ComplaintsforRoto Rooter

• Initial Complaint

  10/27/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Date:10/9/22 Called roto rooter because my shower knob won’t release any water no matter where I turn it. Couldn’t get a drop out. They came in worked on it for about 2 hours told me they’d need to take my shower completely out to get to the pipe that is broken. He leaves after telling me it’s an all day job. I noticed after that water has been consistently leaking since he left. He went over the estimate with the homeowner as I am a tenant and she told them to call me as she doesn’t know my schedule. Saturday a week later I called because I haven’t received a call and they tell me that the homeowner didn’t give approval to come back in. They told me they would call me Monday at the latest to schedule after verifying approval from the home owner(even though approval was given when she told them to call me to schedule. When I called on Monday they told me that they were waiting on the plumber who came to look at the shower was on vacation and they were waiting for them to get back, this is already a week from the initial look. I told them since I had to be on an employees time that I wasn’t interested anymore but my water had been leaking since 10/16/22 after he left. And I was going to need to get that turned off because my water wasn’t leaking before he arrived. They told me to turn the “water off”, which I had already done and to “call the water company”. Even though whatever the plumber did when he was working in the shower he didn’t completely shut it off or he broke the shower more than it originally was. I was called and told that the only way they can fix the problem is to go through with the estimate even though even with my water turned off to the tub it’s still leaking. Myself and the home owner have soured on the company do to incompetence and the decision to not send someone to look at the shower even in good faith. In the estimate the plumber does not mention that the shower was left dripping.

  

  Business response

  11/01/2022

  This particular instance was a Landlord Tenant situation in which our office protocol is that we have to have the Landlords permission to be onsite to perform any work due to legality reasons. We also need the Landlords information for approval of any repairs as well as for payment at the time of service. The Landlord can give us permission to be onsite and have us contact the tenant for scheduling. Our Original appointment was on 10/16/2022, in which our technician **** was onsite for 2 hours trying to repair the extremely corroded shower valve without having to replace it. We did not charge the Landlord or tenant for this service. **** was unable to fix the shower valve and wrote an estimate for a replacement, which had to be approved by the Landlord. On October 24th Roto-Rooter received approval for the replacement from the Landlord. When ****** in our office called to schedule the replacement, the tenant let us know that the shower valve had been leaking since **** left on the 16th. Tenant wanted Roto-Rooter to guarantee that the shower valve would be fixed the week of the 24th however we stated that we needed to make sure no parts needed to be ordered for the replacement and if we had to order parts we may not be able to guarantee the shower valve would be fixed the week of the 24th.  We offered to send a technician out in the mean time to shut the water off to the home. The tenant agreed to let us come out to shut off water. An appointment was made for 10/26/2022 from 1pm-3pm. We tried several times to speak with the Landlord on 10/24/2022 and 10/25/2022. We were not able to reach her. We called again on the morning and early afternoon of 10/26/2022 and was still unable to reach her for permission to be onsite and shut the water off to the home. Without being able to have her permission to be onsite we had to cancel the appointment.  We called the tenant on 10/26/2022 to inform them that we had been unable to reach the Landlord for the appointment. We also let the tenant know that we found out we did not have to order parts and that we could do the replacement on 10/27/2022 if we could get in contact with the landlord.  The landlord eventually called in the afternoon on 10/26/2022. We informed the Landlord and the tenant that the only way to stop the shower valve from leaking was to replace it because it was heavily corroded but they both kept insisting that we put the shower valve back the way it was instead of replacing it. This was impossible due to how corroded and old the shower valve was. The did not want to pay for a replacement or wait for parts if they needed to be ordered upon last conversation with the landlord and all appointments were cancelled. Landlord stated they were going to find another plumber. 

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