What's the problem you ask? Why all the hostility? What would make a man take time out of his busy schedule to write a website about a builder?

Anger plain and simple. Anger about being lied to by the sales person. Anger about the treatment I've received from his supervisors. Anger about Maronda's total inability to satisfy me the customer.

If you want a simple cookie cutter house then they're the company for you. But if you want simple modifications made to your home, FORGET IT. Maronda has a 0 Tolerance policy. They will not change anything for anyone regardless of how much you pay. As for promises made by the sales people before hand make sure you get it ALL in writing, and even then you'll just have to eat those because they won't care.

On the way home from taking my son to school I decide to stop by to check the status of the house. I notice the electrician is wiring my house in the normal fashion. For those of you who don't know about this phone wire is usually one big wire that goes all around the house to every phone drop, and finally outside. Network wire is point to point for each terminal. I currently have 4 pc's in my house, and all of them are on the internet. After arguing with the sales guy, the superintendent, his boss, and his bosses boss, I got nowhere. I'm still waiting for some response as to how they will fix this. To learn more read My Story below.

I got a voice mail from the sales guy today he basically told me that he can't help me and no one is going to make changes to my house. The funny thing is that he left this in voicemail. He pretty much spells out that he told me it could be done, and then he tries to cover one lie with another by saying that Maronda has changed their policy on how they do phone lines. Like this is something new. According to Tony Lanciano this policy has been in place for three years. Well anyway you listen to it for yourself.

Brian Calls Back

I called Maronda to tell them about the beam. I spoke to Jerry Mathews, who told me that the procedure is to speak to the sales person, who will write it up, pass it on to him, and then he will call the superintendent and let the superintendent know. So much for trying to cut out the middleman, who isn't too happy with me already. So I called Brian and left him a message.

I also emailed Brian the following:I was by the house yesterday showing it to my dad, and he spotted a beam that was snapped, and needs replacing.

The beam is on the second floor in the NW room, the largest of the 3 bedrooms. Standing inside the closet, and looking east you will see the beam next to an AC duct. It’s one of the beams on the roof and it's obviously broken. Please pass this on to Jerry, so he can pass it on to Charlie, so that it can be replaced.

I called Brian, who will be sending me a fax to fax in to him. This fax will then have to go to Jerry, who I already called. I found it interesting that Brian asked me if I was escorted by someone from Maronda. When I told him no he explained that I now have to be escorted by someone from Maronda, because they are "Watching my house". OOH I'm scared, like I'm going to do anything to the house my kids have to live in, or intentionally wire something I know shouldn't be wired, and leave my family homeless after December 30th. This whole thing is one big joke.

I also emailed Tony Lanciano three times to see if he would finally email me back.

Well I got a letter from Maronda today. It came certified mail, and basically says that they cannot find any trace of custom wiring in the contract, and they will not do the wiring.

I'll be posting it as soon as I can scan it.

To make matters worse, I had spoken to Joanne Lunden on Friday of last week to schedule closing for December 26th, but someone else at Maronda told my insurance company we were closing on the 20th. Like I want to spend Christmas in box land.

My wife and I got up early, and went to the site. We waited around about 20 minutes watching everyone work. After some searching we were able to find Charlie, the superintendent, who basically told me that the house could possibly be ready if they pushed it. But the walkthrough would have to wait until the day of closing on the 31st. He was real nice and appologetic, apparently someone was supposed to call me, but never did. The kicker came when my wife saw the tile. Apparently they ordered the wrong tile. I being a guy didn't really notice because it was the same color. But my wife noticed. We went back to the model and looked over the contract,and sure enough it was wrong. The new sales person called up the chain, and we heard from someone within a few hours. This they cared about, mainly because it was on paper. I got to speak to Tony again, who was actually really appologetic himself. He gave me 3 choices

1. Rip it up and take another week to put in new tile.

2. Tile my 10x30 porch for free.

3. Give me back the $3000 they charged to tile the house.

I of couse realizing that tiling the porch myself would only cost about $600, and that I didn't have a place to live after the 31st, decided on the money.

My Story:

I started purchasing my house in February of 2002 year. The sales person told me I'd be in my new home by October of 2002. The length of time didn't bother me much because I was renting and still had the rest of the year on the lease.

Seeing as how I was going to move in to my new home in October I decided to speak to the landlord. They were ok with us leaving early, and we decided that October would be our last month. This changed to November really quick, with building to start in July. Come August nothing was done not even a foundation. August turned to early September.

When nothing was done I called the sales person who told me that they were behind schedule, and my new closing date was December 27th. Imagine that 2 days after Christmas. Here I thought I'd be spending Thanksgiving in my new home. Imagine my landlord's reaction when I told him that I was staying through the year after all. Especially when he's found a buyer for the house, and they want to purchase ASAP.When asked about the date change all they had to say for themselves was "Contractually we have up to 12 moths to finish a house".

There were no apologies, not attempts to make things right just excuses like " Well you know how sales people are", and " The sales person doesn't decide when a house gets done I do." Got to love those superintendents.Sad to say it doesn't end there.

I work with computers all day, and because of this I wanted to set up a network in my home. So the first thing I asked when I went to sign the papers in February was " Can I have a single drop to every room in the house so that I can set up my network?" The sales person said "Sure we can do that." We even went through the trouble of drawing out where I wanted each of the lines to go. This would have cut their job by having them run a single line from each room to the utility room, and then one line from the utility room to the outside for the phone line. I offered to do all of the terminations myself afterwards. Sounds easy right? Well I went by the house to check on the electrician, and he was wiring the house with one CAT 5 cable all around the house. For those of you who don't know about networks, this is not the way to do things. I informed him as to how I wanted things done, and he directed me to the Superintendent, who in turn directed me to the sales person, and all the way up to the area supervisor. After several calls to his office, and several excuses as to why he was "Too Busy" to speak to me, I was finally able to tell him all about my problems. His response was not "Sorry to hear that we'll take care of it", instead he said, "I don't know why the sales guy told you that because he knows better."

Well the sales guy lets just call him Brian, he calls me back and tells me that he's more than willing to have me buy the wire, and go help me wire the house when the time is right. Nice huh? All this time I was thinking that I had paid for this wiring when I bought the house. That it was "No problem" well I guess it was more of a problem than I thought.Needless to say we're still in a heated dispute over this, with no one taking responsibility for the other's lies. I probably won't get to have my network, and I'm pretty sure that they could care less. But letting everyone know how I've been treated has become my mission in life. I will badmouth them to anyone who will hear. So stay tuned for more dirt on the scariest homebuilder to do business with.