In May of 2008 my husband and I hired Click's Construction which is owned by Carl E. Click to add an upstairs addition to our house. He had a friend of ours working for him and came recommended.
A man named Ron Hurless was supposed to be in charge of the job. He and our friend(who no longer works for them) came to the house and looked at the job.
On May 8th Ron came back and we signed a contract for $128,000 of which we had to give him $5,000 down at the signing for permits, (Permits were never paid for, we received a bill for them) then another $15,000 on May 30th. Another $30,000 on June 27th. That made a total of $50,000c paid and no work started. Later found out he spent that money on other bills he had.
We finally got hold of Mr Click. He came to see us, said there had been a mix up about who was in charge of our job ,he looked it over decided we needed to have the stairway put in the screenroom. That meant the screenroom had to come down and a new conrete block room built to match the rest of the house. It was going to cost more but we would have more footage, plus he added an extra bathroom upstairs, for which he said he would pay for the whirlpool tub, plus he would pay and install a new dishwasher in the kitchen (none of this was done). He wrote out a new contract and the price jumped to $175,696. Being the con artist he is, he did not put in a completion date. We are trusting folks from Maine and did not notice it, as he had promised us the job would be done by Dec.
We were told to empty our house and put our stuff in storage, keep only what we needed to get by. We rented 2 pods and also rented the house next door until Dec. when the job was suppose to be finished. We ended up having to keep the pods for over a year, then giving them up because we couldn't afford them. Spent $3,000 on pods and had to sign another year lease on the house next door.
Still no work started, we complained again but, was told they were still waiting for permits. Finally in Aug.2008 they removed our roof, screen room,and kitchen ceiling. They also asked for another $35,379.00 which we gave them on Aug.21,2008.
From then on work was intermittent. Weeks would go by and no work would get done. I would call Ron or Carl and they would say they were waiting for materials.
In Oct. a company called Coastal Frame & Trim came and did the frame work and we also gave Ron more money. On 10/6 we gave Ron $1,500 cash, and then $35,398 in a check. Also at this time the sub contractor who did the concrete work called us and said he had not been paid. We had to pay him $6,200 or he would put a lien on our house. We were told it was an over sight and could take it out of our next payment.
In Nov. Earnest Colwell & the secretary came to my husband & I and said the company was in trouble but, they believed in Carl and wanted to save the company. They said Carl was a victim and everything would be fine. Earnest, by the way, is a Pastor and a man of God. I fear for him when he faces God on judgement day.They asked us if we could make our next payment early, so they could continue with our job, because we still did not have a clue to the fact that we were being taken, we gave Ron $10,000 cash on Nov. 5 and a check for $20,000 on Nov. 15.
You must wonder how we could of been so stupid. Well we trusted these people. They became our friends, they were smooth talkers. I have a lot of health problems and Earnest would come and pray for me (while he was taking me to the cleaners).
Finally in Dec. 2008 Carl called and informed us he had spent all our money on other things and had no money to finish the job. He said we would have to pay for it ourself if we wanted to finish the house. At this point we had paid him $158,477 and had a half finished house. He said we could use Earnest and one other worker but would have to pay their wages, plus we would have to buy all the materials we needed. He would pay us back if he ever got back on his feet.
Because the rainy season was a few months away, we had no choice but to deplete the rest of our savings, sell our stocks and max out our credit cards trying to save the bottom half of our house.
Unbeknownst to us most of the money we had given to Clicks Construction had not been spent on our project. We discovered that when the subcontractors started calling wanting to be paid. He never paid for the roof, the engineer, the mason or dumpster, plus Coastal Frame & Trim and East Coast Lumber have put liens on our house. No one will lend us the money to finish our house because of these liens.
We started to pay wages, buy materials and pay sub contractors in Mid Dec. These expenditures depleted all of our resources, totaling $30,000.00.
Because the job went so slowly and the house was left unprotected, there has been mold and water damage. We reported the damage to Carl, but he showed little interest in resolving the problem.
Earnest, who was the one who took over the job in Dec. in my opinion milked it for all it was worth. He said Clicks paid him $25 an hour so that's what we had to pay him. We told him after a couple of weeks we could not afford that much, especially when we found out he really only got $15. The real kicker was, he got behind in his bills because he said Clicks was not paying him his wages, this was in Nov. We being the big hearted idiots lent him $1,500 to pay his mortgage and 2 months past due light bill. He asked us not to tell Carl as this was a personal loan nothing to do with business. We agreed.
We have asked Earnest several times to please pay us back as we or make payments as we really need the money. He keeps saying he does not have it. He has his own business Colwell Construction, trust me stay away, he is in my opinion a lousy carpenter. He had to do our stairway 3 times, all 3 times we paid for labor & materials before it would pass inspection. He put up some frame work for the inside walls and it is so off plum that people who work after him would like to kill him. They laugh when I say, 'but he went to college'. Anyhow, I called and asked him if he would come and paint upstairs to work off the loan and he informed me he does not really owe me that money. Carl owes him some back wages so he just took it out of the loan. Personal, nothing to do with business, my foot.
In my opinion Earnest he does very shoddy work, does not have a clue to what he is doing and is very slow doing it while charging you a fortune for it, plus he is a cheat and a crook, all the while claiming to be a man of God and a Pastor.
Carl sent a guy name Shawn to take over the job in April, because I threaten to take him to jail. Shawn got the garage up and some of the upstairs done, then left, next came Larry Pyatt and Sal Pero.
We are now into June. Larry and Sal have taken over the job, Carl paid to have the house stuccoed as the inside of the house was still getting water damage. Larry managed to get that and the insulation paid for by Carl, then Carl said he was broke again. We had been able to save some money by now so Larry & Sal put up the dry wall.
Larry is gone. Sal has taken over and he is wonderful. He knows we have no more money. He is doing what he can in his spare time. We still need to paint upstairs, lay the tile upstairs & down stairs, finish the plumbing work, hook up AC Unit, have electrician install breaker box and finish electric work, finish stair way, put up drywall downstairs in new office, and in dining room, put up ceiling in kitchen and redo kitchen, put railing on the balconies and paint outside of house.
I doubt if my husband or I will live long enough to see this house finished but, I hope Carl, Ron & Earnest get what is coming to them.
The sad part is we are helpless to do anything, we can't afford a lawyer to press charges, we need every spare penny we have to use on our house.
Carl is still promising to pay us back when he gets the money. I doubt if that will ever happen. Hopefully, we can find a way to get the state of Florida to take his license. We would love to see him in jail, because my husband has suffered a heart attack due to the stress of this, and my health has suffered also.
Before we met Carl Click, we did not have the health problems we currently have. We were happy, owned our home and were debt free. All that has changed. We do not know how Carl, Ron or Earnest can sleep at night knowing what they have done.