My mother, 82 years old, lives alone in a small home in Payson, Arizona. She had a house fire in December. Reconstruction needed to be performed and asbestos was found so it needed to be removed. The insurance adjuster asked if my mom had a construction company she wanted to use and she said no. So, the adjuster recommended a friend of his...Stratton Restoration. They showed up and immediately wanted my mom to sign all kinds of paperwork including paperwork that said she would agree to have their company do ALL the work. She called us and we told her not to sign anything. They did not give up. They tried and tried and she finally put them on the phone with us and we told them we would like to get several bids and we would be happy to look at their bid. They said that they just wanted to clean everything from the fire and put it in storage for my mom until she figured out what she wanted to do. Like they were doing her a big favor. So, unknowingly, we told her it was okay to sign on for just cleaning and storage. No one in our family had every been through a fire before, and they knew that. Again, they tried to make her sign an all inclusive deal. Again we had to get on the phone with them and made them hand write in the words contents, cleaning and abatement only. She agreed to that portion only. We decided to go with a local company to do the actual construction. We then got a bill from Stratton for $30,000!!!!!!!! If you would have asked me how much it would cost for them to do what they did, I would say $1,000. max. Not only that, but we then find out that this money came directly out of my mother's insurance claim!!! Money that should have gone to her for contents, got sucked up by Stratton. I requested an itemized invoice (that took many emails to obtain). It was padded like crazy. They had hours and hours billed for supervising for someone watching someone else take photos of items. They exaggerated their hours. They exaggerated their days. They exaggerated everything. They charged $65 to clean a $5 pair of shorts. That doesn't even include the storage for the shorts. If they would have told my mom that she would have told them to throw them away. Anyone would. They all have to be thrown away anyway because of the asbestos and smoke. Their inventory list and photos were incomplete and incompetent. I asked several times where the complete list was and I was told over and over Don't worry, it may not be listed but it's all there in the storage unit. Well on an insurance claim it's ALL suppose to be listed. Not just whatever they choose. On top of that they were charging $239 a month for storage units. I called the storage unit facility and found out the charge was actually $95 per unit, not $239. Not once did Stratton give my mom an estimate of the charges before they performed any work, and not once did they mention that this would be coming directly out her pocket. We would have never in a million years agreed to this if we would have known the price and where the money was coming from. And they knew that. That is why they did not say a word and tried to rush my mom into signing so quickly. They also allowed her to go into the house where they said asbestos was found without a suit or mask to retrieve belongings. Who knows what the medical implications of that will be. They are now holding her belongings hostage unless she signs over the $29,346.87 check. They take advantage and prey on people and the elderly that just went through a very traumatic experience. Unconscionable. Since then, while speaking with others, I hear they do this all the time. They find out the insurance limit and take every penny they can.
My advice is to NOT USE THIS COMPANY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
They are thieves with no conscience.
My mom is retired and lives solely on social security that is at poverty level. They have taken almost all of her claim money and left her with smokey, asbestos tainted personal belongings. Oh no wait, she doesn't even have that because they are holding them hostage.
RUN!