Saving Our Home

AFTER the renovation

Our home before the renovation

They left all their garbage here for us to dispose of

This is supposed to be two washrooms.

They left it open to the outside at the end.

Hi, my name is Susan. My husband and I hired a contractor in 2019 to build an addition onto the back of our bungalow so we could offer our disabled daughter her own apartment. It was meant to help her be somewhat independent but give us access from inside the house to help her when she needed it. The contractor started by demolishing the old addition and garage. The deadline was December 31, 2019. By March of 2020, he stopped coming around. He sent his crew to continue taking the house apart to prepare for a new roof with trusses, etc. they took all the brick off the house to put on the addition and do necessary framing. In the process, they caved in two ceilings by cutting the ceiling joists, which caused damage to some furniture and belongings of ours. They allowed our insulation to blow all over the neighborhood, put in ductwork that couldn’t bring heat because it wasn’t connected to anything. The first winter, we had no heat. He had disconnected the furnace as well. It was 90 degrees in the house in the summer and yet they kept telling us they would hook up the a/c “next week”. When we turned the water on for the outside tap, nothing came out. That’s when we discovered they hadn’t connected the line. They left it open so when we turned it on, it poured into the new ceiling! We’re senior citizens and my husband is still working so we can try to save money to fix our home. The city has been after us to get this done because according to them, ‘several of our neighbours’ have called to complain about the state of our house. Our goal is to put brick back on the house, hopefully, before winter. The brick alone is $9,400.00 and that was after they gave it to us at a discount and by us choosing a cheaper brick. Then there’s the mortar, lintels, window ledges and labour over and above that. We have no flooring in the house and although I was able to find someone in Stoney Creek who will sell us flooring at an excellent price to help us out, (I would really like to go that route and keep our costs down as much as we can), the last of our money went toward paying someone to finish framing the front of the house. Although we have the rough in for the electrical, we don’t have it all connected to the breakers or in each of the rooms. So we need to get that finished as well as the plumbing. My husband has just started back to work after 4 months off due to illness. He had no benefits to help us because he’s over 65. We sued the contractor but the bank took back his two houses. That left us and 3 other claimants with nothing. We had the largest claim but there was nothing left to collect. He had successfully stolen from all of us. He was a retired firefighter but Canadian law prevents anyone from touching his pensions. Once again the criminal comes out ahead of the victim.We even tried to get Mike Holmes in but they said that Niagara Falls was too far away from Toronto. Some of our family were able to help us a little bit, (although it was a lot for them. They are also retired. I was really hoping one of our friends would start this Go Find Me for us but that didn’t happen. We aren’t looking for people to pay for our renovation. We’re trying to repair damages done to our home by a dishonest contractor. We’ve both struggled through depression over the position we were put in. This has gone on for almost 6 years. People don’t want to know how horrible this has been for us….they want to know when we’re going to fix this house. I grew up in Niagara Falls and I believe this is a community that cares about people and the unfortunate positions they are sometimes in, through no fault of their own. We know that not all people do bad things. We need your help and support. Thank you for giving us hope. I don’t know where we’d be without it. Your kindness, generosity and support through this means everything to us. We know that money is tight for everyone these days. So even a small amount is huge for a lot of us these days. Thank you to those who have donated. It’s good to know we aren’t alone in this. Please just take a moment to click on the donate button.

Sincerely,

Susan