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Homeowners Hit by Hurricane Rita Lose Again to Contractors
The 31-year-old mother of three said she paid an out-of-town contractor $1,200 to repair her waterlogged kitchen cabinets and countertops after Hurricane Rita... Robert Kessell of Beaumont was anxious to get his roof fixed and paid $2,800 down on a $4,300 job to a Houston contractor, HRI Houston Roofing...The elderly seem to have taken the brunt of contractor scams. Agnes Devault, 78, put $1,200 down on a roofing job with a Beaumont contractor. When the roofer stopped returning her calls, she checked out one of the references he'd given her.
Homeowners Hit by Hurricane Rita Lose Again to ContractorsRISMEDIA, March 9 — (KRT) — Shonta Hoard, of Beaumont, Texas, pointed to the cardboard box containing cast-iron skillets and cookie sheets sitting on her new kitchen floor last week.
"These are our dishes," she said. "Everything's in boxes."
The 31-year-old mother of three said she paid an out-of-town contractor $1,200 to repair her waterlogged kitchen cabinets and countertops after Hurricane Rita.
The contractor, Albert Torres of Houston, removed the cabinet doors and part of a countertop the first day. Later, someone came back to do some sanding.
And then he was gone, Hoard said.
Torres stopped returning phone calls, and she soon realized he was never coming back, Hoard said.
She's one of dozens of Southeast Texans who have paid $62 to file lawsuits in small-claims courts, seeking justice from contractors they say took the money and ran.
Home and business owners who hired unreliable contractors now are causing a second wave of hurricane repairs, said Ricky Scarborough of Merit Construction.
Many homeowners who used out-of-town contractors are finding they can't get anyone to come back and make adjustments, he said.
So they have to pay for everything all over again.
"I can't go in behind another contractor and do the repairs, because then I'm accepting the liability of the work already done," said Scarborough, a member of The Associated General Contractors of Jefferson County.
"People are just trying to do it cheap and pocket as much of the insurance money as possible."
In Hoard's case, constables haven't been able to track Torres down to serve him with the $1,200 lawsuit, so it is on hold.
Torres didn't return calls placed to his cell phone last week.
Robert Kessell of Beaumont was anxious to get his roof fixed and paid $2,800 down on a $4,300 job to a Houston contractor, HRI Houston Roofing.
"That was foolish as heck, but sometimes, you learn," he said in a telephone interview.
The contractor cashed the check but never did any work, Kessell said.
James Dutton, whom Kessell listed as the proprietor of HRI in his small-claims lawsuit, didn't return a call placed to his cell phone last week.
The elderly seem to have taken the brunt of contractor scams.
Agnes Devault, 78, put $1,200 down on a roofing job with a Beaumont contractor.
When the roofer stopped returning her calls, she checked out one of the references he'd given her.
"He said, 'Well, I wish you would've called me because I never would have given him a good reference,'" said Devault, who has lived in her North End home since 1958.
"I had a sinking feeling in my stomach when I heard that."
Her pastor referred her to another Beaumont company, DJ Roofing, which completed the job in one day, and "they didn't throw nothing in my lawn, they didn't walk on my plants. You'd never know they'd been there."
Hoard's repair bills have exceeded her insurance settlement by thousands, she said.
She even hired her brothers to remove a giant oak tree toppled in her back yard.
"My one brother really needed the money, so I paid him up front," she said, noting that the work still isn't finished.
"But he's my brother … I know where he lives."
Copyright © 2006, The Beaumont Enterprise, Texas
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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