CHESTER TOWNSHIP, Ohio — There’s still so much damage to people’s homes and properties after the storms rolled through this week. You want to clean up quickly, but before you hire someone to help fix everything, here’s what you need to know about contractors and insurance claims.
“I wasn’t expecting anything like this,” said Sara Kritzer, who works about 40 minutes from her home in Chester Township.
She saw the storms coming in. “And then I was heading this way and my neighbor called. He’s like you can’t come home,” she told us.
Just down the driveway, a big weeping willow came crashing down on the fence and garage. “It was scary. My neighbor said his garage came off the foundation,” said Kritzer.
“Just trying to help her out,” said Julie Kirby. She and her family were cleaning up some of the storm's smaller debris left at her sister-in-law’s home. For the bigger stuff, she had a suggestion. “We warned her to only get somebody local to come in and help,” said Kirby.
Sheryl Harris from the Cuyahoga County Consumer Affairs office said that was good advice. She said to stick with contractors that you know and stay away from people going from house to house. “You don’t know them,” said Harris. “They can say they’re anyone. I can make a business card right now and tell you I can fix a roof, and that is not true.”
Harris told us with disasters in the past, they have had complaints about people just walking up and saying, "hey, I’ll inspect your house for free."
“They get up on your roof and they smack it with a hammer a little to make it look like there’s storm damage when there isn’t,” she recalled. “We don’t want that happening.”
Harris said to do your homework first on any hired help. Check the Better Business Bureau’s site for ratings, complaints and reviews.
And when you look up the contractor online add in a word. “Take a company’s name and put it in a search engine along with the word scam or ripoff and a lot of times you’ll get things back,” said Harris.
Before signing a contract, Harris said to pay attention to the details, put down payments on a credit card, take pictures of the damage, fix up what you can so no further damage is done, and document everything for the repairs and insurance claim. “You want to make sure you’re not handing over like power of attorney for your contractor to do negotiations with your insurance company,” said Harris.
Definitely good tips, especially since it will take a while to clean up all the debris and damage, and you want every penny to count. “I think we’re all trying really hard to get by and work and things are expensive,” said Kritzer. “We don’t need people to come around and try to take some more.”
