Alicia and David Dixon use personal slander to cover up their alleged con artist activities in providing quality work. She and David will not admit that they caused the issues I will list below - they want to create distractions, personal attacks, and lies to cover up their incompetant management. If you offered them to take a polygraph test - I would bet neither would pass.
Ask them about the alleged $40,000 lawsuit filed against them for building a pool that slid down a hill after they did not make sure the ground was stable enough to put the weight in that soil. Alicia is an unprofessional, emotinally unstable, and uneducated alleged pool builder who claims to know how to run a business. Both will talk a good game and use excuses such as "that won't meet code" or throw temper tantrums to get their way. YOu make the decision and decide if this is the type of people you want building or remodeling your pool. I filed a report with the Better Business Bureau of Dallas with the following complaints:
1) Said she used 11 tons of rocks to complete the outer edge. I knew that there was only 7 tons delivered. The rock wall edge was not as high as she visually explained to me it would be.
2) There was no work done for a three week period because another woman that had a higher profile financially in Dallas had demanded that her pool be completed.
3) The concrete resurfacing was not done to what Alicia and I had originally discussed. It was done in ONE color and I had asked for a stone pattern that alternately painted each stone in different colors. I also was going to receive the wrong stone pattern (blocks versus stones). If I had not walked outside after I got in from class, and stopped the project supervisor, it would have been done all wrong. I felt like I got a cheaper, quicker done version of what I really wanted and that I got cheated out of what I paid for the original bid to complete this task.
4) Alicia and David both had Lasik eye surgery during the busiest part of pool building season and shutdown operations for another week. David had complications and he was out for a few more days. This should have been done in the off-season. She was just using my payments to get personal luxuries that could have waited until the project was over. (Alicia was having her headaches long before my pool remodel started).
5) Design changes that were not approved by me were done or attempted (if I was there to catch them). Examples include 1) the seat on the curve was moved down to the right and made twice as large as I wanted, 2) the angle of the beach entry is too severe for normal exit from the pool (Alicia would not change this even after multiple discussions on site), and 3) Alicia attempted to add a multiple holes in the beach entry for water features that I had to have her pull out).
6) Green plaster color was not evenly placed next to white beach entry and it looks like a third grader was painting the pool. This could have been fixed if the project manager or supervisor cared about the quality of their work. They put water in the pool before I got home to cover up this issue and once the water is in the pool, this item could not be fixed without draining the pool and waiting several weeks for the plaster to dry.
7) The circulation pipes were not tested before adding water. I lost thousands of gallons of water underground which surfaced all the way down the side of my house and created algae on the surface of the dirt from the saturation of the ground. This was compromising the stability of the slab of my house foundation. It took Mercedes Pools 2.5 weeks before they were available to fix this problem.
8) The underground water circulation pipes from where they were turned to the new equipment location are less than 18 inches underground which does not meet code for freeze guidelines in plumbing.
9) The safety fences around the pool equipment and side yard was so poorly put together because of exposure of nails (I have pictures to prove this). Alicia and David agreed and had to have them redone.
10) Their crew supervisor was arrested during the project and Alicia had to bail him out of jail so their jobs could be continued. This was more lost time for project implementation during that issue.
11) The scary nature of Alicia's personality and temper came to fruition when she knocked on my front and back doors for 45 minutes when she found out I did not want her surprise water feature. I was trying to sleep because I was sick and I ended having to answer the door so I could get some rest to get well. Totally unnecessary after I told her in an email and mobile phone message to not bother me about this issue.
12) The new pool equipment was to be placed at the south end of the fence line and it ended up on the east side because of lack of being on site checking on the project and communicating effectively with her contracted crews. This eliminated complete access around the pool as I had requested.
13) I asked for PVC pipe to be run (at an additional) cost through the rock system while they were putting in the pipes for the waterfalls so I could add landscape lighting at a later point. This was ignored.
14) She stopped maintaining my pool (which is supposed to be done until all issues were resolved!) when I asked that she go through her husband for anything when I requested that she not access my property any longer. The pool became green with algae before I convinced her husband what had happened.
I also found out from her pool maintenance guy that Mercedes Pools were using only one chlorine tablet per week anyway which DOES NOT meet the minimum industry standard requirements of 3 tablets for 15,000 gallon pool (my pool size). I felt like they were trying to cheat me out of potential money now if they wanted a future maintenance contract, I was not going to be able to trust that Alicia was going to do the right thing. You can view in the copies of emails that I supplied that I was now communicating directly with David only.
15) The plaster covering on the beach entry is so thin that it will have to be replaced before the actual life of the plaster is over.
16) The design of the rock wall was not planned effectively I now have 2 inch cracks between the rocks and the plaster (which is under the water level of the pool). I had to find out that the plaster should have been placed BEFORE the rocks were laid in order to eliminate or minimize water leakage from pool settling. This has cropped up in three different spots and I will have to have gone through a major expense in getting that fixed this off-season.
17) The gate on the pool equipment area has fallen apart because of the design of where the gate was cut out of the fence the closing metal of the gate was placed on the half cut of the edge of an unsupported board. This cut does not allow for the maintenance of the weight of the gate and the use needed to access pool equipment for weekly maintenance. I am in the process of getting new support to get this gate put back together now.
18) My ability to have piping to the sewage system to do my own backwashing of the filter was not replaced in new equipment placement. I had that capability in the old pool design. It is costing me extra money now to get this task done on a timely basis by an outside vendor.
19) When the pool was designed, I had to do the homework for the landscaping lights that were to be added and for the additional placement of plumbing for an exercise swim jet system. Alicia was going to stack everything in one three foot area that would not meet industry standards and codes. I had to send Alicia the web link to another company so she could get information on how to do this (another sign of computer illiteracy on searching the Internet for resources and inept project management capabilities). If I had not been on top of this, I would have even a bigger mess to deal with today.
20) Her husband David was continually sending pictures to his friends of my pool. This violated my agreed upon addendum of not using my images (I also feared that I would have trespassers coming to view my pool). He also brought the vendor of the exercise swim jets on site to take pictures because the supplier could not believe that there was someone who had wanted the power that I had requested. This was not approved by me before it was done. David later told me that the vendor was going to use my pictures in some magazine for potential future business.
21) David would show up announced on my property to check on my pool every single day. I was getting extremely tired of him spending several hours daily on my property because it invaded my privacy. He would bring his 16 year old daughter and sometimes her boyfriend. Her daughter would confide in me sometimes how crazy her mother was in over-reacting to basic teenage growing up pains and David admitted that Alicia had a tough life and it was sometimes difficult in working with her and her issues.
When I was on site when the crews were working, I observed often when crew members would just roll their eyes and whisper when she turned her back. She would often yell at them before treating them like human beings. I think they only stayed working for her because they got paid and they could leave. I often felt that the appearance of David unannounced was because he needed some place to get away and possibly someone who would speak with him without yelling and intimidation all the time. You can see in the emails that I provide when David is begging for me to not terminate the relationship.
22) The pool design by the so-called expert (Alicia) overloaded my electrical system and I had to spend additional $1,000 dollars to have the electrical box turned correctly to the outside and larger fuses to handle the system. I felt like that Mercedes Pools should have incurred that cost to make up for the poor planning. When this was done, it was wired incorrectly and my air conditioning shutdown. I had to get an A/C man to tell me they installed the wiring to that circuit at 110V instead of the 220V required. This is shown in the email documentation I provided you. The heat and the delay were very stressful on my heart condition.
23) I was charged $3,300 dollars to hire outsourced contractors to place a gas line that was to be over 60 foot in length because of original remodeling plans in the design of moving the equipment. When the location of the equipment was changed, the project supervisor came and installed a SIX FOOT piece of pipe to the new pool heater. I was not refunded the difference in the amount of 54 feet of pipe and labor that Alicia hid from her husband. I felt like got cheated and mislead. That is why David installed the ceiling fan and outdoor TV because he felt bad that his wife had abandoned cleaning my pool and for the overcharges.
24) The new pool cleaner that I paid $600 dollars for ended up being a demo cleaner they bought from their pool supply friend. It was installed incorrectly into the wall (used a Hayward cable into a Polaris outlet). It cannot be unscrewed correctly to replace the rubber o ring that is needed every few years. I recently had to order $70 worth of parts from a local pool store to get the correct connection to make my pool cleaner functional. I trusted that Mercedes Pools was not going to shortchange me to complete their obligations and I found out the hard way again even after two years of continued problems that I was often mislead.
25) I found evidence of beer drinking that had been done on site by one of the contractors. Alicia responded to this issue because it was part of the items of the addendum. How can she deny that existed?
OK - consumers - would you really want people who create distractions, take your money, and hold you over the barrell while doing so — do the work on your pool? Make an EDUCATED decision - I wish I could have found more information before I chose the fast talking of these people. Fooled once - but NEVER again.
0 comments