TL,DR: a plumber from Jiffy Plumb came to my house, damaged my toilet, and spread literal feces water through my home. Then the owner called me a liar for sharing the experience.
I called Jiffy Plumb and spoke to Lou (who I understand to be the owner) because one of my home heating zones (hot water baseboard) was not working. Lou came on Jan. 5 and was very friendly, showed me what the issue was (air was in the line and needed to be bled), and was very gentle with the cost of service. I was impressed-- so much so that I asked him back to the house about a month later when I suddenly had a slow flushing toilet in my master bathroom.
For this job, Lou sent Mike. Mike was very friendly, but the service could not have been more different. He used a drain snake with a long metal shaft, which badly scratched and discolored my toilet bowl (picture attached). But what happened next was much worse and absolutely shocking. He took a small hand cloth he'd brought with him and used it to mop the drippings from the snake that fell onto the floor and to wipe down its cable (which had just passed multiple times through a toilet blockage, please remember)-- and then he used that cloth, soaked in toilet clog water, to wipe the floor, the vanity countertop, and the inside of the sink. Finally, he had stepped on the cable multiple times with his boot to lock it as he adjusted to different lengths for auguring the drain, meaning that he tracked bacterial toilet water from my master bathroom, through my bedroom, down the stairs, and across the entryway to my front door as he left.
I stood there holding my 1 year old and talking with him as he worked, but when he started wiping surfaces with the cloth I was so stunned that I couldn't say anything. Needless to say, I made sure not to shake his hand and had to thoroughly disinfect every surface he had touched after he'd left. In perhaps the most unbelievable part of the whole experience, I called to report what happened to Lou-- he then called me a liar, told me he doesn't like working with dishonest people, and that he had a bad feeling about me. He assured me that he'd been working with Mike for 20+ years and that Mike would never do something like that. I was thunderstruck-- all of my interactions with Lou had been very friendly and warm up to that point, and I had genuinely liked him and thought he was running a good business.
PLEASE hesitate before calling Jiffy Plumb. If you want the cheapest option available, it's probably them. But if you'd prefer not to risk having your plumbing damaged, the cleanliness of your home carelessly and thoroughly violated, and being flippantly gaslit and called a liar, you're better off seeking help with a more professional company. read more
