Mattamy Quality?

Every once in a while, I check in at the Hawthorne Villager, a forum for residents of the big Mattamy development to the southeast of old Milton. Most of what gets posted there is fairly mundane - people looking for babysitters, trying to sell their snowblower, etc. - and most people who express an opinion seem fairly positive about their houses and their neighbourhood. But once in a while you run across a post by somebody who has issues that provides some interesting insights into life in the heart of Sprawlville.

Like this one, entitled "Mattamy lied to my wife":

I'm not sure where to go with this, but I'm seriously fed up with the BS Mattamy's been giving us since we moved in. I'm in HVE Phase I (closed end of May) and have had nothing but problems with the speed at which our 100+ list of PDI/30-day issues is being completed.

Our master ensuite bathroom is unusable due to the fact that we don't have a counter top or sink yet, as well as Mattamy installing the shower head on the wrong wall (I pointed this out to them at the frame walk and they did nothing about it) so that every time you turn on the shower tons of water is sprayed on the floor, not to mention getting drenched in cold water. A guy has come twice to install the sink but couldn't because of a lack of counter top. Is Mattamy really this disorganized? Furthermore, the entire counter needs to be replaced because whoever tried to install it completely ripped up a bunch of the boards trying to screw it all together.

The bedroom above our garage is at least 5 degrees warmer than the rest of the house, which will end up being 5 degrees colder than the rest of the house in the winter. An obvious insulation issue. How it passed Mattamy's "rigorous" energy-efficient test to obtain the certificate is a really good question.

Parts of our basement floor are bulging and has burst through at one location allowing one to see that it's only 1/4" thick. Minimum code states it needs to be at least 3" thick.

The engineered beams for the main floor have holes cut out of them larger than what is allowed, as well as some of the squash blocks completely removed to run wiring. This is a serious structural problem.

The rest of the post continues in the same vein, but what I found most surprising is the number of people chiming in with their own horror stories. As I said, most people on this forum seem pretty content with their houses aside from a few minor cosmetic glitches. But with this, we're talking serious structural and building code issues - and not just in this one guy's house.

One wonders just how common such problems really are.

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BTW, I know I haven't been posting much here lately. I've been very involved with the Liberal campaign, so that and my political blogging are likely to continue to consume my attention for the next, oh, twenty days or so.

So, barring anything really fascinating happening on the Milton municipal beat, I'll see you October 15th.