Alewife Co

I preface this review with the comment that I have worked for several service organizations. So I have no tolerance for service providers that cannot arrive within the range of hours they provided. So when they fail to arrive in their timeslot, they will receive a scathing review from me. In this specific case, it is particularly deserving as their indifference to their schedule affected more than 30 residents.

Our need was for a plumber to address 4 issues, two of which likely required shutting off the main water supply. Our home is a multi-story, 30+ unit condo with a common water line and no individual unit shutoffs. Therefore getting the building’s main water shut off requires first receiving a timeslot from our condo management company. Which we did and it was for a 4 hour period from 9am until 1pm.

We contacted Alewife to arrange for a plumber. We told them the four services we required, and the day and time of our timeslot for having our building’s main water shut off. They said they would be able to have someone onsite between 9am and 12 noon.

The day before our service, we called to confirm details. The day of the service, we had our house prepared – all items removed from under two sinks, washer and dryer moved out of the way, all areas cleared.

9am, no plumber, 10 am, no plumber. Called – the plumber is 15 miles away in another town on another job. 11am, no plumber, called, “he is on his way”. 12 noon, no plumber, 1pm, no plumber.

Called and cancelled the service as our time window for shutting off the building’s water was now completely expired. Now we will have to reschedule (with a different company obviously) and once again inconvenience 30 other units with our need to shut of the building’s main water.

Others may disagree, but my opinion is that incompetent scheduling is a good indicator of a poorly managed company.