WBBM
By Megan De Mar
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CHICAGO (WBBM) — A Lake County woman has a warning for other homeowners, after she said a contractor took thousands of dollars, destroyed part of her home, and then vanished, even leaving his tools behind.
Linda Lange, of Waukegan, got police and the courts involved after her contractor left her high and dry, and yet, months later, the damage remains, and the contractor’s disappearing act continues.
A construction project frozen in time has over Lange’s home in Waukegan. Instead of the new toilet and shower she was promised, she has two holes in her floor.
Lange hired contractor Bob McEvers to do the work in August. He’s done a previous project in her home that she was very happy with.
“Every time he would ask me for money, not thinking – you know, he needs this, he needs that – you know, I wrote a check,” she said.
But the project was taking forever and the excuses kept rolling in when he would fail to show up, from claiming “I tweaked my ankle pretty badly” to saying he’d fallen asleep on his couch for five hours.
Meantime, Lange noticed there was hardly any progress on the job after paying $7,000 on an $8,900 project.
“With that, I said to him, I want all the receipts of everything you have bought for this project,” Lange said.
While Lange said he told her “okay,” she said that conversation was the last time she saw him.
“I mean, he’s like he fell off the face of the Earth. I have no clue,” she said.
When McEvers stopped returning her calls, she went to his home several times, even with North Chicago Police, but they weren’t able to make contact.
She filed a police report and had a lawyer send a letter. Eventually, she filed a civil claim against him, but she said they haven’t been able to find him to serve the summons.
As CBS News Chicago Legal Expert Irv Miller explained, even if a judge rules in her favor, she won’t necessarily get her money back right away.
“Even if they find the person, if there is a judgment, he has to have money or assets to pay the judgment, and a lot of the time that doesn’t happen,” Miller said.
Lange said she doesn’t know what it will cost to fix things in her home.
“I haven’t had anyone in here to give me an estimate,” she said.
Steve Bernas, President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Chicago, said it’s a usually warning sign when a contractor says they don’t have the money to pay for things they’ve been hired to do and ask you for the money.
Bernas suggested paying a third of the bill down at the beginning when hiring a contractor, a third in the middle of the job, and the rest at the end of the project, because once the money is paid, the consumer loses leverage.
He also said homeowners should file complaints with the state, leave reviews online, or whatever else they can to leave a paper trail.
“If you don’t find anything online about that person, that could be a sign, too, because they may not be established, they may have changed their name,” Bernas said.
CBS News Chicago couldn’t find McEvers, but did find his sister, who sent an email saying she has struggled to stay in contact as well.
“This is heartbreaking. If I hear from Bob, I will talk with him about reaching out to you and finding out a way to resolve the situation,” McEvers’ sister wrote.
Lange should know more about her civil complaint at the end of the month, but in the meantime, she hopes others will learn from her nightmare.
“At my age, it won’t happen again. It truly is a learning experience, and I don’t want him to be able to do this to anyone else,” she said.
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