My husband hired a supposed friend to build our handicapped accessible ranch home for our family and Andy. His new home building company had only built one completed home that had not been sold yet, which we viewed, when we signed on. Everything seemed legit, they had a lengthy contract in place, and seemed like they knew what they were doing.
We got a home construction loan that gave us one year to complete the project. We foolishly did not set any parameters for the stages of building, for example, roughing done at 8 weeks etc. We signed papers September 1. The project was dragging on and on, and our home was open to the elements of snow and rain (we are in Michigan) with an open roof for 5 months. There were many days where no one showed up to work at all. We kept seeing him starting other homes, and working on those homes instead of ours.
My husband Kevin complained to him over and over again to "please just finish my roof and get it closed up, and make it water tight", but he did not. His crew would instead show up and be working on the interior of the home, or the front porch and not closing up the several large openings in the roof. My husband then started complaining through emails to his friends dad, who is the financial backer and part of his son's new company.
They kept telling us, "this is a custom home, it will take as long as it takes". It was growing ridiculous, because after 6 months, there was no signs of the roof being completed, and his crew was showing up less and less. He would even tell my husband, the guys don't want to work when it's cold, I have no control over getting them to show up". Kevin told them, "You have 2 weeks to get the roof done, or I'm firing you". They didn't really care, and my husband fired him.
My husband had taken photos of other homes in the area that were being built after ours was started. After just 8 weeks, the home was completely roughed, and the roof and shingles were on. Kevin showed them this in comparison to where we were at after 6 months. "Those aren't custom homes", they would say.
We had to pay his full builders fee, which was insane. Otherwise, they wouldn't release the loan for us to hire another builder. My husband already had a new builder lined up. He was someone our son's school bus driver recommended. He was all ready to go, but the old builder slowed us up for another two months. We thought since this person was a friend (the old builder), they would just call it good for all the fees they had already received thus far, but they would not.
This company is basically racketeering, because they promise to build you a house, and then they don't show up in a timely fashion. People get so fed up with them that they just want them gone, and by then they've taken all your money. It was a truly awful experience.
The guys father, who is a millionaire, would not allow his son to let us out of the contract without paying them the FULL builders fee, which they did not deserve. It was tens of thousands of dollars, which we don't really have to spare. My husband feels badly, and feels that he disappointed me and has let our family down. This is a home for a SEVERELY DISABLED BOY!!! These crooks are unbelievable.
The new builder needs to get paid as well, and so far is working with us despite our strained funds. He was actually heaven sent if you ask me. He is helping us out big time, despite his busy schedule.
The moral of the story is, any one can get screwed over by a builder, and it is SO scary. We were handing this guy huge amounts of money at a time, and trusting he would do the right thing. We never thought a friend would do this to us, but he did.
We were working with Chemical bank, so they at least have said they will no longer work with this builder in the future. We could not get the bank to state that they were "unsatisfied with the builder". If they would have agreed to this, we could have gotten out of the contract. We now have to pay a huge fee every month for going over the one year mark with our construction.
This new Michigan builder has done this to several other people. For one woman, in Canton, MI, they completely stopped showing up. She was paying cash out of her pocket though, so they may have felt they wouldn't have any bad repercussions from a bank. Another man in Northville, MI, is still stuck in a contract with them, and refuses to pay their fees to get out of it. He cannot move forward as of now.
The builder's father has threatened to sue us if we put out any bad reviews about them, which further shows what bad people they are. They actually have no experience as custom home builders. I wanted to talk to some of the people they were building homes for, but didn't before we started the project. If we would have, we would have never used them. I don't even think they would really be able to provide any one with references that are real, because none of their customers would recommend them- ever.
We are so thankful for the new builder Walt Holden, he has so graciously been helping us pick up the pieces of this home construction nightmare we started out with. He has fixed several of the previous builders costly mistakes, that would have made the house irreparable in the long run. Things weren't done properly and now we are paying for his mistakes.
I am always looking for things to do with my daughter to lighten up the burdens of raising Andy. We are often so isolated from our family and friends due to his outbursts and behaviors that we get left out of a lot. However, we got together with my daughter's best friend and decided to pay for some great seats near a side stage, and it was SO worth it!
Andy has been picking up a fork from the table and putting it in his mouth! It is so awesome to finally be seeing this happen. He is gaining muscle memory somehow through repetition with the ABA technician at therapy. We also reinforce this at home, but we've never seen a big change like this, so suddenly. The ABA therapy really seems to be paying off! He attends 4-5 days a week. Andy does start to lose interest in picking up the fork after about 5-6 times. Once this happens though, I hand him the fork and he will continue eating for about 10 more bites. If he starts lessening his grasp on the fork when I try to hand it to him, then we finish the last few bites with hand over hand feeding.
We are trying ABA therapy for Andy. He attends for several hours. They are working on his communication with others, and trying to get him to use picture cards to get what he would like. He has cards with his water cup on them, tv shows he likes to watch, and toys he likes to play with. The technician is working with Andy to show him how to use the cards. The hope is that he will pick up a card from a board and hand it to the technician. I felt he might be more successful picking up the card he would like, and placing it in a container, because he doesn't really hand people things yet. I don't know though, maybe he will surprise me!
The first few visits were rough. He was happy in the car, but when we arrived he was fussing and crying. After he played a few times with the technician, he started to become happy when we pulled up. He no longer fussed as we walked in. He will have a few crying episodes here and there, but the technician says that he does well there. There are other children in close proximity to Andy that are crying and fussing also, and sometimes this sets him off. We send him there with noise canceling headphones, that they use sometimes. They say he enjoys a sensory room with nature sounds going and lights hung up at the ceiling.
