On July 2nd, our cat flooded a portion of our house. She turned on the laundry-room sink while no one was home and it overflowed for about eight hours. Our master bedroom and closet, laundry room, mud room, living room, basement stairs, and about 1/3 of our basement was covered in water. ServiceMaster Restore came out the next morning to start the clean-up process. They removed the carpet, the damaged rugs for cleaning, baseboards, and a portion of the vinyl flooring in the mudroom. They set up their drying machines and would come back and check them every few days. Well - after only removing half the flooring, it took TEN days for the subfloor to dry. After we took off work and were no-showed twice (and a hotel stay since it was unbearably hot with the machines running nonstop and half the house sectioned off) they finally removed more flooring on the ninth day and removed the machines on the tenth day. When they finally showed up to remove the machines, I had to run fans to get the smell of weed out of my house... it was SO strong from the workers who were in and out. A month went by and we heard nothing. Apparently the project manager had left and our project was handed over. We met the new manager and did a walk-through... half the items needed to be done were "forgotten" so we had to start from the beginning in getting him up to speed. He encouraged us to utilize a moving pod to hold our furniture in our driveway so the restoration to be completed. We agreed, and appreciated that suggestion. Well, now we are at the two month mark... half my house is still missing flooring. We are still walking on splintering sub-floor and stepping over multiple spike strips, with a crawling toddler and little kids. Last week they finally called back and asked if the painters could come "tomorrow" at 7am. YES! - but no pod was delivered. What we thought would be a one-day paint job was actually scheduled for four days (news to us - we found this out when the painters said they were coming back at 7am tomorrow)... More time off work for Brandon and I... We were waking up at 5am each morning to move around furniture so the walls would be accessible. Our bedroom furniture was too heavy for us to move by ourselves, which we were told we would not have to do... so the wall behind our bed? Not painted. Our closet? Not painted. But alas, we were making progress, and a few walls not painted is not a huge deal. Until I went to grab groceries from the garage freezer days after the painting was completed... the workers unplugged the fridge/freezer and never notified us or plugged it back in. Everything is bad and needs to be thrown out. More money gone. My rugs they took before the Fourth of July? Five different phone calls to try and FIND them (apparently it was a different branch that took them) and ASK for them back. I was told they have been done for weeks and can be brought back tomorrow, they "don't know" why we were never notified. Well, it is now "tomorrow" and we have been no-showed again after taking the morning off work to be home. I called and I was told they sent the guy to another job, instead, and they would not be delivered today.... We are FINALLY on the calendar to get our flooring installed on Friday the 13th (fitting, right?) but they will not move our furniture back into our house until some time the following week, since this is a Friday and they will not do it on the weekend. Back to planning accommodations for three kids, three dogs, and two cats... I have never experienced such carelessness from a company designed for disaster relief. One sink overflowing has cost us our entire summer, weeks of work, cancelled vacations. Worst of all, it has been over two months of making-do with unsafe living conditions with small children and animals. This has been so exhausting and defeating - and ServiceMaster Restore has refused to do anything to make these matters right. read more

Avoid these people at all costs. They won't call you back, they'll give you false information, they'll delay your project based on that false information, they'll say they'll do something and then never do it (all the time), they won't return phone calls, and are generally a nightmare to work with. I'm an insurance adjuster and I work with the Servicemaster and Servpro franchises all the time, and all over the country and they're always competent and professional, 9 times out of 10. I've never dealt with such a ridiculous level of incompetency or disrespect as with these guys. Absolutely avoid them. read more

I hired ServiceMasters to help with water mitigation and was open to having them do the reconstruction pending the estimate. They dried up the water and then packed up and left. I didn't hear from them again until I received the invoice, despite several calls to their office for follow up on the water damage. The worst part was after they dried up the existing water and left, we had several more storms that leaked into the exact same spots that they claimed to have fixed. read more

We had damage from the flooding in Madison two weeks ago and were referred to ServiceMaster by our insurance company. Initially, due to the number of people affected, we had to wait for service to get around to us. This was not unexpected and eventually we were provided a date for the initial inspection of the damage by the project manager, Antwan. Antwan showed up and was very cordial and apologetic about the damage. He also indicated that since we (my wife, mother, father and myself) had already removed the carpet and wet padding that we were ahead of the game, so to say. That's the end of the good part. After Antwan provided the estimate for the repairs and remediation on Thursday, August 23, we approved it Friday the 24th and then proceeded to hear absolutely nothing from anyone at ServiceMaster until I texted Antwan on his *personal cell* that he had helpfully provided. I indicated that we had heard nothing from anyone about the next steps and he offered to 'light a fire'. Still didn't hear anything from the throughout the weekend, so come this previous Monday I finally received a call from someone at ServiceMaster who said that we were scheduled for service at 2pm on Wednesday the 29th. They indicated it would take about three hours to remove the damaged sections and set up the fans to dry the insulation. Fine, that was arranged and put in place. I arrange to work from home, despite my workspace having been destroyed in the flood, so I sat there. All day Wednesday. Two o'clock came and went. Two-thirty came and went. At two forty-five I called the main number and instead of talking to someone, I was sent to a voicemail where I left a message requesting an update on our scheduled service appointment. About fifteen minutes later, I got a call from the general manager who proceeded to try to make me sympathetic to the fact that they were busy despite the fact that I WAS ALSO A CUSTOMER BECAUSE OUR BASEMENT WAS FLOODED. I understand that other people have it far worse than we do, I understand that things get delayed. What I do not understand is why you wouldn't INFORM YOUR OTHER CUSTOMERS when those delays occur. The GM said he'd call me back at the end of the day (never happened) and therefore I was home again today to be around for who knew when these people were going to show up. I got a call indicating that they were supposed to be there at 1PM today. One o'clock showed up and left. Same for one-thirty and one-forty-five. I called the GM and was told the team was supposed to be leaving Stoughton, WI (a thirty minute drive from my house, my wife's family lives in Stoughton), and should be there in thirty minutes. Forty-five minutes later, my wife arrived home to find still no ServiceMaster vehicle at the house. Needless to say (if you're still reading this, I commend you), we chose to cancel our appointment with ServiceMaster because they clearly do not give two shits about their customers when they're unwilling to stick to appointments made and if those appointments have to be broken, there MUST be better communication on the part of the company to the customer. I will NEVER recommend this company to ANYONE with flood damage. read more

I had a massive flood in my master bathroom sink that overflowed onto the floor and down into the finished off lower level sleeping room. The water just seeped through the floor vents and dripped through the lights and speakers on the ceiling downstairs along with going down the walls and into the carpet. I called ServiceMaster immediately and within an hour they were at my home with 6 huge commercial fans and 2 dehumidifiers both upstairs and down. They were extremely efficient, concerned and most helpful. They returned every single day promptly at the time I requested to check the dryness. They had great professional equipment and when it was 100% dry they removed it all fast and efficiently. They were extremely reasonable, and a joy to work with during this stressful time. Bill Giddings was my project manager and he did an awesome job. Thanks Bill. I would recommend ServiceMaster anytime! 608-285-7017 read more