Route 66, Realtors: The Road to Your New Home Monica Barrow, Route66realtors, backdated contracts, no representation,interfering in builder buyer contract, misreprentation,violation of code of ethics and standards of practice of national assocation of realtors Meramec Valley, Missouri

Things went fairly well with our realtor until we began to question some of the work orders and demands made by our realtor/broker/builder.  At the time, we believed her to be supportive of us . It was not till later we discovered how biased she was toward her husband taking advantage of us with their deliberate coercing, limitations, and mis-direction. The closer we had come to closing on our home, the more it is apparent that we are not being properly represented.

Our Broker had tried to force us to accept cabinets that we did not want or even like. We cannot understand why our Broker is interfering in the decisions concerning the construction of our home. We thought the contract was between us and Robert B. Construction and that she should be concerned with the sale of the property; NOT the actual building process.

 My wife came to the Route 66 Office on Friday May 16th 2008 discovering her cabinet plans were secretly copied by Chris Cooksey of Tricounty Floors -to -Go in Eureka and brought over to our Broker. Our Broker sided with Chris Cooksey. We lost the opportunity to order solid wood Armstrong Cabinets from Darin Carpenter with Armstrong Direct when Chris Cooksey copied the plans adding his mark up price testifying to our Broker that my wife was in his store two months earlier getting a quote. The plans in her hands and in Monica's hands both had Darin Carpenter's name, address, contact number and the date.

I was presently at Route 66 having arrived an hour before to sign some paper work and had walked into a trap- sort- of -meeting being caught off guard. My wife and I heard 20 minutes of complaints about her being a difficult customer, making my husband (Monica's husband our builder)lose money on this project....we have dealt with difficult customers before such as our previous customer who wanted many upgrades... making cabinet changes from what was orginally planned...and the most devastating comment, was Monica Barrow's saying, my wife's pregnancy health challenges were not her problem.

This day we were unable to follow through on our plywood Armstrong cabinets that was just above the cabinet allowance. Our builder forgot to bid a third of the cabinets on the house plans. There fore, the cabinet allowance was quite low and my wife's quote was a very reasonable quote. We were never given the opportunity to pay for the extra money from our other open $17,000 thousand dollar allowances. There was no discussion on how to resolve the misquote on the builder end. It should have been an easy solution to resolve.

During the building process of our house we received threats of paying extra mortgage payments and interest payments if we did not close by June 15, 2008. Our house was suppose to close on April 15, 2008 but could not due to weather and flood delays. We were told if we did not change the new closing date from July 15th 2008 to June 15 2008 Robert B Construction could move up the closing date with out our agreement. It was impossible for Robert B. to finish the house by June 15th.

In the few weeks we have moved into our house officially complaining to the Attorney general, BBB and talking about our experience, child protection has been at our door, animal control the following week, and a complaint through our neighborhood association to mow the wild grass on our property after recently moving in.

More complaints from the association came in from having an RV in our driveway. We had MN friends visiting us for four days.

We received complaints while still unpacking of picnic tables in the driveway, our cars in the driveway. I was painting all of the doors and closet doors I was suppose to have done before closing but was locked out of the house for six weeks.

Unpacking went well despite my wife's having a baby four weeks ago, having a double kidney infection for five days, and had suffered a significant amount of short term memory having trouble remembering people's faces, the presence of people, finding things she unpacked, misplacing items, misplacing her car, unable to find the road to our house, having difficulty with normal daily tasks, etc.

 As soon as problems arised with Robert B. Construction forgetting to bid a quarter to a third of the cabinets on our print a cover up enused saying the cabinets in these areas of the print did not exist. Our realtor of Route 66 Della Cooper and her husband Gene Cooper, our broker Monica Barrow, and our builder Benji and Nathan Barrow all said the drawings on our print were not cabinets. We suddenly lost all representation through our realtor and broker of Route 66 at this time. Our realtor and broker completely sided with Robert B. Construction from this time to closing. Going to each meeting it was my wife and I against our realtor and broker of Route 66 and our builder Robert B Construction. As we asserted our rights and complained, retaliation became very aggressive and nonstop. We could not keep up. Some of the concerns explained to us by Monica Barrow as she combined the two companies (Route 66 Realtors and Robert B Construction together) were we are losing money on your project, and we have dealt with difficult customers before and you have made many changes to the cabinets. My realtor said she did not care about the health or pregnancy of our unborn baby and that this was not her problem when my wife expressed concerns of premature labor and blood sugar issues not being able to keep up with her and the builder's unfair and unnecessary demands.

Our baby was 4 weeks premature. Doctor appointments had to be rescheduled around unecessary deadlines. Tests could not be taken. Birthdays were difficult to celebrate. A visit from a relative to celebrate a 40th birthday missed. Parties and social events for our teenagers had to be cancelled or were forgotten frantically trying to keep up with Route 66 Realtors and Robert B. demands and consequences.

Accidents with our children ensued because we could not keep up. My wife pushed on despite symptoms of breathing, suffocation, premature contractions, and her memory failing more so. She wasn't able to rest or properly take care of her blood sugar levels. Our baby now is suffering from neurological symptoms we are trying to treat and deal with. He had two hernias and a severe oozing and weeping rash on his scalp, forehead, neck and back. Homeopathic advice revealed rash and hernias were due to ailments from anger and received a remedy to relieve ailments from anger.

Our other child that has a genetic anomally is developmentally falling behind due to not being able to continue her home therapy- my wife working with her. Again Monica Barrow our broker said her pregnancy was not her problem. Our broker assisted in blocking very affordable choices of carpets and cabinets in our house. We received lesser quality carpet and cabinets not of our choosing because Monica Barrow and Della Cooper were not representing us and helping us to resolve challenges fairly and amicably with our builder, Benji Barrow.

The challenges had to be resolved benefitting the builder one hundred percent or the solutions were not accepted. We have no idea what type of carpet we received or the warranty on it. Both companies decided if they were going to give us a break in this game or help us a bit. We have been advised to not get water on the laminate by many contractors and subcontractors in the cabinets because it will bubble. Many said this cabinet line we were about to receive is very low quality "crap" if you will. The laminate in our cabinets has been bubbling since the second day we have been in the house despite purchasing material to protect it. Our cabinet shelves are buckling and bending under the weight of our belongings.

 Our builder, Robert B Construction, and broker, Monica Barrow, said we needed to communicate through our realtor Della Cooper. Della only returned our calls when it benefited her, her broker or the builder- Not us. Sometimes she never returned our calls or emails. We were being completely ignored. We only heard from her if there was a deadline of signing some paperwork to gain access to the garage to paint or drop off lights and flooring we purchased for the home. Della would leave us a message of the time we needed to be at her office and the builder would email us a different time. We would miss the deadline and would be locked out of our garage not able to paint or deliver wood flooring. Do we risk trying to get in our garage risking getting arrested or do we leave the wood flooring on the porch hopefully not raining from Saturday to Monday?

Della Cooper lost paperwork saying she didn't have it - could we drop it off again. She ignored a carpet quote we submitted. Paperwork got to the builder if it benefited Route 66. If not, it was lost. She asked for financial records for our mortgage. Our lender sent her a committment letter. This was not sufficient. Route 66 needed more information. Our lender said Route 66 was giving us the run around. All of our efforts to comply were being sabotaged and often we had to redo requests and work. I had to fill out lein wavers for product we purchased. Della Cooper said she had copies she could give me. After asking several times, she said she didn't have any we needed to get them from the title company. I found out later on when giving me a copy we needed for closing she had them along due to the date on the fax of when it was faxed to her from the title company. The lein waver copy I received from a neighbor also was not good enough. Della did not assist or guide us when problems arose.

 Meetings with our builder Benji Barrow,Monica Barrow our broker, and Della Cooper could consist of many work orders to sign. One of them was a cabinet order if we signed this there would be no installation by the builder if our cabinets didn't come in on time, I had to install them but needed access to the house a key, and construction insurance and the tub surround, laundry room or mud room cabinets would not be included. There was often many stipulations when signing work orders and porkbarreling added to them. We felt much duress while signing work orders. We had no trust, and again no realtor representation. Our contract we signed with the Builder and realtor was biased to the builder and realtor. I made the mistake due to having wonderful realtors in the past of not having a lawyer peruse our contracts.

 Della Cooper was dishonest saying she gave us the rules and restrictions of our lot and neighborhood. When purchasing the lot we wanted to avoid being in an association in order to install our above ground pool. Purchasing a four acre lot similar to the size in MN and having no association in MN, we did not realize we were in an association till we checked it out ourselves.

We asked our future neighbor for the rules and restrictions. Della says she gave us a signed copy of the association restrictions, but she says she lost it and did not have the copy she gave us.

She also said that we illegally went to association meetings when we were invited to go. She said we already spoke to the association about putting in an above ground pool. We did no such thing. These are untruths.

Della, our realtor, explained to us it was okay to back date documents which we back dated twice. The builder and realtor forgot about our closing date of April 15, 2008 and had us sign on April 16th backdating to April 15th. For three months from December to February of 2007-2008 we were contractually not represented by Route 66. In order to catch up and cover this mistake Della had us back date forms six months prior to October 26th 2007. She said along the lines this was okay, not unusual, and this is the way we do business when I question the back dating. On April 16th she asked us to sign forms in regards to her licensing. We cannot get copies of these forms even though we have asked.

 Since we had to communicate through Della to get to our builder, Benji more time was lost, communciation breakdowns and misunderstandings occurred. My wife gave them universal model numbers to the counter tops for our cabinets. It was explained to us that these numbers do not exist and they are incorrect. She called up three places to double check they were the correct numbers and numbers used by all vendors.

Our realtor and builder came up with the cabinet layout for the cabinets they were forcing us to have from their vendor. When it was ready to order the cabinets, a week after a made up deadline, our builder and realtor said they didn't have the layout and we had to provide it for them or the implicated consequence would have been completely wrong cabinets for our kitchen and bathrooms in which our cook top stove, and double wall oven would not have fit.

Robert B and Route 66 would meet on certain nights. We drove by on our way to our temporary apartment knowing another long email would cross my computer screen at work with more demands to follow and consequences. There were issues with the flooring. Always problems and issues too many to be by accident.

We came close to losing our new home figuring out places to live. Looking for hotel vacancies. My wife and three young chioldren in a shelter and me staying with our three boys somewhere else, my wife looking for work in her 7th month of pregnancy, figuring out where I could stay and the boys as we needed to be out of our basment apartment by a certain date and could no longer stay.

Another idea was moving more belongings into storage and renting a motel week by week till we found more permanent housing. We already had four storage units of our belongings.

 We stayed in a dark basement apartment for one year moving from another state not knowing anyone and this is the welcome we have received. We were being harrassed and now receive much retaliation moving into our new home and from their good friends in the neighborhood.

Their good friends who reside in our neighborhood have called and written to the association with several complaints:

Our garden not being weeded in a timely manner. Our assocation and one of the neighbor's did not know we had a garden. We were late for our own time schedule of weeding the garden making repairs inside the house first. We had planned to weed the gardent two days after we received the letter. We don't like to be late either.

Our dryer was broken for two weeks hanging out laundry on the front porch.  This is not against the restrictions.

Our lawn mower broke down; borrowed the neighbor's mower that also broke down. Complaint, from the best friend our neighbor, was we mowed tracks in the yard.

One of our boys may mow one side of the acre yard one day and the other boy the other half the next day using a push mower.

Does not like the tether pole on side of the yard next to the swing set. Or the golf clubs holding up tomato plants in garden. The following month I had in my budget to purchase nicer tomato stakes. All takes time to get a yard going.

In the mean time I cath my wife seeding the lawn at midnight and planting trees at 2 am so as not to draw attention.

We had an antenna on the roof strapped with ugly metal straps around the chimney. FCC regulations says a neighborhood association cannot restrict antenna communications.

Our dog was barking constantly when it rained excessively. We solved the problem two weeks before we received the complaint letter.  I was a bit slow on this trying to make repairs on inside of home, putting the yard in by the one yeard deadline, and taking care of five children. Thre children three and under.

 If we hadn't followed like pawns in a vicious chess game we would have lost this house and the $70,000 we had invested including material we purchased, all the work orders paid out and down payment.

We also caught on the closing cost sheet that were having to pay the lot closing costs. Nathan barrow left my husband a voice mail at work to stop questioning the closing the closing costs.

This response was in response to our voice mail and email asking for an explanation of the closing costs of the lot. When we came home to review the numbers again it looked like we were paying double the closing costs for the lot. So we asked him about this in a voice mail to our realtor. Our realtor spoke to our builder and thus the message. We also have noticed in the lot fees we are being charge 2,500.00 extra for charges not in the contract that we are suppose to pay. These fees include permit fees, builders insurance and an electrical deposit. Quote Hey Roger this is Nathan, I just talked to Monica. I guess she talked to Della. You guys have issues some with the HUD and all that stuff. The first line of the that HUD, we already said that that was a mistake and we are paying for it. That 2500 dollars. But, we went over this last night, everything for four hours. There is no going back over this stuff. Dont even plan on a walk thru. Because you are not getting this house if you keep pulling this crap. Either we close on Tuesday or when your lender is ready or the house is going on the market. There is no more adjusting the numbers. It is what it is. You need to call Della and get this straightened out.

Nathan Barrow was supposed to have paid the brick layer. On August 1, 2008, I received a call from the brick layer that he had not been paid yet. Monica Barrow efficiently made sure this contractor was paid since we had paper work saying Robert B. Construction would pay this contractor.

 We found out we were possibly being watched and had to be careful. We had to be obedient or severe consequences would have occurred. Because our broker Monica Barrow was concerned about her husband's construction company not making the expected money on this deal, every action and word they did was very well orchestrated, planned and calculated. To replace the cabinets and carpet the money they stole from us will take many years for us to recoup with working a second job at night and another one during the day. With five children, of course this is impossible to do. Our task of building our second dream home was a nightmare. Route 66 Realtors and her husband of Robert B Construction would rather have done our family in then to have us give them reputable future business for Route 66 Realtors and Robert B. Construction to make up for the expected losses of our home being delayed three months due to weather and flooding.

 Our broker , Monica Barrow, said she cannot stand that women referring to my wife. Route 66 and Robert B. Construction usually does good business, so we are surprised at how we were treated.

Part of a letter that was addressed to me: (XXXXXX had left a voicemail message concerning laminate bubbling at 11:55 pm. She cannot call during the day unpacking and taking care of a one month old, 14 month old and three yeard old plus running around with two teen boys to practice etc. She knew she could leave a voice mail mesage at any hour with out inconveniencing the builder working on his next project.)

Also, XXXXXXX has chosen to contact Robert at unacceptable hours. This happened at 11:55 pm on the 18th of July, and then again with this issue stated above at 12:00 am on the 20th. Business hours are from 8:00am to 5:00 pm Monday through Friday for all non-emergency related items. If she continues to ignore our request to contact us at the appropriated business hours, then we will be forced to take action against this harassment.

Robert B. Construction sent out a plumber immediately Saturday morning. Plumber investigated the damage and determined that the damage to the cabinet was caused by the homeowners cleaning agents that had leaked out and damaged the cabinet. There was no water leak. Warranty is now void on the kitchen cabinet due to homeowner neglect. There will be a charge for all non-warranty claims by the homeowner. Charge 150.00

Dear Benji and Nathan, I contacted Alicia, an AmerenUE billing customer service rep. again to retrieve the $200 deposit charged to us at closing. According to their policy, when the services were transferred to us on July 15th, 2008, the $200 deposit charged to the account Robert B Construction started for constructing our home would have been credited to your final bill or a refunded to you. The deposit is not transferred with the transfer of service. There is no way we can retrieve the $200 deposit. It was not necessary for you charge the $200 at closing or for us to attempt to retrieve the $200 deposit from AmerenUE. At closing, we did not question the deposit because our experience told us deposits are charged for starting up services. Please refund the $200 deposit you charged us at closing by 10/29/2008. Thank you. Roger

Good afternoon Benji and Nathan, It has been three weeks since I contacted you about the $200 utility deposit. When can I come by the office and pick it up? Roger 11/13/2008

Monica, our Broker, did a great job in following up with this challenge:

Roger, I followed thru with Nathan and Benji in reference to your refund, they will look into this matter and let you know. Thanks, Monica Barrow

 The Summer of 2009, we received another complaint to the child protection hotline and  DFS showed up at my door. We have a feeling the Department of Family services will be showing up once every summer and we will continue to receive complaints to the association. My wife will never get to rest and must always keep our lawn and yard tip top shape. Despite her health can never make an honest mistake with our children. We sometimes see a car drive slowly by and watch us maybe stopping at the top of the hill to see what we are doing. My wife and I are always in the yard with our kids if not in view we are moving a sprinkler, caughting up wood, or in the garage, etc.

It only takes a few people who are supportive and aware of this harassment from our neighbors and to do simple research to ask them to stop.

I doubt the harassment will stop as long as we live here.