Hoover homeowner says window installers scattered broken glass throughout her home

HOOVER, Ala. (WBRC) - Imagine coming home to find contractors smashing in your windows, and you’re paying for it!

That’s what a Hoover homeowner tells us she experienced, and now she’s suing Window World and warning other potential customers.

Allison Tyus says the first sign that something might be wrong at her house in Bluff Park came when a neighbor across the street heard an unmistakable sound.

“I heard a huge crash that was very unusual to hear,” said Toni Leo, Tyus’ neighbor. “What is going on over there? Something dangerous is going on over there.”

That’s when Leo walked across the street and says she found contractors from Window World breaking in windows with a hammer-like tool, just as Tyus came back from a quick errand.

“When I ran in here, that’s when I started crying and asking them to stop because I was so horrified,” says Tyus, standing in her daughter’s bedroom. “And they said they would clean it up, and you can’t clean it up - there’s no way to get it out of bed linens and toys, clothes. So when I walked in here,” Tyus says as she moves to her son’s room, “this window had been smashed in, and all the way to the other wall were glass shards and metal shards, and the window frame was just hanging and all the glass had been smashed in, and his toy bins were sitting here and there was glass in them - there was glass in every part of the room. I was crying, I was just sobbing. Because I was thinking about my kids sleeping in glass shards and not being able to use their room.”

Tyus says she and her husband spent the next several days meticulously cleaning the house. “Detail all of our furniture, electronics, printers, air vents, window sills, kids’ beds, toy bins, mopped, cleaned, vacuumed over and over and over again, and as recently as New Year’s Eve, my 4 year old had a piece of glass in his foot that he came to us with.”

Tyus says her dog also picked up some glass in its paw, and glass in their pool will force them to get a new liner and filter. All because of a procedure she says no one from the company ever warned her about.

“It said something about there may be some debris, so you want to make sure you don’t have anything within a foot or two of the window,” Tyus said. “So, I was thinking there was a couple of pieces of glass they may need to clean up, or maybe just give them space to work. What we actually experienced was glass covering the entirety of our home where we had the windows replaced.”

Tyus said Window World did offer $350 to pay for a pool cleaning, but hasn’t offered anything else, including an apology. Now she’s suing the company.

We asked Window World of Central Alabama several questions about this case, here is the response we received:

1.) What is the industry standard/Window World protocol for removing older aluminum windows?

Window World protocol is to remove the glass in whole pieces if possible. Some instances have glass that has been glued in and is extremely fragile so breakage occurs from time to time. Once glass has been removed the frames are broken down and extracted.

2.) What is the industry standard/Window World protocol for protecting the rest of the home while removing old windows?

Window World provides heavy-duty drop cloths to all subcontract installers for interior and exterior protection.

3.) If crews, in this case, acted as instructed by the company, why would the company believe it could adequately remove all bits of broken glass from the home with no preventive measures taken ahead of time?

This crew made a decision to remove the product outside the Window World standard approved process and without proper protective measures in place.

4.) If crews disobeyed instructions by the company, what has the consequence been for the crew, and why hasn’t the company offered to cover the cost of cleanup and offer some sort of discount to reimburse the customers in this case?

The installation crew’s subcontract status has been terminated and is forbidden from rehire. Window World offered and attempted on many occasions to hire and pay for any damages and a professional cleaning company, of the homeowner’s choice, but was denied, and eventually, all phone calls and emails to the consumer were ignored.

Given her experience, Tyus has this advice if you’re in the market for new windows:

“Call your neighbors and see which ones have had their windows replaced, and see which ones can recommend a contractor that’s reliable that they’ve had good experiences with. I personally would not recommend Window World because of our experience,” Tyus said.

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