Mr. Holland's Home Services — Local services in New Berlin

They left holes in my walls and refuse to fix them. I was SO EXCITED after I bought my first duplex/investment property and then I hired Mr. Holland’s Home Services to put in a new furnace for one unit (the furnace was 30years old and definitely needed to be upgraded.) so I thought why not get a few things done. Maybe it can all happen in one day and limit the inconvenience for me and my tenants.

It has been a headache ever since. The A/C added to the other units furnace hasn’t worked properly and makes this REALLY loud whistling noise you can hear from the basement alllll the way to the first floor. The holes were left in the bathroom wall. It’s an older house and I wanted to update the bathrooms and add exhaust fans. “No problem” I was told during the initial walkthrough. Now I realize the person just told me whatever I wanted to hear to get my business. Because I SPECIFICALLY asked if I needed to hire an electrician or anyone to cut holes in the walls to install the exhaust fans and I was promised everything would be better after Mr. Holland was done.

Well, it’s THREE months later and still have holes in the wall and the number on the invoice is disconnected.

Oh yeah, I was quoted one price and then they started work BEFORE I agreed to paying anything. And now I have this guy showing up at my property unannounced harassing me and my tenants demanding that I sign a predatory loan I never agreed to. I even offered to pay a portion of the bill (minus the work that wasn’t completed, naturally.) and all this guy does is threaten to get the owners involved and threaten to take legal action if I don’t sign some paper he keeps trying to email me. (I was also promised reasonable financing if I couldn’t afford the final bill. Because I kept asking what everything would cost and the guy just kept saying “don’t worry. We’ll get the work done and figure out the money later. If you can’t afford to pay us all at once; then we have very reasonable financing options.” But they never showed me an APR. never told me an interest rate. Never told me what monthly payments would be. I just know it’s the MAXIMUM interest rate legally allowed. Sounds so reasonable doesn’t it? Mr. Hollands knew I needed a new furnace and took advantage of me.) the company he claims they use for financing isn’t even accredited with the Better Business Bureau and has numerous complaints for shady practices. Why would I sign paperwork from them?

Now I’m not even comfortable at my own property. I have to look over my shoulder incase that guy is showing up unannounced. If I don’t answer the door he says intimidating things to my tenant(s) and keeps trying to text me and order me to sign some loan paperwork.

But when I ask him for the name and contact information for someone in the financing department of Mr Hollands. He never tells me and just repeats the threats of legal action. “It’d be of your interest to sign those documents immediately “…….”I’m trying to be the good guy here before it gets pushed out of my hands which sounds like it’s going to today. If you can sign them this morning”

It’s just REALLY weird. I never got any paperwork in the mail. Mr. Hollands never sent me an email. Nothing saying they completed the work and here’s the bill. Just this guy pressuring me to sign some documents.

Any other time I have received financing. There’s always transparency. You know the amount being loaned, the monthly payments, the interest rate, the APR. the length of the loan. Full disclosure BEFORE anything happens. It’s like they did the work and now want to force me to pay an amount I didn’t agree on.

Be VERY careful with this business. Have everything in writing upfront before you do anything. And get a number that works. I tried to call and resolve this. But the number is disconnected. I asked the person texting me for the names and number of everyone he claims he talked to about my bill. And he ignores me.

I just want the holes in my wall fixed and for him to stop harassing and stop threatening me. It isn’t the money. It’s...

October 2021: Disappointed and I feel cheated. Then work they did was fine. With the exception of the cost. They did their walkthrough and gave me a verbal quote of $1100. He had me sign the tablet and said he was ready to start. I did not see a price listed anywhere on the tablet as the service tech just scrolled to the bottom and pointed where to sign. I asked him to send me a copy of what I just signed and he replied, “you’ll get everything emailed when we are done.” That made me concerned, but I said okay.

After the work was completed, they then said it was $1600, with no explanation and to hand over the money, I was not asked to sign anything. I was confused and said okay, but what about the earlier quote. They didn’t have a good answer other than, “welp things happen and if you have a problem call the office.”

We then finally received the email with the quote, and the completion of services. There were two things troubling about this.

1. the price on the quote was changed AFTER I signed it, And 2) on the completion of services form, my earlier signature was copied and used again. That is not okay.

We tried getting in touch a few times to ask about why we were over charged but we’re getting the runaround about not being part of the membership for discounts.

It took me writing this review for them to finally reach out and listen to me.

After the review posted the immediately tried to get in contact with me.

I spoke with woman at company, she seemed to understand a bit more after I explained the situation fully. At first she said that prices can change in the spot so it makes sense why there was a price increase. She told me she would be investigating and get back to me.

Update 1/4/22 (a few weeks late on the update…life gets in the way sometimes)

After about another week we finally received some answers. Their techs changed the price after I had signed the authorization for work. They admitted to overcharging us and apparently this isn’t the first time they’ve done this to customers…they were to be “retrained” and have a “meeting” about the situation. Then she asked repeatedly to take this review down. I told her that the review is honest, and I would update it as the situation was resolved., but I am not removing it. People need to know the truth about how business is conducted by this contractor.

And as for copying signatures…their excuse is after the customer signs the form, they save a copy, then edit the form to update the work that was completed. Still not okay. The customer should receive copies of documents that are signed when asked of the contractor. Very unprofessional and shady. They can edit the documents to say whatever they wanted and the customer would be liable and screwed, which was my case. I am not okay with that at all. Its dishonest and incredibly sketchy.

But we were refunded the money we were wrongfully overcharged for thankfully.

We will be more diligent in our search for a contractor for the rest of our heating and plumbing projects on our house in the future. I encourage you to do the same dear reader.

This company will not be on our contractor list and every mail ad will go right into the...

Update Hartlaub reached out to me to make this right. I appreciate the effort to win me back as a customer. They did replace the window and covered a portion of my outstanding bill which I do appreciate. Ultimately, I chose to go with a competitor but I have to give them credit for reaching out to me several times to make it right.

Original review My nightmare plumbing problem only got worse using Hartlaub. My family and I have been dealing with sewage backups in our basement for months so I turned to Hartlaub to finally help alleviate our issues. I called to get an opinion on a main sewer line that I had another plumber inspect with camera, but they wanted to do it again. Andy, the tech, appeared super nice and honest about my problem and recommended a hydrojetting thinking it would clear the debris. All is fine until he calls me afterwards and I could tell in his voice he wasn't confident my problem was fixed. The next day I go downstairs to see another pool of sewage on the floor. I'm not sure how but the problem appears to be worse than before. I call Hartlaub and talk to Andy again who suggested some type of de-scaling. Again, another short term or no fix in my future. I finally say I need this problem to go away so he quotes me for a partial sewer drain replacement. I go outside the next day and notice one of my exterior basement windows has a huge crack in it. I know it was them because my baby sitter mentioned how much trouble they had opening the window. So not only did my problem not get alleviated, the techs didn't bother telling me they cracked the window. I don't know if they thought I wouldn't notice? I call Hartlaub and they dispatched someone to take the window out same day. Andy calls me and apologizes and admits he knew it happened but it wasn't him. How can I trust these guys to advise me to do the right thing and trust their expertise if they tried to hide this from me? Also, the quote to replace a part of the drain was outrageous (almost $10,000). So not only have I spent nearly $600 on a repair that hasn't fixed the issue at all, they sent me the invoice for the remaining $600. The window was finally replaced yesterday, nearly a week after I told them about it. I got a quote from a very reputable competitor nearly $3,000 less to replace the whole drain, not just a part of it. I would not recommend Hartlaub after...