Blasdell Volunteer Fire Department

They went above and beyond to keep my mother calm and bring my brother back

My cousin and her husband booked their baby shower as well as my fiancé’s stag back in 2019 for 4/25/20 and 8/29/20. Due to Covid, my cousin called Blasdell Fire Hall and spoke to Rose and switched her reservation for the 4/25/20 baby shower to be changed to a baptism party on 09/06/20. Rose and my cousin confirmed the date change for the shower as well as the reservation for 8/29/20 for the stag again. This was in April. Fast forward to this weekend and my father-in-law emailed another contact at the fire hall to confirm any rules and regulations for the stag. He was then told that they aren’t having any events for the rest of 2020. No one bothered to call my cousin who had made TWO reservations for this year. My cousin had called Rose on Thursday 8/13/20 to discuss changes for the reservation for 9/6/20 and hasn’t heard back. She then emailed the contact my father in law had heard from who told her he didn’t know why Rose didn’t call her to cancel BOTH events. Now we have a stag in less than two weeks, tickets printed, nowhere to have it and are scrambling around trying to find table and chair rentals. We totally understand Blasdell’s decision not to have any events due to Covid, however they should be calling people who have made reservations for the space already.

We used the upstairs firehall for a baby shower last weekend (4/15/17). Everything was perfect up until the day of the shower/after the shower. Rose (the lady who is in charge of organizing the hall rental) was unable to come to the hall before hand do to running around she had to do. We asked for her to meet us at 8:30am Saturday morning which she at first was able to do. 10pm Friday night she texted me that she had errands Saturday morning and was unable to meet us Saturday. She did however inform me that she went to the hall Friday night and unlocked the door. The next morning we arrive and all was going well until we were going to put linens on the tables. There were only 2 round linen (that were stained and dirty) and the rest were square. I tried calling rose and was unable to get to contact with her so I had to go to party city and buy linen to put on the table. At about 9:45am she texted me back informing me she was going back up to the hall to get the linen out of the locked closest. The shower went well and we spent about an hour cleaning up the hall. We were told that we would have all of the supplies needed to clean up and leave it they way we found it. Well, the vacuum didn't have an extension cord so we went as far as we could around the room to vacuum (keep in mind we had no confetti or anything other than food and some small wrapping paper that would of been on the ground). When my father went to sweep the kitchen, there was no broom or dust pan to sweep! He used a large push broom and then the vacuum to "sweep" and then mopped the floors. He took the trash outside and threw it into the dumpster, washed the trash can out, and left it in the sink upside down to dry. We took off all of the linen (and left it on the floor as we were told per rose we would be charged $20 for the dry cleaning fee) and put all of the chairs on the table as they were found. On Tuesday ( 3 days after the shower) we received a phone call (from a lady named Janet who we havent delt with) that our $250 deposit was going to be cashed as we didn't take the trash out, mop the floor, and didn't lock the door. Now this is strange as all of that was done (except for the door being locked as we were told to leave it as we found it and the only door that wasn't locked needed to be locked by a key). When my mom went upto the hall, the lady Janet didnt have an exact answer as to what we left a mess. She said she was told to cash they check (and did so not even an hour after we received a phone call) by rose. Janet said they paid rose $125 to clean up our mess that we left but there was no mess to clean! She also said that the back door was unlocked which we didn't use as it was behind a closed gate. There was a driving class earlier Saturday morning and when we arrived back to the hall, the gate was down. Janet informed my mom that though the gate was down, it wasn't locked (which we had no idea!) To wrap up my long rant, we've called rose several times (as she's the one who organized our rental, had the agreement with, and told Janet to cash the check) and have not received a phone call back. So on top of the $300 hall rental, we also lost out on our $250 deposit and have not gotten a slight answer as to why (since everything that was said wasn't done was and Janet changed her reasoning a few times and my mom caught her in several lies which she in turn changed her answer) we've had several events here before (a different baby shower, first birthday party & a graduation party) and have never had this happen to us. We will no longer ever use Blasdell Firehall as a rental and will make sure we inform people how bad of an experience we had and advise them from renting here as well!!