The Home Depot — Local services in Lemont

DISCRIMINATION AT ITS FINEST. Last weekend, my wife and I took our 4 kids to the Homer Glen Home Depot to participate in their in-store kids’ workshop for a family outing. Upon arriving, it was extremely busy and there was limited space for us. We found an area that had enough space for us to set up to start our project. Our youngest daughter who is just under two was secured in her stroller as she suffers from hypotonia (low tone) due to a structural anomaly with her brain. Due to this, she is not able to stand unassisted or walk. One of HD’s associates approached my wife and told her that our daughter was not allowed to be there. My wife thought that he was referring to her being in the way of customers being able to move around. She had asked him to help her move things around so she could move our daughter out of the way. He responded by stating she was not allowed to be here and needed to leave the area. My wife tried explaining that our daughter has special needs and cannot stand, let alone walk, which is why she was in the stroller. He stated yet again that she needed to leave. My wife questioned what would happen should she be in a wheelchair in which he stated she would be asked to leave the area. After realizing what was occurring, I asked him what he would have done if he was in our shoes and to my surprise, he stated that he would “follow the rules.” I immediately asked to speak to the manager/supervisor of the store. I explained to Doreen what had just occurred between me, my wife, and their associate. Doreen stated that he was incorrect and accommodations for our daughter should have been made. After leaving the store, we called corporate and filed a formal complaint with Home Depot. Jose was very understanding and validated our feelings and frustrations based off what we had experienced. Later that afternoon, the Assistant Manager of the Homer Glen Home Depot called and spoke to my wife and me. She shared that they would be addressing this associate’s behavior and could not go into detail as to what the conversation would consist of. She then proceeds to say that he should have “made room for you (us) in the back.” Here are my thoughts on this situation-SHAME on Home Depot (specifically the Homer Glen location) and SHAME on that Assistant Manager for expressing that placing children or customers with special needs/disabilities in the back is a sufficient response in addressing the fact that our 19mo child had been discriminated against. After taking some time to reflect on this situation, I am angered at the fact that the store is not proactively making accommodations for children/customers with special needs and/or disabilities. Instead, they are being reactive, and the optics are not good. After our conversation with her, my perception is my daughter is an afterthought. Should she or another child had shown up in a wheelchair or other assistive device, the tables and how they were set up would have not allowed for her to participate which is extremely disheartening. What I would expect from Home Depot moving forward is to take proactively actions for every workshop and make accommodations for children or customers with special needs vs piecemealing something together and shoving someone in the back. Additionally, I was them to amend their policy and procedures related to workshops within their stores to make this population of customers feel welcome! Education on laws that protect individuals with disabilities and sensitivity training should be provided to ALL their associates, not just this one individual. There are small, yet meaningful ways that they can assist children/customers with disabilities such as listening to the customers and asking what they need that would be most helpful for what they are trying to achieve. Under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, all public accommodations in IL must provide auxiliary aids and services and modify their policies when necessary to accommodate customers with...

Our return was quick, but my mom is blind and needed to make a return, I walked her to the counter and stepped back like I always do. She's blind not incapable, so I typically help her to the destination and let her do her thing. Well, the return was quick and easy, but only because I stepped in as the sighted helper. The cashier at the service desk had no training on how to help a blind person. My mother said hello, I'm blind and need to make a return, the cashier did the typical I'll take your receipt or card used to purchase and my mom held it forward, the cashier waited as if my mom knew what to do. The cashier noticed her holding the card forward to her and said, "You have to put your card in the machine." My mother said remeber Im blind. Where is the machine? the cashier replied "over there." Again Remember, I'm blind, my mom replied, the cashier said oh sorry that machine there.( Again no direction like to your left or right or in front of you a little more, or better yet, here hand me the card I can help you. Nope, the cashier again just stood there) so I stepped forward, reminded the cashier she was blind and took my mother's card, and asked her if she had tap ability or chip. My mom said she didn't know and so I tried tap first and then inserted the card, the cashier said thank you and then held out the receipt for the return out in front of her toward my mother but again not saying anything like "here is your receipt ma'am" or placing it against her fingers so she knew the cashier was handing her something. So I again said Remember she is blind,she doesn't know you are trying to hand her something if you don't say so, I took the receipt, touched it to my mom's fingers and said here is the receipt and she grabbed it and we were done. It was easy to do the return, but honestly, the staff needs some training on how to listen better, we had to say how many times, remember she is blind . And the soft skills needed to handle blind customers. If I wasn't there to help, my mother would have been extremely frustrated. Do better Home Depot with disabled customers but the return was a nice easy return process for...

ZERO STARS! Unfortunately one the worst home improvement stores in the area. Most people I have encountered there are very rude and of none to zero help. Withing just last week I was making 2 large purchases and the employees encountered were just awful. First purchase was a tool purchase of several Hundred dollars I couldn't get anyone to the department to help with getting me the tool. I walked up front asking for someone to be sent to tools. Sat there for 20 minutes no one came. I went back up to the sme woman who saw me coming and basically tuned her back to me thus making me wait and then snapped at me basically saying she already called for help in tools. I went back and just started to look for any employee with an apron and grabbed a man who did go back to tools with me but seemed rushed and just not really interested in helping. Long story short they didn't even have that tool in stock, I went to another local store and purchased it. Just got disrespected and wasted my precious time at Homer Glen Home Depot and walked out with NOTHING. Similar story this week. Was trying to make a major appliance purchase and the employee in the appliance department didn't know what he was doing. He gave us a bunch of confusing information and wrong information which I was able to prove to him, as we already did research on this purchase and I presented the info to him. He sadly had no idea what he was talking about. He then had issues even placing the order and called for manager Sue who was condescending rude and short with us and basically waved her hand in my face and literally WALKED away refusing to make the order ! We took our almost $5 k transaction to another Home Deport in Orland. Very nice people there .. So far I would recommend that store over the Homer Glen one. They did the transaction for us and it was done without a hitch. Not the first time we had to go to another home depot as the Homer Glen store has utterly useless employees that lack people skills...