DO NOT USE Osprey cleaning and property maintenance and ST3 property maintenance

DO NOT EVER DO BUSINESS WITH this company, who is operating under these two business names:

Osprey cleaning and property maintenance ST3 property maintenance

We hired him to do a tiling job in our small guest bathroom. He seemed very professional at first.

He brought two tilers to do the job (we found out later he picked up random two tilers with a cheap daily rate). They did half the job which took almost a week, the tilers tiled while the owner sat in our lounge doing nothing.

The first tiling job was an absolutely mess. The tiles were about 5cms off the ground, the tiles were all misaligned, chipped and the grout was all different sizes. The tiles around the door frame, were about 10 cm high which no thickness of tile strip could cover. When I looked up I could see the adhesive behind the tiles.

He then had excuse after excuse even going as far as saying it’s because the floor is not aligned. When I asked him what he intended to do about the tiles around the door frame, he had no answer. He then advised me that it was done like that because he never quoted me to chip into the wall to align the tiles with the door frame. If that needed to be done, why was it not added to the quote then… After a back and forth, he said he would get a strip to cover the 5cm gap and then remove the tiles around the door frame and chip into the wall. I refused to accept this. He then bought two new tilers to remove everything and retile. These tilers told us that that this is not the first of him using cheap tilers to maximise on profits.

The tiles on the walls were now sorted. However, he did not pay the second two tilers to do the floor.

He told us he was going to get the floor tiles cut professionally and put on mesh, which he charged us close to 2000 rand to do. He arrived here a week later with the tiles in a bucket seemingly cut by himself, all uneven, no mesh.

He then never levelled out the shower floor, apparently waterproofed the shower floor himself and laid half the floor tiles. He stopped mid job which I couldn’t understand. He then got his cousin in to finish the floor, reinstall the shower door, vanity and towel rain. Through the cousin we found out that the owner stopped mid job because he realised he actually cannot tile a shower floor and that he is only a painter. He was again trying to save on costs.

He told his cousin to finish the job as quick as possible which resulted in Muneer tiling the shower ledge and installing the shower door on the same day. The shower ledge then collapse. He also got the driver to do the silicone which was a mess - thick, uneven and everywhere.

I then called the owner and told him I’m going to take this further, he then sent Muammar back to fix the job. His cousin claimed to have 13 years tiling experience which I highly doubt. Probably more cheap labour for Safwaan. I complained to Safwaan about how much materials I had bought due to the errors. He said he would bring adhesive, we later found out that parts of the floor were tiled with only cement and no adhesive

Furthermore , his cousin cracked a tile while putting in the shower door, chipped the tile around the tile rail, misaligned the vanity and the grout he did never set. The silicone was redone in the very same way. We had to remove the shower door ourselves, clean and redo the silicone and then also regrout the floor.

I then told the owner due to all the additional costs we incurred as a result of this, I will not be paying him the balance which was only about 2500. The materials (including 3/4 extra boxes of tiles)we had to buy as a result of all the mess ups cost us more.

But from here the real disaster started, which I should have anticipated, after our first shower water was leaking everywhere, from out the sides, under the walls of our onsuite and the room below the shower. We then got a professional in to find out not only did Safwaan not waterproof the shower, he did not cover the shower outflow when he was chopping out the tiles resulting in pieces of tiles and adhesive siting in the pipes.

When I confronted him about this, he blocked me, which in itself is telling.

We will be taking this further once we know the extent of the damages, with all the evidence. However, do not use this man or his cousin for any job, no matter how big or small the job is.