Customer says countertop installers Home Depot used caused water damage

KANNAPOLIS, N.C. — Rosalind Smith may not care much for cooking, but she cares about her kitchen, so much so, she bought new countertops.

She went with Home Depot. She says the home improvement store used a third party to install the counters and that the crew hit a water line.

“I didn’t cause the damage. The company that you sent out to me caused the damage,” she said.

Smith says the workers put one of her pots under the leak. She says she tried to empty it as often as possible, but that she couldn’t keep up.

“The pot was full. Water had spilled all over underneath the counter, underneath the cabinet. It had dripped out onto the floor,” she said.

Smith says Home Depot sent a plumber to fix it a day or two later. She felt that was too long so she complained. She says she got the runaround and even considered suing, but that it would have been hard to go to small claims court with her work schedule. She teaches school. In fact, she recently won Staff of the Year.

“But then I was looking at TV and I saw you come across the TV, helping somebody with a situation. Something said email, email Action 9 news,” she told Action 9′s Jason Stoogenke.

She did, and Action 9 emailed the store.

“$3,900. $3,900. They gave it all back,” she said.

Home Depot didn’t say why it didn’t reimburse Smith before Stoogenke got involved, just that, “We have compensated her for the workmanship issue and thanked her for allowing us to make this right.”

A big takeaway here: if you can, call the store while the workers are still at your home. That way -- they’ll want to get it resolved quickly too -- and they should back you up on the spot.

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