Beware of Landscape Contractor Jon Drewniak
Good contractors are hard to find. This is a good example of a bad one...
BEWARE
JON DREWNIAK
owner of
Good contractors are hard to find. This is a good example of a bad one...
BEWARE
JON DREWNIAK
owner of
Jon Drewniak - owner of Home and Garden based in Assonet/Auburn MA.
This is a story about a contractor that gives other contractors a bad name and going a step further... a friend that gives friends a bad name!
I knew Jon for about 7 years. Overall he seemed to be a decent guy. He had financial issues here and there plus he seemed to have alot of "problem clients". But when your friends with someone, you take most of the stories they tell you at face value and slide your judgment on their side so I didn't think a whole lot of the issues that he told me about.
I was having a house built throughout 2005. Jon kept asking me if I was going to have him do any work. I wouldn't say that the landscaping project was huge but it seemed to be more work than one person could do in a reasonable amount of time. Why only one person? Jon had multiple employees in the past but he either had to fire them or they quit. In June of 2005 I told Jon that he could do the landscaping. We discussed some numbers and came up with a total price of about $8000-$9000. He said he would need $6000. up front to get him going with the materials. So we met for breakfast on the morning of June 16th. I gave him a check for the amount of $6000. at about 11:30am and he cashed it at 12:56pm that day.
Good contractors are hard to find. This is a good example of a bad one...
BEWARE
JON DREWNIAK
owner of
Jon Drewniak - owner of Home and Garden based in Assonet/Auburn MA.
This is a story about a contractor that gives other contractors a bad name and going a step further... a friend that gives friends a bad name!
I knew Jon for about 7 years. Overall he seemed to be a decent guy. He had financial issues here and there plus he seemed to have alot of "problem clients". But when your friends with someone, you take most of the stories they tell you at face value and slide your judgment on their side so I didn't think a whole lot of the issues that he told me about.
I was having a house built throughout 2005. Jon kept asking me if I was going to have him do any work. I wouldn't say that the landscaping project was huge but it seemed to be more work than one person could do in a reasonable amount of time. Why only one person? Jon had multiple employees in the past but he either had to fire them or they quit. In June of 2005 I told Jon that he could do the landscaping. We discussed some numbers and came up with a total price of about $8000-$9000. He said he would need $6000. up front to get him going with the materials. So we met for breakfast on the morning of June 16th. I gave him a check for the amount of $6000. at about 11:30am and he cashed it at 12:56pm that day.
June 9th, 2005 - I took a ride to Marlborough, MA after work to pick one of Jon's trucks so he could trade it in for a new Ford F150. You'll see why this is relevant soon.
June 10th - I dropped it off at a Ford dealer in New Bedford, MA. The whole trip was about 170 miles.
June 11th - I went to Assonet, MA in the morning to pick up a utility trailer that the dealer was also taking in trade towards the new truck. After I picked that up, I parked my truck and jumped in with Jon to drive around looking at landscaping in the area. This gave both of us some ideas of what to do at my house. He also showed me where he lived as a kid, where he went to school, where he got beat up ect... We then stopped for lunch and hung out for awhile before returning to my truck and then dropping the trailer off at the Ford dealer.
June 16th - As mentioned above, I gave Jon a check for $6000. to get him started. Why did I give him this much up front? I knew money was tight and I wanted to help a friend that needed some work. He's done other jobs for me in the past and there weren't any problems.
For a few weeks after this we discussed the work that was going to be done and visited a local nursery to pick out plants, trees ect... It took a little while to get him moving on the job.
On the weekend of July 9th, Jon came by to do the plants and mulch in one corner
After this, it really started to turn into a project to get any work done. I would keep getting dates when he would start the rest of the yard but they would come and go with no results. The other work was going to include 6 trees near the road along with plants and bushes in the front, along the side and in back of the house. He would also be planting some more bushes in the back yard.
August 6th - Jon finally came by and planted 5 bushes. He said he'd be at the house most of the following week to take care of the job.
August 10th - This day is Wednesday and no Home and Garden guy. Seeing that this has been dragging out for over a month, I called a few times, received no answer so I left a message that he needed to be there by the next day or I'd have to find someone else. This got his attention because he called back around 4pm. He kept pushing off the day that he could get there and kept coming up with excuses why he couldn't do the work yet. Some of the excuses that I had heard in the previous weeks were - he hurt his hand, there was some wood/trash in the front yard (I had that stuff cleaned) and he had other jobs to do. Jon then told me that the whole job would take 2 days and that he didn't want to be at my house any longer than he had to.
Monday, August 15th - I called to let Jon know that I would be at the house early the next morning (that would be a Tuesday) and I would see him then. He got very cranky and gave me an attitude. He said that he told me that he's be there on Thursday and Friday of that week ( 8/18 and 8/19). I didn't feel like I knew the person on the other end of the phone. He was totally different and I pointed this out to him.
Tuesday, August 16th - I called the nursery where the plants/trees were supposed to come from to see if Jon had been there to tag everything. They said no. Jon called about 9:30 to ask me who I spoke with at the nursery so I told him that it didn't matter. I located a note that I wrote when we talked a few days earlier. It confirmed that he was supposed to be there on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. He said that he didn't know why because he told me Wednesday or Thursday. So I said ok and told him that I would see him tomorrow. He said "NO, I said Wednesday OR Thursday". At this point things weren't looking good and I had a suspicion that I knew why he kept putting this job off. So I asked if he still had the money for the materials. I just received a one word answer. That was "yeah". I think told him that I thought he was pushing the job off because he didn't have the money anymore. His answer was "no". The conversation ended there. I found this to be strange because most people would question why I was even asking things like that.
Thursday, August 18th - Jon was supposed to be at the house early today. I called to see how he was making out around 10:30am. He didn't answer so I left a message. Called a few other times with no answer. He finally returned my calls around 11:30. He asked what I wanted. So I asked where he was. Jon told me that he had some errands to do in the morning. He was going to finish them then head down to the nursery to tag the plants and then head to the house. At first I said ok. Then after I hung up, I thought about it for a few minutes. He's been putting the job off for at least 6 weeks. He kept giving me start dates that came and went with no results and now it was pretty much etched in stone that he would be doing the entire job this day and the next. It was 11:30, he hadn't even been to the nursery to tag everything yet. Then the materials would have to be delivered. I'm not an expert but I knew that wasn't going to happen in a few hours. So that would leave him one day to do the job that he's been putting off for awhile. Another empty promise. I called Jon back and told him that it just wasn't working out. I asked him to stop by the house to give me the rest of the money and we'd just put the whole experience behind us. He laughed and hung up. Yes, you read that right... he laughed and hung up.
After many calls to him that day he said that I paid for the materials and that I would be getting the materials but no money back. I told him that I didn't know where that came from because he'd supposed to be doing the entire job. Seeing that he hasn't done it he should give me the money back and I would hire another company to take care of it. He was now persistent that I only paid him for materials and even through he didn't pick them out yet, he was going to pick out all of the plants and have them left in the front yard. We went back and forth with this for awhile... I wasn't getting anywhere.
About 2 weeks later I had a local attorney send him a letter to demand payment. It was stated that he was in breech of contract, fraudulent misrepresentation, unfair and deceptive trade practices and other violations of the law. Jon then offered to pay me $3000. I said no to that because he only had about $500. into it with materials and labor. He told me he had about 32 hours into the job and $1000. in materials. His breakdown for this was -
12 hour of labor at the house (he might have been there a max of 5 hours total)
8 hours for "drive'bys". This is driving by houses to get landscaping ideas. Look back to June 9th on this page. This is the day after I dropped Jon's truck off at the dealer and then picked his trailer up to drop it off at the same place. We later drove through some neighborhoods and pretty much hung out for the day. And then I dropped the trailer off for him. He charged me for 8 hours this day!
8 hours for walking around the nursery picking up plants and trees (we spent about 3 hours at the nursery and he didn't do the job so I should bill him for my time).
4 hours to pick up the plants and bushes that he planted in the backyard. This probably only took about 2.
Oh yeah speaking of those plants. This picture was taken on August 15th. These plants have been sitting in pots for over a week. He never came back to put them in the ground so I took care of them -
The plants that you see in these pictures don't total to $1000.00!
So where do things stand now? I hired a real contractor to come in and take care of the job. They started when they were supposed to and finished on time. I give alot of credit to Professional Landscaping. Very good people! I didn't work on this to much over the last year. Gave him a little time to get his life straightened out and pay me. Of course that didn't happen so I'm taking a few routes to collect. Jon will probably see this site soon so I won't discuss them at this point.
Info for others that are looking for him:
Seeing that he has extremely bad credit and there are other clients along with past workers (he referred to them as Monkeys) tracking him down for money, he doesn't keep much (if anything) in this name. He lists PO Box 176 in Assonet, MA 02702 as his address and he won't put his name on his wife's property because he doesn't want that to be taken. They moved from a townhouse at 280 Elm St #C3 in Marlborough, MA at the beginning of 2006 to a house at 69 Wallace Ave, Auburn, MA 01501. Of course he didn't leave any forwarding info so clients can collect their debts but there is always a way to find a person... just need to find the wife! The IRS also knows how to contact him. Jon knows why they would want to have a little conversation!
My investigation has found that he has been doing home improvement work without valid HIC numbers since 2002. He worked at my home after those licenses expired. He just kept the numbers on his vehicles. I've also found that he has been trying to get work by advertising on Craigslist.
RI # 18782 - expired February 2002
MA # 130596 expired March 2002
He has started another company -
Kainwerd Landscape Design (Kainwerd is Drewniak spelled backwards)
The slogan for this company is "We take you from fantasy to finish!!!
I think the only fantasy here is him actually doing the job!
Mailing address - PO Box 176 in Assonet, MA 02702
Mailing address and residence - 69 Wallace Ave, Auburn, MA 01501
February 12, 2007 - ADDRESS UPDATE - I just found that he also operates under the name -
Home Improvement & Landscape Construction
PO Box 255
Auburn, MA 01501
DOB - Yes, I have it!
SS# - I have this too!
Contact numbers -
1-781-710-3850
1-508-787-8830
1-508-207-6777
Contact e-mail -
hddirect@aol.com
jonnie_busy@yahoo.com
kainwerd@aol.com
sandra.drewniak@fmr.com
He currently drives a silver Ford F150 -
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