Horror stories don’t just happen in the dark of night. They’re not only the stuff of movies or children’s games.
Sometimes they happen for real. In the sunshine. To your home. To your dreams. To your investment. To your future.
They happen when homeowners fortuitously choose the wrong renovation company ‒ especially a company that boasts the lowest prices or worse (shudder) wants to be paid in cash for those low prices.
A reputable professional renovator such as Lagois Design-Build-Renovate can tell you the horror stories they have seen or heard.
They’re enough to make you feel something crawling up your back.
Barbara (not her real name) was a victim of one of them. She gave a local company a deposit of $60,000 to begin building an addition to her home. To her shock and horror, the company didn’t ever show up. They took the money and left.
Another Ottawa woman hired a company to do a major renovation of her kitchen. She was excited about the result, especially when the contractors gutted everything to begin anew. She became annoyed, however, when progress was slow. They’d do some work and then stop. Then they’d do a bit more and retreat for a couple of weeks. One day she walked in the door to see everything was gone ‒ “right down to the screws, pencils and sandpaper”. The kitchen was about 25 per cent finished ‒ and the work was poor.
Another story, reported by the CBC, detailed the woes of a couple who hired someone they heard about from a friend to do a kitchen renovation. The work was shoddy; the homeowners refused to pay until it was fixed; the contractor sued; the couple counter-sued. It was a mess. “This is a case of a kitchen renovation gone horribly wrong,” said the judge, and in the end, both sides lost because there was no written agreement.
Then there was Bob. He had a smallish company with an attractive logo and a portfolio of impressive-looking work. He was charming, seemed knowledgeable, and said he had done several substantial renovations in the neighbourhood.
A homeowner hired him to put in a new kitchen. A neighbour, seeing his truck parked next door, inquired and ended up hiring him to add a new deck to the back of her house. Both homeowners paid him half down, with half promised when the job was done. It all looked great.
Two weeks later, when Bob hadn’t shown up to start the work in either place, and when phone calls to him went unanswered, one of the neighbours decided to investigate. She found there was no such person. The money was gone.
Another homeowner hired (of all things) a landscaping company with a large deposit to build an addition on his house. The landscaping company tore off the back of the house – with a backhoe. The whole house was left wide open, without tarps or any other kind of covering.
The company then dug a big hole for the addition and demanded a huge amount of money in order to continue. The homeowner went to the bank to try to get a bigger loan, but the bank wouldn’t give it to him. There was nothing he could do. He abandoned the project. Because it was left wide open, the house filled up with pigeons and squirrels. Eventually the whole house had to be torn down. The company went bankrupt, and the homeowner was left with no recourse. The whole disaster could have been averted with proper planning and a professional process by a reputable company.
There was another story that was reported in the news at the time. Ellen hired a contractor to build an addition to her house. She had dreams of creating a safe, comfortable place for her dying father. She chose a construction company that “seemed okay”. That was her mistake.
She paid the company a hefty deposit so they could get started. They began a rough structure, and then they left, never to be seen again. The phone number they gave was suddenly out of service. There were no tracks – nothing and no one to follow.
Eventually animals began burrowing their way through the shell of what was to be the addition, just sitting there as an eyesore in her yard. It was a terrible ending to something that hadn’t even really begun. Ellen’s money was gone, her dream was shattered.
The renovator you hire can make the difference between a dream come true and your worst nightmare.
This is how it’s supposed to happen: Before your renovation begins, and especially if it’s something as substantial as a new addition, a company like Lagois Design-Build-Renovate takes a look at all structural, mechanical and energy considerations, as well as the space and zoning bylaws. They do a detailed inspection of your home inside its walls. They create a design to suit you, your space, and your budget. They work with you every step of the way. They understand the best materials for the job; they hire trades partners and suppliers they know and trust. They supply warranties and they have all the necessary insurance.
How to avoid a horror story? Learn as much as you can before you sign anything.
