. Then Pescari decided that the workers would shovel the concrete under the foundation by hand. Here I am on my guard. I tried to put into his beer head that the expiration date of the first stage of the contract expires in three days, and that they can rains will begin, which will affect the quality of the foundation, he replied that he does not care about the rains, and he himself knee-deep in mud concrete. His tales did not satisfy me. Briefly, viciously and categorically, I pointed out the deadline for laying the foundation and hung up the phone.
Oh, why Gudgeon. His behavior reminded me of the tale of Saltykov-Shchedrin, where Gudgeon considered himself the master of the river.
Why I spoke in such detail about these two types, because these are the very office people who should save money for their owners. And since, according to their concepts, the work that they must perform is very significant (delivery of material and workers to the object), and they are paid very little money for this, then the second goal of their contact with the Customer is to minimize costs, which was determined agreement. Their responsibilities included the purchase of both consumables and concrete. And if concrete costs 3,300 rubles per cubic meter, the boards are totally cheaper, then why doesn't the customer buy half the boards for the foundation, and concrete of grade 150 instead of M300, which is half the price. The customer is a sucker - but the performer, i.e. the owner of the company will never know where and how much money was spent.
As a result, when the formwork was nevertheless installed in half, a senior manager of the company arrived, who quickly and without burdens ordered concrete from a local plant. True, even here it could not have done without Russian. The manager came from the factory and got into his car, waiting for the mixers to arrive. Those. he didn’t bother to track the loading of the solution at the plant, he didn’t wait for the cars to leave the plant. As a result, the cars arrived half-loaded, without water and at the end of daylight hours.
I was no longer surprised that a couple of solution cubes were missing. The manager went to a local store, bought 10 bags of cement, 250 rubles each (it turns out that a ton of concrete cost him 5,000 rubles). It's good that there was sand on the site, or even for the sand you would have to go further. And the Taliban from Belarus until 5 am manually kneaded the solution in basins and poured the foundation. At 5 in the morning the workers jumped off and rushed to their Belarus, tk. on this day, the transit customs visa for entering Russia by car was expiring.
When the foundation was poured, the formwork crawled, i.e. she was bursting with solution. They urgently knocked out the wedges, at least slightly corrected the outer planes of the foundation. The formwork was done lazily, with gaps from which the grout bulged easily, leaving bulging stripes. But all these "little things" could be considered only after a month later they removed the formwork. Of course, other workers were filming, little different from the previous representatives of the office - Pescari and Sinyak. As it turned out later, they were residents of the same village in which the owner of the company was registered.
The workers lived on the site for a month, they could not even create the appearance of work. We went to pick mushrooms and go fishing. We rested. And the material was not and was not.
Why such similarities? The science.
1. The slurry that you buy at the factory should be monitored, starting with the scales, where the machines go before loading and on departure, after their mixers are full.
2. Employees can be used to judge the firm itself. This firm was a beautifully constructed pyramid. More details later.
So, what is the cool scheme of this company.
1. The office of a company, and often, not one address. Well equipped. A large number of completed projects. Recommendations and advice for building your future home. Patient on their part correspondence, chimes and conversations. Bribes the attitude towards the Client.
2. The construction price is quite acceptable, maybe even slightly cheaper than in other companies. Not an unimportant factor.
3. According to your drawing, the specialist provides a complete project with a layout of the structure on 12 sheets. The 3D picture of the house itself, which is attached to the project documentation, also looks beautiful. Convinces to work with them, because one can feel professionalism in the approach to fulfillment of obligations.
4. The agreement that is concluded with you can be amended if you notice some inaccuracies in the obligations of the parties, etc.
5. The terms of work are clearly laid out. When proposing to increase the term of the contract from 55 days to 100 days, there is a categorical objection that 55 days is exactly that period from the beginning of laying the foundation to the delivery of the house. And this period is determined by the experience of construction and has never been disrupted.
6. Competent wiring for payment. The payment schedule under the agreement looks standard, but ...
6.1. Advance payment - 10% of the contract value.
6.2. Payment for the work performed on the installation of the foundation. Foundation cost.
6.3. Payment for the log and building material upon delivery at the rate of 50% of the contract value.
6.4. Payment, settlement, after signing the acceptance certificate of the object.
We have signed a contract that has been amended in accordance with applicable Consumer Protection Laws. We make an advance payment. The builders arrived at the agreed time. But having got acquainted with the characters of the construction office, having tried on myself, i.e. at our new home all the unprofessional management of employees, we have already tensed and alarmed.
We paid for the foundation work. On the appointed day, a log was brought under the contract. But here already happened something that the Contractor did not expect from the Client. We refused to pay for the log because the volume of the supplied materials did not correspond to its quantity.
The workers tried to do something, but in the brought material there were simply no first crowns, without which it was impossible to start work.
I will not bore you with new details, but I will summarize the general state of affairs. The Contractor did not fulfill the contract on time. We have suffered losses in the amount of the cost of two foundations. The dry residue on the site has a foundation, and a certain amount of logs, not enough to start construction, but quite enough for the construction of a good large closed gazebo 6X6 (which we built).
Construction was closed that year. There was no material, no workers. We filed a lawsuit.
Of course, we won the trial. Exactly a year was lost for construction and court hearings. The amount of the "writ of execution" exceeds exactly three times the direct material losses incurred.
What about this one? Horns and Hooves still works. They changed the names, but are in the same offices, have the same sites and the same phones. He is still looking for suckers who make an advance, through which they pay for previous projects.
What is their earnings, i.e. kidnyak? They make a foundation for two prices from its real value. And I start to drag out deadlines and stuff. If the Client gets tired of all this, he just spits on this office and starts building with others. It happens that part of the building material is imported. But judging by our log, it wanders from site to site, registering the company's stormy activities. In our case, the log remained with us and we built a gorgeous gazebo, the remains of the log went to firewood.