Cfcm

Working with Carl Forestieri (a.k.a. the CF Group, CFCM and First Call Home Repair) was by far the worst experience I have had as a homeowner. I hired him for a kitchen renovation. He proved to be totally incompetent, unreliable, unprofessional, abusive, and duplicitous. I have had several contractors in to look at the disaster he left behind in my kitchen, all of whom described his work as “shameful.” I am now in the position, after having spent my budget paying Carl for his grossly inadequate work, of having to pay other contractors to fix his mess. I am now out almost $10,000 to repair the damage he caused to my home. I expect to incur many more thousands of dollars before it is done.
It is difficult to even catalog the myriad problems with the kitchen as he installed it. This is at best a partial list: the wall cabinets are extremely crooked (off level by over ½ inch in one 2 foot span alone); there are sharp nails and holes through the tops of the cabinets; he cracked the bottoms of cabinets (one he tried to cover with an old piece of nicked up plywood); the back splash is unfinished – he left gaping holes through the wallboard above it, and the grout began drying up and falling out (in powder form) just a month after he did it; the floor is unevenly tiled and poorly grouted; the light rail is smeared with dirty caulk (done with dirty fingers); few if any of the corners match up; he gave up on installing the crown molding stating it was impossible (not so, as someone is doing it now). My list could go on and on…
Carl Forestieri was extremely difficult to deal with and was prone to fits of yelling and then crying. After one particularly fraught outburst, I took my daughter and left the house. I returned a few hours later and Kurt, his right hand man (he was given the role of good guy on this incompetent crew) said, “we thought you would be afraid to come back.” On another occasion when I asked about Carl’s refusal to fix something he acknowledged was poorly done, Kurt responded with, “He’s trying to get as much money out of you as possible.” Carl Forestieri’s same trusted friend and employee told me that when Carl opens his mouth it is to lie – but sometimes – if you look at him just right - he tells the truth. Wow, what do his enemies say you might ask.
Ultimately, I felt unsafe and uncomfortable having Carl Forestieri in my home and near my family. I actually offered to pay him the amount remaining for the kitchen renovation to stop work and leave. At that point we were treated to a diatribe of insults and threats – and the outrageous claim that we owed him five times the amount we had agreed to for “extra work” which he had not told us about (and which we doubt was done) and to which we had not agreed.
Carl talks a good line, and I fell for it. He will walk into your house and brag about his experience and his degrees. Yes, he has an engineering degree. But, what use is that if you cannot hang a cabinet level or miter a corner. He also has an MBA. One would thing that with an MBA planning for payroll and managing his small crew (usually three guys) would be no problem. Not so! They rarely showed up when expected – and often did not have the right tools with them. At virtually every step of the way they were behind schedule. On top of that, Thursdays were often met with him in hysterics as he stomped through my house shouting that he could not make payroll. Often this was done after I was treated to “overhearing” that Kurt could not pay his car insurance or that his electricity was cut off, etc. My guess – looking back on it – is that this was a set up all along.
If you have read to the very end of this I probably do not need to tell you – DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES hire Carl Forestieri. I will be posting pictures and videos at HudsonValley Farmhouse on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMmEh0lWdQGgqTRebov6MSw) and on hudsonvalleyfarmhouse.home.blog

Please note the dates on Carl Forestieri's reviews. The decent ones are many years old. The new ones essentially non-existent because (as he told me) he insists on non-disparagement clauses from unhappy customers. Something clearly happened to his abilities or work ethic in recent years.