Horrible Experience. I have never regretted anything more than dealing with Center Island Contracting (CIC).
My project took CIC well over two years, the quality of work is subpar, and I eventually had to hire others to finish the job. Unfortunately, CIC believes in doing the bare minimum: bare minimum work product, bare minimum respect, bare minimum integrity.
No one from CIC properly supervised or checked subcontractors (who do the vast majority of the work), and the quality of work was often atrocious and needed to be redone several times. Things might look good in pictures but when you get up close, the lack of quality is evident. At times, they would even admit, in writing, their work had issues, only to deny responsibility for fixing it later.
Virtually no care was taken to protect my house - Hardwood floors and carpets weren't covered, causing scratches and tears, personal items were removed from secured areas and thrown on the floor, and dust and debris was left for us to clean ourselves more often than you would believe.
Caleb Haniquet, owner of CIC, has unlimited excuses for delays, shoddy work, and not doing things at all, including: 1) an inability to find workers, 2) 18 straight (!) company vacation days to celebrate the holidays, 3) your job is too small, 4) their poor quality work is not their fault (huh?), and, my personal favorite, 5) the threat of tariffs make ordering materials harder.
Worse than that, the way my family and I have been disrespected is unfathomable. Caleb was extremely disrespectful to us and even made my pregnant wife cry several times. In one of Caleb's more heinous moves, he claimed my basement had a catastrophic mold issue, making it unsafe for my family, and which inhibited CIC's ability to both work inside the home, and, somehow, to do work outside the home. This untrue claim coincidentally came just after a meeting at Caleb's office in which he became irate that I wanted my house completed. We had the area tested, at my cost, and the home was declared perfectly safe, yet somehow Caleb continued to use it as an excuse.
All this cost me over $300K, but it could have been significantly more. The 'overages' CIC attempted to extort me for would drive any sane person crazy. CIC hit me up for more money almost 50 times, and my fear for those who are not knowledgeable about home repairs is CIC taking advantage of you with a long list of unwarranted Change Orders. For just one example of many, CIC believed that when our contract stated "contractor to supply and install" that meant that I had to pay to supply materials myself and they tried to hit me up for an extra charge for installation as well.
Several times CIC demanded immediate payment because we were "on the schedule for completion", but those items took over a YEAR to even start.
Worst of all, when I refused to pay unjustified price increases, CIC walked off the job. I paid every payment on time and according to the agreement, but CIC didn't care about our agreements, and demanded more money to restart work after months of leaving the project unfinished. Caleb even went so far as to alter and deposit a check I wrote months earlier for something he didn't do, while his team hadn't stepped foot in the house in months.
In an effort to resolve the situation, we went through THREE different mediators, including one which CIC chose themselves and is the head of their own member organization - LIBI. We agreed to every mediation recommendation, but Caleb refused. Making matters worse, as part of our eventual agreement, Caleb demanded that I sign a 'General Release', agreeing that I will not issue any negative reviews of my horrible experience. Unfortunately, CIC did not honor the terms of that agreement, so you get the pleasure of reading this review.
Please be very careful if you are considering Center Island Contracting and do not base your decision on internet reviews - at least several reviews of this company are supplied by CIC employees, subcontractors or relatives. read more
