Problems persist two years after fatal explosion destroys homes
NJ.com
Cristina Rojas
Michael Mancuso photos
18 July 2016

Nearly two years after a deadly gas explosion ripped through their Ewing neighborhood, Tara and Billy Jones were finally able to move back into their newly rebuilt home.

They had lived through more than a year of frustrations and delays and hoped that the return home would be easy — but it's been anything but that.

"We didn't ask for this explosion and now we're getting treated so poorly," Tara Jones said.

Sloppy plastering

Jones and her husband said they have been worn out by battles with the contractors and have had to deal with many problems, like cracks in the walls, sloppy patchwork, crooked window frames, water damage and noise coming through the walls from their neighbors — something she said never happened in the 13 years they lived there.

Even now, seven months since they moved back in, there is still a punch list of items yet to be completed or fixed.

Two years ago on March 4, the South Fork neighborhood was shaken to its core when a gas leak and subsequent explosion destroyed 11 houses and damaged dozens of others. The blast killed 62-year-old Linda Cerretelli and injured seven utility workers.

For some, the months it has taken to repair or rebuild their homes have been fraught with headaches.

Sam Ornstein, a family friend of two Pioneer Court residents who has helped them navigate the process, laid the blame on the homeowners' association and its management company, P&A Management, who he says gave homeowners the runaround, ignored complaints and shifted responsibility.

"This was an impossible situation to have thrust upon people who have absolutely no background or ability to deal with this kind of event," he said. "It was guaranteed a failure. ... They relied on everybody else to do it right instead of ensuring that they did it right."

Unlike in single-family-home neighborhoods, where homeowners can hire and oversee their own contractors, residents in South Fork were at the mercy of their homeowners' association and its hiring decisions.

But even though being part of an association adds another layer to the rebuild process, it doesn't necessarily have to complicate matters, said Tom Giaimo, a Rumson-based lawyer who specializes in community association law.

"The process of making a claim for loss, adjusting the claim for loss, rebuilding the home and getting the homeowner back into occupancy can be accomplished with effective communication and engaging the right people for each required task," he said.

Giaimo said that since most homeowners' association boards have never had to deal with a catastrophic event before, they must be able to rely on their management company, attorney and an experienced insurance agent who can keep them informed so that they can, in turn, respond to homeowners' questions and concerns.

"It's very difficult to go through a rebuild with a manager who has never done this before," he said.

The contractor that is hired to do the job should also have experience in community association rebuilds, he said.

"This is a monumental task and one of the imperatives here is to get those homeowners back into their homes so they can resume their normal life," Giaimo said.

But some South Fork residents say that those involved in the rebuild were ill-equipped to handle a project of this scale.

Repairs got underway in the summer of 2014 when, after two false starts with other contractors, GC3, an Iowa-based disaster restoration company, was hired to oversee the process.

Frank Esposito Construction Co. Inc., a Pennsylvania contractor, was brought on to complete the bulk of the repair work and later, the reconstruction of the 11 houses on Crockett Lane and Pioneer Court that had to be rebuilt from the foundation up.

The association's insurance company was only responsible for covering the costs of restoring or rebuilding the homes to their original specifications when the development was built in the late 1980s.

Baseboard & plaster defects

The individual homeowners then had their own policies to cover belongings and any improvements they might have made over the years — for example, swapping out the formica countertops for granite, installing hardwood floors or upgrading kitchen and bathroom fixtures.

Those with inadequate or no insurance policies were left to pay for any upgrades or alternate finishes they wanted out of their own pockets.

Giaimo stressed that, in a rebuilding effort like this, there needs to be communication between all of the parties involved — and doing so can save a great deal of time and money.

But some residents say that too many corners were cut and the quality pales in comparison to their original houses.

"Every place you turn, the workmanship was just off," Ornstein said. "A lot of the workmen were very nice, but they were just totally lacking in skill. ... They couldn't even cut Sheetrock straight. They just covered up the bad work."

The blank wall is suppose to have a fireplace

His friend, Gina Martorana, for example, had to hire an outside contractor to reframe her fireplace after seven failed attempts by Esposito's crews.

"Some of the things that she asked for were not cookie-cutter townhouse things, but they didn't require any arcane skills or special equipment," Ornstein said. "They just needed people who paid attention."

Cara Hinton-Fort, whose house was one of the 11, described similar construction problems.

She said doors do not close, there are lumps in the carpet where some of the subflooring was not properly screwed down and the drywall is so thin that when her husband went to install hardware in the downstairs bathroom, he accidentally punched a hole through the wall.

"This really is a mess," Hinton-Fort said. "It's really hard for me to be excited about being in a brand-new house and being home after two years."

The frig opening is too narrow.

Jones and Hinton-Fort said that over the course of the rebuild, it became clear that the blueprints drawn up by the architect weren't always followed — whether it was original to the house or a modification they had requested.

The original wood-burning fireplaces were never put in, but they were told that a gas fireplace could be installed instead.

"Why would I want another gas component in my basement after I just lost my house to a gas explosion?" Jones said.

Hinton-Fort said her frustrations grew with each day. She and her husband, Jamison, had wanted to push a wall back to create a larger master bathroom, but despite assurances from the builders and a call from GC3 on framing day, they ended up with the same exact-sized bathroom.

Access to the attic was poorly located

The bedrooms were supposed to have vaulted ceilings, but were initially framed with low, flat ceilings — a mistake, the builder told them, was made in other houses as well. The attic is a third the size of the original and the entrance is above a shelf, making it impossible to access.

"I don't want to deal with these people anymore," Hinton-Fort said. "I don't want them touching my house anymore."

Esposito, whose family has had the business since 1968, said he stands 100 percent behind his work and disputed the claims made by the unhappy homeowners.

"I worked on 90 houses there and there are a lot of people who love the work I did," he said. "I've done everything I possibly could for these people. I poured myself out there for two years."

Esposito said he has fixed problems that he didn't have to and told his subcontractors to do whatever needed to be done to make the residents happy.

Though records show that his New Jersey home improvement contractor license has been inactive since 2006, he is registered with the state's New Home Warranty and Builder's Registration Act, a requirement for all new-home builders.

An executive with GC3 did not respond to messages left on his voicemail.

The association's president, Lorraine deSouza, who lives in one of the 11 houses that had to be rebuilt, said the process went well.

"We had some obstacles to overcome, but everyone is back home," she said.

Al Pellegrino, of P&A Management, said the rebuild was a long and painful process, but one that was well-orchestrated.

"If we're looking at the entire project, we're happy with the total finished product," he said. "When the homeowners are looking at minor issues inside their houses, that's different. That's details."

He said most of the complaints they received dealt with the betterments and improvements, which they had no control over.

Ornstein, however, believes that the association or Pellegrino should bear some responsibility for the shoddy work since the homeowners had no say in the association's decision to hire GC3 or Esposito — and it would have made no sense for them to have their houses rebuilt to their original construction only to then hire other contractors to rip everything out and install all of the upgrades.

"You expect that the association is overseeing or directing the work either by hiring contractors themselves or by hiring the construction manager to hire people to do the work," Ornstein said. "If you're in your house and some guy is putting Sheetrock up and then moves 10 feet away to do betterments and improvements, how are you supposed to deduce that he's wearing a different hat and you're dealing with a contractor and not the association?"

Pellegrino told NJ Advance Media that Esposito was hired by the association for Phase 3 — the reconstruction of the 11 houses — but in email exchanges with Teresa Lo Re, Martorana's aunt who lives at 12 Pioneer, Pellegrino appeared to give conflicting information.

"We have no control over contracts that you signed and our company neither hired nor managed the rebuild of your home," Pellegrino wrote April 14.

Lo Re, 75, has also been fighting an uphill battle to get reimbursed for work that she paid for, but was never done. During her initial meeting with GC3, she signed an agreement for betterments and improvements, agreeing to pay for the costs and work associated with the rebuild that were not covered by the association's insurer.

The following month, Lo Re wrote Esposito a check for $64,417, expecting that the funds would be held in an escrow account pursuant to the agreement. But months later, she learned that Esposito had never turned it over for escrow deposit and there is still roughly $40,000 worth of paid work that is still outstanding. Pellegrino told her in emails that the escrow agreement she cited was not issued by P&A Management, the association, GC3 or Esposito.

"Everything is pushed out of the homeowners' association and thrown on the homeowners, but they had no part in the decisions," Ornstein said. "That's not a headache the homeowner should have."


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