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Everyone has heard horror stories about people getting ripped off by the home improvement business, but for one Houston woman, those horror stories became a reality – and now she has a message she wants all homeowners to hear.
Evie Gordwind hired a local handyman to complete a room addition to her home – a handyman she says she researched to avoid a potential scam – and paid him $40,000 of her retirement money up front for the job.
But about a year after the contractor finished his work, the problems began … and the handyman was nowhere to be found.
“I came home from the holidays from my daughter’s house and water was just running out of the ceiling and my whole floor was wet with water,†Gordwind said.
And that was only the beginning.
“I had to get them to redo my commode because when you sit on it, it would shake and it was leaking,†she said.
Needless to say, it was not the kind of retirement Gordwind was hoping for.
Carol Ritter from the Better Business Bureau said contractors who require up front payments usually can’t be trusted.
“Good ones will understand that a contract has steps in payments,†Ritter said.
But even though Gordwind did her homework, her handyman’s credentials turned out to be soggy at best – just like her retirement thus far.
“It’s going to go down the drain if I can’t get this fixed,†Gordwind.
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