Midwest Homes - Western Homes Of Iowa - Individual Owners: Handlos, Malloy, Hunt ripoff, scams, slickered, dupes without regard to shattering people financially, mentally and physically Carroll Iowa

Our nightmare or "the house from Hell" experience with Midwest Homes, Inc. formerly known as Western Iowa Homes, etc. We were personally guaranteed by Lori Handlos and Darrell Hunt (two of the three owners) that our house would be finished June 9, June 16, etc and it is still NOT FINISHED.

Did Midwest Homes, Inc. ever have any intention of finishing our home, or to build us the home we paid for -- NO.

We can no longer continue to wait and live our lives in constant turmoil and disrepair, we must move on at this point and get our house finished enough to not be heating the great outdoors this winter. We will pay for things as we can afford them.

1.) We still have water coming in our basement, garage, etc. and can still see where a piece of wrap paper is the only thing separating the inside from the outside elements in the basement. It has been over 3 months since we were guaranteed our home would be finished. Lori is saying all houses leak this way (1/2 inch of gentle rain, we can only imagine where this house will be if the winds are at 80 mph with 4 inches of rain??); the next sentence is it is a foundation problem (water is running between the wood on the base of the house and above the cement -- not up the walls from the floor); Lori then says gutters will resolve the issue; then Lori says there is not a proper backfill of the house. You can take your pick to the excuse on any given day... but the house is so uneven, the vinyl siding does not cover the green treated wood base and so the water is pouring in off the siding. We have purchased and applied over two cases of caulk to try to seal our home from the elements with additional tubes purchased yesterday. There are at least 4 different layers of caulk put on the three egress windows by employees of Midwest Homes and ourselves, the one still leaks. We have applied at least two tubes of caulk to each door.

2.) We offered a bottle of Jack Daniels to any employee who could come up with a new front door, we would take being the first, second, but NOT A THIRD OWNER of a ruined door. The second owner of this original front door lives 9 miles away.. this was put into her house from another home and already had wood rot on the base. Lori said this was an accident whereby the employees put in the wrong door -- this was to be carried to the dumpster!! No employee we have met would have carried a brand new door to the dumpster and put this ruined door in our home. Why did it take two months if this was the case to get a different front door after our new carpet was getting soaked and we got a door out of a spec house versus the one we ordered. No one can appreciate having a home where every door leaks -- until they are trying to put up plastic across four doors every time it rains and only pray the wind doesn't rip it off before it stops raining.

3.) Midwest Homes, Inc. brought a vanity and put it in our basement; 2 pieces of PVC pipe; hooked up the sewer vent and a couple PVC pipes in drains, and 2 pieces of sheetrock. Lori is saying there is no bath in the basement on the order... when she came and made her list -- she was saying she would provide the shower, sink, vanity, toilet, mirror, lights, flooring, sheetrock, door, etc., but couldn't provide the labor due to financial issues. Now, she is saying there was never a 1/2 bath paid for in the basement...

4.) All the floor designs show a utility room in the basement, complete with what we were told is a 36 inch fire door which was required by CODE. There are NO WALLS in the basement, no hand railing, uneven spiral steps, and water more often then not...

5.) We have ONE KEY to two doors leading into our home. They can not find the keys to fit the door between the garage and house, or two of the three french doors. We got sick of the one garage door blowing loose/open and finally purchased a lock for it so we could close it, the screw put in to hold it had been put in so many times, it no longer held. We have several locks to replace to secure our home, so Lori is not trying to come in when she knows we are gone.

6.) Floor registers-- Lori had at least three employees count and measure the missing vents or registers... the last conversation with Midwest Homes, Inc -- LORI is saying they do not provide these if we didn't purchase the furnace from them. Why then did you say they were provided, why did you provide some, but not all of them; why have three employees come count and measure the ones missing... over a two month period?? We purchased these and now have all the registers for the main floor in place.

7.) We still have some of the original cracks in our home from the day it was set. Lori says we have a one year warranty and if the cracks are bad now, wait to see what they look like in a year?? Then in the same breath I recall her saying all this about financial problems... What good is a warranty if they are bankrupt? We did three rooms of cracks, sheetrock, mudding, etc. ourselves. We purchased the joint compound, painter's preferred caulk, etc. with several times we have had to ask for employees to return the caulk gun and our supplies. We have purchased insulation so our windows are insulated. We have purchased flooring so we could finish the loft floor and marriage wall upstairs. We paid for the ceiling twice upstairs for an additional $2130, which two people have said they could have done a better job and they have little experience in sheetrocking.

8.) They finally came up with our three screens for the french doors a few weeks ago, but we can't use them as they are not finished. They are missing the tool to put in the latch, some have a one inch opening for 3 feet of the closing and the inside of the middle there is a large square where something is missing and it is large enough for a large wasp/bee or what have you to fly in without slowing down...

9.) We paid an extra $440 to have the rooms painted... so we wouldn't have the mess. We have rooms which have a little paint, a different white color/texture/type of paint, some has been brushed, rolled, some sprayed and some areas have been missed... some areas have texture on the wall, some areas in the same room do not.

10.) The laminated floor in the hallway and kitchen is not the color we ordered. They have already fixed the buckled floor as good as they could, it has gotten worse where people are tripping again. There are cracks at the doorways where you can see the blue underlay, which is a dirt collector. The laminated floor has a stain going acrossed it, of someone dripping stain... but if you look closely one will see it is on the one board of the pattern. The floor squeaks so bad no one can sleep if the other one is up and walking in this area.. We cleaned the paint off it, the scratches which were filled with oak putty are very noticeable. It would be nice if Midwest Homes, Inc. returned some of our money, so we could get this replaced before Thanksgiving when my family comes. We have purchased at least $50 of cleaning supplies for this laminated floor and it is still dull and is not like any laminated floors we have seen.

11.) Lori then calls us the day they set the house in May, the local service provider's bid was about $3000 higher then what the next bid was by a company from Carroll, IA. She needed to know immediately if we would accept the Janitorial product furnace or remove the price from the delivery payment. They took out the price of the furnace of $6950. From day one we indicated we had to have appliances whereby we could get local service or warranty work done. This is rural Iowa, finding a service provider in the city over a weekend or holiday was not going to happen... We called to ask this bidder if he would provide service on the items he had bid, he tells us he did not bid on our house and would not be doing any more work for this company until he was paid for the last work he provided. We were personally guaranteed by Darrell the day the house was set the vents, boots, etc. would be in place and the only thing we would need to do is have our furnace or heating contractor do is set the furnace and run it to the boots. We have now paid for the AC, Furnace, Hot water heater, boots, the majority of the floor registers, all the gas lines, all the hook ups, to find out the subcontractor who did bid on our home was a $100 higher and he wondered why he was here doing any of the work... So we paid over $3000 for the AC and hot water heater to them and to the service provider twice... we have paid almost $600 for gas lines Darrell asked this company to put in and were to be installed at their expense. Since they don't pay their bills, we ended up having to pay this twice.

12.) We paid them over $2000 for a fireplace -- we could have purchased off of ebay for $199-399, we told them twice it was not the right one... we needed natural gas, they put in one for LP. Now, Lori is saying it will not be hooked up as the installation price was included in the furnace price they took out of the bid!!!!! We wished they could come and take out this fireplace and provide to us a cashier's check for the amount we paid, plus the tax which would be over $2200.

13.) We have not received one light fixture, counter top, kitchen cabinet, doors, flooring, etc. we picked out, with them all being changed/substituted by Lori. Why did we waste our time picking things out with her changing it??

14.) Darrell came on Good Friday and did the sight elevations... they had the concrete or foundation subcontractor only include the front of the house to have ONE STEP... this was to be a house which would be handicap accessible.. to get 3 or 4 cement steps it would be an additional $680. So we no longer have a handicap accessible house and we couldn't keep paying out on our over spent budget, we said we would figure it out and just put in what they have been paid to do. Midwest Homes, Inc. still owes us for the 3 window wells of $644 and then they shorted the contractor $200 we paid extra for the installation of the window wells. One owner said the window wells should have been included in the bid, but Lori didn't have them include them.

15.) We ordered flat wood faced doors on our upper and lower cabinets in the kitchen, this was standard feature. We have two bloodhounds and the flat cabinets are easy to wipe clean then to wipe ridged cabinets or grooves. We ended up getting arched style on the top, flat raised on the bottom.. plus two cabinets had been changed from an 18 inch to a 12 inch, leaving a gap between the refrigerator and cabinet. Lori was asked about this gap and it was for our TV trays... I could have screamed... considering we had not had a TV tray in our possession for at least 20 years. Now we are missing the correct cabinets, have missed matched cabinets, the counter top, backsplash and have no clue how to fix this mess considering the one cabinet is into the laminated floor, finding a company where the cabinets will match, fixing the sheetrock to set the cabinets, etc.

16.) We could WRITE A BOOK of this horror story and this list could go on for pages and pages of the problems we have from the steps being so uneven they are dangerous; insulation blowing out of the roof the first weekend; the soffit not being 18 inches wide and only 12; the damage to the vinyl siding which looks like it is burnt; the siding popping off in various places and we are constantly rehanging it and gluing it in place weekly; to the damage to the personal items we had in the basement which were destroyed as we didn't know the basement would flood; the rope broke and the house dropped the day it was set; them not following floor diagrams; nothing done to scale; things being changed or not in place the day of the walk through; the one wall being several inches off the other wall, so nothing is even; the light fixtures not being centered/matching; damage done to our property by angry employees, etc.

17.) BUT, most of all the stress, frustration of they have our money (over a $130,000); they have treated us as village idiots; and shattered our dreams in every aspect with their lifestyles going on with their beautiful designer homes, golfing, dining out, and living the life of leisure at our expense. Lori's gloating over this mess she has made and due to the financial problems of this company for us to hire legal assistance will only put us further in debt.

The warning came too late for us, there was nothing out there (better business bureau, internet sites, etc.) whereby a warning, this company and the alias company names were the same owners. The only thing we have signed have been the checks, we have no written/signed contract. There was no designs done to scale. They refused to return our down payment, even though it was within 3 business days (buyer remorse) as "they had already purchased the supplies for our home", which is obviously not the case, since we still are missing many items...

Only after we paid the down payment and the check cleared did everything change in regard to being in our new home by Memorial Day; to the specific items we picked out for our home; in the guarantees they made verbally. It is quite obvious whatever was left over from another job, rejected, etc. was put in our new home. We have all the pictures, labels off of things, etc. for what it is worth...

We have been so upset when we are told by Lori of all the financial problems, the history of previous bankruptcies/names, and Lori gloating of .... knowing they had no plans to finish our home and we have no legal recourse to recover any of our money, so we can hire someone to finish it. They get at least 97% of the money paid in installments, before you will ever walk through the house when it is set on your property...

We have been threatened of them not finishing our home; with them putting a mechanic lien on our property. They never had any intention of building us the home we wanted or dreamed about or paid for. They are in breach of the contract in failing to even make the gesture of finishing our home, provide the supplies, labor, etc. and we are being forced to pay for things twice, replace, fix, rewire, paint, caulk, and are being forced into financial disaster.

It has been made VERY CLEAR by the time we file legal action, they will have a new name and be cleared under this name and doing the same to others -- they have been doing for years!!!!

No one yet can give us a clear number of names they have used or years this has been going on!!! One employee said he has worked for them for about 18 years. They have just had another court action filed by a supplier. I have lost count to the number since our house was set in May and the number which were pending prior to May we didn't even know about.

We hope by sharing our experience we can save others from the financial disaster, the shattered dreams, the physical and mental anguish of trying to finish their home by themselves or finding there is no justice when dealing with Midwest Homes, Inc from Carroll, Iowa.

Shattered dreams, cracked walls, and Tall Tales

Some have suggested what other customers have done, they never moved in. We couldn't do that, this house was built on the family farm and we are not rich, it would be nice if we could just pay someone to come in this next week and finish this house, but it will take time and money. This is not a house we can enjoy or entertain in with it being in the present condition. We have a beautiful view and hopefully some day we can enjoy it when our house is done and safe.

What good is a 30 year warranty when it is on a discontinued product? Or even a one year warranty by Midwest Homes, Inc. if you can't get them to do the initial work or provide the supplies? What good is having a home inspection when you knew of the majority of the problems or safety issues? The majority of the house and all of the garage was built on site, so we know this home was never inspected by an independent company.

Why is there not a law where they can be charged with fraud? Why aren't more people set up a business like this versus robbing banks?? I know we are fortunate compared to what others have said about their Midwest Home with a foundation poured on two separate days, water lines being only 2 foot deep, floors rottening away, etc.

We will take any advice on simple, cheap fixes you see.

Pictures can be found at: (((link redacted - see below)))

Ann
Manning, Iowa
U.S.A.

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