Oxford Bathroom

BIG mistake using Oxford Bathrooms. Bathroom floor tiles were supposed to be matt finish but they laid gloss which is too slippery in the shower. As we were all at work when they did it they accused us of agreeing to using gloss before they laid them. Impossible. The tilers could hardly speak English and we were not at home so at no stage did they say “are these the tiles you ordered?” They were nice at the start of the project but as soon as an issue arose they went on the defensive and blamed everyone else but themselves. The project manager offered $150 discount. $150 for risking our lives on slippery tiles every night? Get out of town! He tried to tell us to use a shower mat so not to be slippery. No way! They knew they did wrong and it would mean ripping up the floor and walls, waterproofing again which they tried to weasel their way out of at every turn but in the end they did it and then tried to charge us for the waterproofing once again. One of the managers phoned us and asked if we could help pay for the tiles as it was partly our fault and as they had installed the correct wall tiles then we should “come to the party” and agree to pay some of the wall tile costs. Unacceptable. Oxford was responsible for every mistake that happened. We demanded that they use a less aggressive tiler contractor as they would turn up at 6am when it was supposed to be 7:30am and hang out on the front lawn until time as we couldn’t let them in as we had to prepare for work, kids off to school etc so they had to wait and they were loud, argued in the own language way too much but would swear in English every third word. So embarrassing for the kids to have to listen to them. Finally the bathroom got finished 10 days after the 5 week contract. They never offered any discount after putting us through their incompetence. Glad to be finally over. Please, this company is not worth the stress and aggression of its contractors. Do not even consider.

Drama after drama after drama ! We contracted Oxford to do our bathroom and after getting the quote and was assured the bathroom would ‘bling’ when finished left us with a second rate job. The demolishing of the old bathroom started and at the end there were protruding nails poking through two adjoining rooms through the wall. They said from the start that that would be taken care of. All was going ok but their schedule was way off the mark. Not once was someone there when they said they’d be. Then the tilers installed the wrong wall tiles…totally unacceptable. Oxford was pushing for us to accept the wrong tiles and after lots of negotiating we settle of a deal to keep the wrong tiles. The owner offered a decent discount and we accepted. The next day the operations manager called up and tried to weasel his way out of the deal saying it was too much and we should be more accepting and take a lower offer. I told him to speak to the owner as he has already agreed but in the end the reneged on the deal and decided to remove the wrong tiles. This operations manager was rude, demanding and then tried to blame us for the wrong tiles when it was their fault. Then they blamed the manufacturer by saying the wrong tiles were in the right coded box but as we signed the contract we should be more accepting of the tiles they already installed. Customer service right out the window. So, there’s another week behind in schedule as demolition, waterproofing, drying and re-tiling and drying again. I wasn’t happy with this as they left the floor tiles and just cemented in the gaps and tiled over the top. The tilers took off the door architraves (frames) to put in the tiles but because the tiles were a few millimetres thicker the architraves didn’t fit back on properly so they just left nails sticking out where they tried to put it back in and left it almost hanging off. The final day and they put up the roof skirting where the tiles meet the roof and the carpenter (a subcontractor) didn’t have permission to fix the other things that the previous contractors had done so he made a call and they told him to fix but we had mentioned all the wall protrusions many times and they kept saying yeah no worries, we’ll sort it. After some phone calls they have admitted that they don’t have painters and trying to get these walls fixed and painted has become part 2 of the Oxford Bathroom nightmare. Now we have been told we’ll have to paint the roof cornices and the roof itself because painting isn’t included in the contract. This is the biggest SCAM. So much for the bathroom having the bling they bragged about. They should sit you down and go through the contract step by step, this is normal & good business practice. They should hand us a work schedule to let us know what date & what time to expect workers and not say the day before…”tomorrow at 7am to 9am” then no one arrives until 12pm or doesn’t show up at all. We have discovered that there is no filling between the doorframe and tiles and the gap is wide enough for a 5c piece to slip through. This means water and steam can get in easily and start to do long term damage. One the top of the frame it was at least 4cm gap. Unbelievable. I invited the owner to come and inspect but he couldn’t care and has not attempted in any way to rectify the problem or contacted us regarding it. The shower screen was to take 6 to 8 days but after 14 days it was installed with a further 2 days of non use due to drying. In their contract it states that all delays will be addressed to the client but we have heard nada. They do not care. This was the worst experience & customer service ever. This was the worst organisation process and timetable ever. This company is run by apathetic money grabbers. They have no idea how to turn an unhappy customer into a happy customer. Basic business acumen. We lodged a complaint with Fair Trading as their clear arrogance can only be addressed with the power of Fair Trading. When we first approached them the bragged about an award they won which is 5 years ago now as clearly they are declining in standards and shoddy contractors on the cheap which do substandard work. Every subcontractor had to come back twice to fix their mistakes and some three times. Two gentlemen from Fair Trading came out to the house and made them fix their mistakes which they tried to get out of doing and hide under the contract which we signed but a dodgy company will always be set straight when Fair Trading officers lay down the law. THIS WAS THE WORST EXPERIENCE IN THE HISTORY OF CUSTOMER SERVICE. TOTALLY APATHETIC TOWARDS THE CUSTOMER & ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA HOW TO RENOVATE A BATHROOM. I am gobsmacked as to how they stay in business.