Thank you, Jared, Atlantic, and your hard-working crew for all you’ve done for our family. We cannot thank you enough for helping us through our traumatic experience. Between the job itself, the amount of “stuff” we stored in our finished downstairs and garage, the numerous questions, and even the dramatic crying, I know you had your work cut out for you.
For anyone who may be reading this, the finished basement in our home was flooded due to a frozen water pipe that burst in the wall on 2/14/16. We found a restoration contractor online which began remediation almost a week later. They cut out sheetrock, removed a linoleum floor, removed carpeting and padding, ran dehumidifiers, and ran industrial blowers for about four days. Fast forward a couple of months later, I called a tile company with some questions because when the linoleum was removed they left the white paper backing because it was stuck to the concrete. In our phone conversation, the tile guy mentioned I should have that paper backing tested for asbestos being that my house was built in the ’70s. So we had it tested and a week after we were informed that the linoleum did in fact contain Chrysotile asbestos.
This is when the constant anxiety, stress, and worrying began. My home insurance all along was telling us if it was asbestos it would be covered. After a month of back and forth, they said they were NOT covering any of it. This led us to find an attorney that could help us. In the meantime I had three abatement companies come out to estimate the job. Atlantic Abatement was the only one who took seriously every detail that I knew would have to be done (wiping everything, moving everything into a storage unit, and the removal of the paper backing and mastic). It was a big job considering we are a family of four. Our downstairs three rooms consisted of storage, a playroom, a tv/entertainment room, a bathroom, two closets, and a garage which is half storage and half used for our home business. Mind you, that because of the flood, nothing was neatly in its normal place. We had to quickly push everything into the driest part of the basement the night of the flood. Nothing short of what looked like a huge disorganized mess.
Atlantic Abatement assured me that they have done this level of work needed before and walked us through step by step what they would do and how they would do it. All along they answered my questions and assured me it would all be ok.
Next problem: I have NO money for the abatement. Both my home insurance and the contractor’s insurance are both giving me a hard time. It’s been five months and I have lost the use of my basement and I can’t even get it removed. Imagine the feeling of what you go through knowing this is in your home and no one is helping you to remove it. We are talking about highly dangerous cancerous material. After telling Atlantic I could not go through with abatement because I didn’t have the money upfront, I was devastated and panicking. Our attorney couldn’t even believe the process. A week or so later, they called to tell us that he knew this would be a process in court and that they couldn’t see us living in the house like that. They offered to do the work without payment upfront!!! How many companies do you know would do this? Not knowing if they’ll ever get their money after days of paying their crew and ordering a huge container? Most companies can’t even afford to do that if they wanted to! So for that, I am forever thankful. Thankful that someone cared to help enough over money. There are still good people in the world.
Lastly, I want to say that the job was done quickly and efficiently. The workers were all friendly and took pictures of our belongings as we went. We had only one problem which was they missed some valuables that I knew I would need pictures of. They came back today with the trailer of all my belongings in trash bags!! Can you imagine? They went above and beyond to trail this back to our house to take pictures of everything in bags. They even found the iPod my daughter had been missing for nearly a year! They did everything to reassure us and did a thorough job. I don’t know what else to say, except sorry for the long story. I just wanted anyone who may consider this company to know they are the right one by getting our full story.
Thank you Atlantic Abatement!
Rebecca Coroa
East Bay Xtreme Clean
www.eastbayxtremeclean.com
(401)465-1329