97. Overcoming the Nightmare of a Trust-Gone-Wrong: A Single Mother's Journey through Contractor Fraud and Financial Ruin
Ever thought you've hit the jackpot with a contractor, only to be left with a mountain of debt and an uninhabitable house? This is exactly what happened to our brave guest, Katie Allaby. Katie, a single mother, opened her heart and her home to a contractor she trusted—only to be left in a living nightmare. We delve deep into Katie's harrowing journey, from the trust gone bad to the financial ruin and the lessons she's learned along the way. We also discuss crucial steps you can take to avoid falling prey to these unscrupulous operators, highlighting the importance of due diligence when hiring contractors.
🎧 If you enjoyed this episode, don't keep it to yourself! Share it with your friends and help spread the knowledge. Remember to hit the like button, subscribe for more insightful content, and leave a review to let us know your thoughts. Your support means the world to us! 🌟
97. Overcoming the Nightmare of a Trust-Gone-Wrong: A Single Mother's Journey through Contractor Fraud and Financial Ruin
Ever thought you've hit the jackpot with a contractor, only to be left with a mountain of debt and an uninhabitable house? This is exactly what happened to our brave guest, Katie Allaby. Katie, a single mother, opened her heart and her home to a contractor she trusted—only to be left in a living nightmare. We delve deep into Katie's harrowing journey, from the trust gone bad to the financial ruin and the lessons she's learned along the way. We also discuss crucial steps you can take to avoid falling prey to these unscrupulous operators, highlighting the importance of due diligence when hiring contractors.
🎧 If you enjoyed this episode, don't keep it to yourself! Share it with your friends and help spread the knowledge. Remember to hit the like button, subscribe for more insightful content, and leave a review to let us know your thoughts. Your support means the world to us! 🌟
Thanks for listening!
George Siegal:
Hi everybody and thank you for joining me for this week's Tell Us How to Make It Better Podcast. Today's guest should be a wake up call for everyone who's thinking of hiring someone to do work at their house. It's a story of trust gone bad. Katie Allaby is a single mom who wanted to make some changes with her house. For those of you watching, I'm showing you some photos that Katie sent me.
George Siegal:
Instead of a nice simple process where you hire someone, they come in and do a great job and you live happily ever after, this went completely the opposite way. Three years after trying to make her house better, katie has a pile of debt. She can't even live in the house and she's got a lawyer trying to help her get her money back. This is a story that is a long way from having a good ending. I'm George Siegal and this is the Tell Us How to Make It Better Podcast. Your home is probably your biggest investment and every week, we show you warning signs and solutions to help you protect it. Tell Us How to Make It Better is partnering with the Readiness Lab, the home for podcasts, webinars and training in the field of emergency and disaster services. Katie, thank you so much for joining me today.
Katie Allaby:
Thanks for having me.
George Siegal:
It sounds like you have a nightmare situation. Tell us what's been going on with your contractor and where things are right now.
Katie Allaby:
Okay, so I'll make it as short and sweet as possible. Two years ago I had wanted to put an addition on my home and I hired an architect, mainly because I wanted to have what I want and not have a contract to be like oh well, we don't want you to do it like this. You should do it like this, basically to either for them to control the situation or build what they wanted to build. So I hired an architect and I had nobody, no idea what kind of builders or who to choose. So I asked him for a referral. He gave me this guy's name and I was like okay, so I'll trust you, because I trust my architect. We've been working for quite some time and build a great rapport. So the guy comes to me and was like yeah, we'll do all of this stuff exactly the way you want, and we'll even come in 10 grand under what your budget was. And I'm like, oh my God, this is fantastic. I had just had. It was just me and my daughters and it was just a sole income. So I'm like this is perfect. I'm getting what I want for less than what I want. And so I signed the contract and I was like okay, let's do this.
Katie Allaby:
So this was the beginning of December. He had come, him and his crew, or whatever, came over, took my siding off, was like, oh, we need to do X, y and Z. And I was like, okay, fair enough, like, let's do it. And I said I know that the town wanted a lot of work to be done in the basement first to support the second floor. He's like, yep, we'll do it, we'll do it, and I'm just going along with the whole story. So he this, then we're to the week of Christmas and he's like, oh, we're going to rip off your roof and, you know, start framing in the second floor. And I said, well, are you going to be able to rip it off? And you know, put a roof on there, because Christmas is, you know, this weekend and I know we're getting a heavy um hail rainstorm this upcoming week. And he's like, yep, yep, yep. I'm like, how about? No, like let's work on the basement first, because you know I don't want to take that risk of taking my roof off and something happening. And then you, you know not being able to do what you you can do. So he did what he wanted, he wrecked my roof off and they didn't secure the roof properly. You know whether with I don't know how that you're supposed to do it, but like something with tarps and whatever.
Katie Allaby:
So what happened is we ended up getting the hail storm and Christmas day my whole house is basically flooded. Water's coming through, you know, the ceiling fans. So my daughters and I had to relocate to a hotel. I called the guy and there was no avail. And so you know we're going through. I filed a claim with my homeowner's insurance. Nobody would return my call with them and I kept trying the other guy and nothing.
Katie Allaby:
Until a couple of days after Christmas, his subcontractor came to my house and basically threw that contractor under the bus and was like he's the worst, I'm the one that does all the stuff. And you know, at that point I'm in desperation and I'm like I don't care who does it, I just need my house to be built, I need to be able to go home with my children and have it be a safe environment. He's like I'll take care of it and fast forward, you know, to two years later. He destroyed my house. He ripped it apart.
Katie Allaby:
This is the second subcontractor. Apparently, his insurance is not covering anything. My homeowner's insurance is passing the box, saying, oh, this is a contractist problem, and I am left with just a foundation. I am completely, you know, maxed out. My attorney has, you know, filed suit against both contractors, and to no avail. We have nothing. And, like I said, this has been almost two years, if not two years. This second contractor has been on, you know, channel 7 News in the Boston area for scamming people out of money, like taking money and then going to Brazil and destroying their homes and doing all this fun stuff. And I didn't know that happened before, before I signed, you know, the dotted line. But now I am, you know, I went, my daughter's and I lived in a hotel, for God, close to a year and then we finally got an apartment and then, you know, we now are renting a home, you know, so we can semi-fail like normal human beings by, you know, living in kind of an environment that we were used to living in before this guy.
George Siegal:
I mean what an awful situation you went through. Now are those contractors still operating? Are they still in business in your community?
Katie Allaby:
As far as I know, yes. The second one actually went from my house to this house in Andover and then went to the lumberyard where I was paying for the lumber and said that this Andover job was my job, and so he charged about $15,000 worth of lumber onto my credit card for an Andover job that obviously is not my job.
George Siegal:
Were you able to dispute that With your credit card company?
Katie Allaby:
Yes, and with the lumberyard, because I had the lumberyard and I had created a rapport. So they called me and they're like this guy just tried to put all this stuff on you Like. You know, we didn't realize it was your card when we ran it, you know. So I was able to dispute that and at least get that portion off of my credit card. But everything else that I paid, you know, because he's like oh, you need this, oh you need this, and so I just kept paying it because I didn't. I'm a nurse, I don't know how to do building houses or Sure, no, no.
George Siegal:
What's happened to you unfortunately happens to a lot of people. So you did no research on the contractor. So your architect recommends this guy and so you trusted him. You didn't look at Google reviews or better business bureau stuff. And I'm not saying that in a scolding way, just in a curious way. Did you do any investigation into this guy before hiring him?
Katie Allaby:
I didn't, because I did so much investigation into the architect. So I was like, oh well, this guy is, you know, referring these other guys, thinking that, you know, because this architect was extremely credible and you know he was fully licensed, fully and insured, like he was, you know, registered with the state. I looked up all his reviews and everything like that. So I was just feeling that he wouldn't recommend somebody that didn't meet his stature.
George Siegal:
Yeah, I mean, sadly, we see what happens when, when we put our kind of faith in that. Now I always hear, because I used to be in the television news business, that there's two sides to every story, but not in situations like this. I mean, I have contractors that would probably tell you, or builders that I'm personally, I'm a pain in the ass to deal with and that I'm a difficult client, but that doesn't mean the work has to suck Right. So what? I mean? This is just ridiculous. So what is your hope with your attorney? Who's he going after? Have you gone to the local media and gotten TV stations involved? One of those two on your side, guys, or something else?
Katie Allaby:
I actually tried. I actually reached out to the, to the, the news station that did that first. You know article about them and they're like oh well, we have nothing, you know nothing that we can offer you. I don't know where to kind of direct to you. And I have tried reaching out because I have a couple friends like that work for TV stations, like seeing it, just to get my story out there.
Katie Allaby:
Because now I have no house. I have a foundation, a brand new foundation, which is great, but I have no house and I'm paying, you know, the mortgage on that house plus the house that I rent. I don't make a ton of money, I make a decent living, but you know, I lost my home, my daughters and I lost all of our personal possessions, like our memories or everything, and my homeowner's insurance is like oh, it's not our fault, it's the contractors, so it's, it's. I'm hoping I just want my house to be built. That's all I want. I want to be able to go back to my own home that I worked my butt off to get in, you know, to get a home by yourself it. You know, it was kind of a proud moment for me, for me, just from what I had gone through before purchasing the home, and to have these people just come in and just destroy it and have no you know, repercussions for what they did is ridiculous.
George Siegal:
It is completely ridiculous. Now, how were you paying them along the way when you signed a contract with them? How much money was up front? How much money is along the way? Because quite often, once they get a certain amount of money and somebody's crooked, that's when things go south. So how deep were you in with them?
Katie Allaby:
So I mean to date, like I've lost close to $300,000. And that was so. The first contractor asked for $50,000 down. I got an equity line because I had purchased the home from my mom who she had owned for like 30, 40, 30 years or whatever. So I bought it below market value because it needed to have some work done. So I got a big chunk from the equity line and, you know, just kept paying.
Katie Allaby:
You know every the second guy was like oh, can you just pay me weekly and you know I need $25,000 down and then pay me weekly for my labor? And I was like, okay, like you know, I know what it's like to not be able to have money coming in weekly and everything. And so I just kept going with it because, you know, it looked like he was making progress. And then the town came in and was like this house is so unsafe because of the way that it was constructed from the second contractor that everything needs to be. The house needs to be brought down back to the foundation and rebuilt. So then it cost me, you know, double the money.
Katie Allaby:
And then that that third contractor came in and met with my attorney and, you know, my insurance public adjuster and was like, oh my God, you know, people like this give us good contractors a bad rap. And then the that guy did the same thing. He came in and, you know, said that he would give me biweekly invoices for the work completed and then I would pay. You know, like as it was completed and he ended up he was getting screwed from two other jobs you know, unrelated to mine sent me a bi-weekly invoice for like 150 hours when there was nobody at my house for two weeks and then the third week after that there was one guy that was there for like maybe 10 hours for the week and gave me a 150 hour labor bill and I was like what the hell is this?
George Siegal:
And then he took my job. Wow, I mean, yeah, that's outrageous. And you know, normally I hear those kind of stories with pool builders because those guys, that's an industry that you hear a lot of stuff like that. We were making a TV show and trying to make a pilot when I lived in San Antonio, Texas, and the guy who was going to be the pool builder in our show ended up going to jail because he was going around floating one job to the other. So, unfortunately, what you're a victim of is more common than we'd like to know. So when you look back on it, what would you do differently? What would you tell people? Because I could give you a bunch of steps we want. That's what my podcast is about how we can avoid being victims. You know it's warning signs and solutions for homeowners and you're a poster case of this, tragically, of something gone wrong. So what do you think you could have done differently?
Katie Allaby:
Well, going forward with anything, I researched the hell out of everything and then I call there. You know, you have to do your research, you have to do your homework. I am guilty because I always try to see the good in everyone and I'm the one that always gets burned. You know my ex-husband. I saw the good in him and even though I'm a nurse and I saw all those signs, I still tried to give people the benefit of the doubt and then, unfortunately, in the society and the world that we live in these days, you can't do it as much as you want to just give somebody a break or give them a chance, like you're the one that's going to be, you know, I guess, screwed in the end and you have to protect yourself.
George Siegal:
Absolutely. I hope this doesn't. I mean, I know how. I don't know how it couldn't change you because it's so awful. But you know, with the work that you do and you know, raising three kids it's so challenging, you know. I hope you share this with a lot of people and get your story out there, because people need to know. Now I could tell you some of the things that I always tell people, but you don't need me preaching at you. It sounds like you have a lot of this stuff figured out, but what are you hoping to do now? Going forward Because you have this? It sounds like a foundation and you're in the hole on this project. You've gotten ripped off by contractors. You kind of need a hero to step up here.
Katie Allaby:
I do and, honestly, like I'm not trying to like be all you know, righteous or religious or anything like that, but at this point all I can do is hope and pray every single day that something will break, something will help me, something will give me, you know, that little bit of help just to bring my home back. I get up and I go to work every single day and I still don't become, you know, cold or rude or disrespectful to to, you know, my patients or people that I meet, because we need more warmth in the in the world, and hopefully that will just be enough to help somewhere and somehow it will come back to me and I'll get my house rebuilt. But I'm just going to keep trucking along every single day and hoping and praying that it will get better. I mean, I'm alive and, like you said, I have three children that you know need me to be as strong and positive as I possibly can, and so I just need to keep that and take it with a grain of salt for everything else.
George Siegal:
Absolutely now. Do you follow these contractors? Are they? Do they have websites? Are they online for people? I don't think we should name them here, that people could probably reach out to you separately For that, but do you, are you able to have at least have left an impression publicly About the work that they did, without endangering yourself, but just letting people know?
Katie Allaby:
Not yet, and so I am very thankful that I'm able to do this with you and hopefully start, you know, the the spread of this. I did go on to you to like when this first started, because you know, a couple of my nursing friends were like just Just record videos every day of what it's like for you to go through what you're going through, just to help you emotionally, not for anything else except for it was helping me. You know, going through the fact that I was living out of a hotel, that my daughters and I lost everything and and to have Work so hard to have it all like taken from you and have no Anywhere to go, that was what I felt like was the best outlet for me, and so I did. You know lots of videos on youtube like just talking about. You know the ups and downs and how tough it was, and hopefully Just continuing with those videos on youtube will somehow some some way help somebody not get into this situation.
George Siegal:
Absolutely. Have you ever thought I mean, and you know there's always go fund me and things like that but you know that Ideally you just want justice. You know it just drives me crazy when I see people take advantage of other people. Our homes are such personal things to us. It's our biggest investment. It's where we are, lives are anchored, and when somebody comes in and just half asses it or or is a criminal, it's just so disheartening.
Katie Allaby:
I agreed, agreed, like I just look at. And so I had lived in that house when I was a young girl and you know my mother had owned it, you know, like I said, for thirty, thirty plus years, and so I grew up in that home and then she was renting it out to other people before I purchased it, and it was not only my childhood memories, my children's memories, that they had there and these guys just came in and just stolen and you know I'll never get that back. But at least you know to be able to create new memories in that Is kind of my hope. But I'm like I said, I'm just put my hands and trust in everything and the man upstairs and hopefully something will come out of it that will help me get back to that situation.
George Siegal:
And there are good builders out there, there are good contractors out there and usually the bad stories of the ones that rise to the top because we're unhappy and you know people go nuts when things don't go right and the good ones kind of are in the weeds we don't hear about it as much, you know. Another big lesson here is when somebody recommends someone, I always say don't go to the people that they recommend you talk to about that person. Try to find people that have used them that aren't on that list, you know. Try to find out who they've done work for and go buy and see the work that they've done personally.
Katie Allaby:
but the problem is we have busy lives and so we want to just get something done and we get anxious and then we end up hiring somebody who screws us over yeah, yeah, and that that was basically my deal because, you know, everybody was everybody that I Called, like when I went through, like you know, I want to say like the yellow pages, even though it wasn't the yellow pages but I went through all this list of just people that I would see driving Down the street, like just looking at their trucks and calling them, and they're like, oh you know, we're booked out for like six months or nine months and I wanted it now because you know, at the time that I was doing all of this stuff, my, my neighbor, had Got a new boyfriend who likes to peruse and mine and my children's bedroom windows.
Katie Allaby:
So I was like, oh my god, this is like I can't afford to move somewhere else. Like I can, I can only go up. Like you know, I can't go get a house somewhere else and another location. So you know, it was like between that and then the contractors and I think I miss a lot of red flags during a lot of the transactions because I just wanted my house to be done, I just wanted somebody to come in and just do what they said that they were gonna do and, you know, be able to move on with that and, like I said, I'm the one that got screwed in the end.
George Siegal:
Yeah, it'd be nice if this kind of stuff didn't happen, but unfortunately it does. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I wish you the best. I hope a lot of people see this and hear this and and and learn from what happened to you. It certainly sounds like you have, and you know. I hope some good stuff happens for you. You got your hands full and you deserve a break.
Katie Allaby:
Thank you so much and I appreciate you having me on. Right, thanks, Katie thanks have a great day.
George Siegal:
It's great to have faith in our fellow human beings, but the reality is, when it comes to having someone do work on your house, you have to really know who is doing the work and have a very clear parameter of what they're doing and how they're getting paid to do it. If you have a building, or a remodeling story good or bad I'd love to hear about it. There's a link to a contact form in the show notes. Fill it out. You might be a guest on an upcoming episode. Thanks for listening today. See you next time.
