Axelrod Construction

Non delivery of service and won't return my money for work done

Quality of Work: 2.5/5 Communication: 1/5 Reliability: 1/5 Credibility: 1/5 Engaging John Dube and Axelrod Construction has been a financially draining and legally exhausting experience. John operates on a model of over-promising, under-delivering, and ultimately abandoning the site once he has secured 100% of your funds. I approached John in February for a project to start early March to build a boundary wall with painting, lights, a driveway gate, and electric fencing. His initial quote was higher than I could afford, but he claimed he could do it for my budget. It became clear very quickly that this was just a tactic to lock in my business without actually being able to deliver the committed work. The project quickly dissolved into a cycle of missed deadlines and severe structural mismanagement. His team would run for weeks coming only every other day or two, and when it came to his deadline date of 20 March, he was nowhere near finished. I initially left the development going without interfering, but by the end of April, we were still not moving sufficiently. By the beginning of May, I had to start checking in every single morning and calling for progress just to get anywhere. Every time I managed to get hold of him, I was promised the work would be finished in the coming 3 days, but it was never delivered. We spent weeks with John either completely avoiding my calls and messages or making the exact same empty promises over and over again around finishing soon. I eventually drew the line, stopped all work, and requested a refund for the remaining balance of my funds. When the site was abandoned, nearly 50% of the paid scope of work was left entirely unperformed. Because my property was left completely exposed and vulnerable, I had to pay out of pocket for replacement contractors. Unbelievably, the new builders finished all of the outstanding work within just 2 weeks. While the new builders were faster and more reliable, they also pointed out several quality issues left by Axelrod Construction—leading me to rate the build quality at a mediocre 2.5. They noted skew face-bricks, cracked edges on the walls where builds were done, and ruined pavements messed up with wasted cement that had to be chopped up. John's team also caused extensive physical damage to my property, destroying my garden irrigation sprinkler hub, and they built my water meter directly into the wall instead of moving it away. John himself was never on site at the end of each day to check the quality of the work, and he changed his employees so regularly it made me wonder if his guys were even getting paid. He also gave zero indication of what days a team would or wouldn't be on site, leaving it as a total guessing game. Furthermore, John has completely failed to deliver the required municipal council approval for the wall, leaving me with ongoing regulatory exposure. When confronted, John admitted to the non-performance and agreed to a specific refund calculation. However, he has since missed every subsequent grace period he set for himself (May 29th, June 5th, and June 9th), offering nothing but manipulative excuses about his cash flow. He even asked me to pull down my online review just so he could secure new clients to find the cash to pay me back—a textbook definition of rolling funds from one project to another. The matter has now been formally escalated to the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) legal and risk departments, and legal counsel is preparing a court summons for full restitution, physical damages, and council non-compliance. Do not trust his polite demeanor or empty promises. Save yourself the financial and structural headache and hire a legitimate, competent contractor.