ComplaintsforHome Remodeling Interior & Exterior Detail

• Initial Complaint

  08/27/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Unresolved

  More info

  Beau L***, dba Home Remodeling Interior and Exterior Detail, told me he was a licensed, bonded, and insured contractor in the state of Ohio. He has pictures of documents that he showed me because he didn’t have printed copies. I know now that was not true. His company does not seem to exist, and he does not have a license. I paid him a variety of sums between July 10, 2023 and August 27, 2023. I have to gather all of the various forms of payment he received, but it was approximately 30,000.00. He was hired to complete a restoration job, which my insurance had paid me to have fixed. He kept asking me to take over my insurance claim the entire time I knew him because he could get me so much money. I constantly refused. Anyway, I was concerned because he seemed to think he could charge large sums since I had insurance money, so I asked him to come up with a total for the project. I showed him everything that I needed to do. I told him had to stop working until I knew an amount. In that process, I made the mistake of telling him exactly what the insurance companies had given me to do the job. I told him that was all I had for materials and labor for those categories. He came back and said he could do it for 2,000.00 less. He started work, and then he told me that supplies didn’t count and asked for 2,000.00 for plumbing supplies. After that it was one thing after the next that was a surprise or something he forgot to bill me for. For example, he charged me 1,000.00 plus materials to lay down a 10 x 10 area of subfloor. I was on vacation, and I paid it not realizing how overcharged I was being. He had an electrician come in, ****** ***** Beau told me he only uses his employees and not subcontractors, but I believe that is not true. Anyway, I was overcharged for the electric done, and I have since been told two of the boxes he did are not correct per code. I could go on pages and pages about the problems, but I will skip to how everything concluded. Beau told me he was paying his tile guys 20,000.00 to complete my tile project, and he was only making 1,000.00. The total job was 21,000.00. After the job started, he said I now had to pay materials because he had fired his guy *****, and ***** was supplying the materials and now he was gone. I was stuck and had no choice, so I ended up paying for installation materials. Beau said I had to pay the first payment of 7,000.00 dollars or his guys would start. They needed the money to start. He said all the money was going to his tile guys. On August 20th, Beau came and collected a second payment even though the upstairs bathroom tile still needed to be done. However, he said he would not be able to pay his guys, and they would show up to finish it. Therefore, I paid him with the understanding he was paying it to his crew. I had vanities set to have tops installed on the 23rd. Beau had committed to be doing and installing the vanities on the 22nd. He did not show up. My family and I tried to move the vanities into place and discovered that he had not moved the wall for that upstairs bath, so it was against the custom vanity. It ended up having a large gap. I have voice recordings, camera recordings, and text messages as well as a lot of paperwork. I also have screenshots of Beau’s fake business site on Facebook. He took his business Facebook page down on August 26, 2023.

  Business response

  09/14/2023

  9.14.2023 BBB received return call from Beau L*** stating that ***** **** broke the contract agreement. She wanted more work done than what was in the contract. There were no change orders so no additional work was done. Current outstanding balance owed to business is $7,120.00.
  
  

  Customer response

  09/15/2023

  I am rejecting this response because: Beau L***'s response is false. I have attached an invoice showing that Beau was hired to do plumbing. The rough in was paid for but not completed. I met with Beau, J** ***** (claimed to be plumber and framer), and **** (###-###-####). At that meeting I told Beau per state law, I was keeping his final check until work was completed and fixed for items he had already been paid for. At that meeting, it came out that Beau had kept over 14,000.00 that I thought was going to **** and his crew, and intended to pay them only the final tile payment of a bit over 7,000.00. During that meting, Beau was videorecorded and audio recorded, and I can produce those recordings. I also discovered that Beau is fraudulently saying he has a business. The state of Ohio an confirm his business is fake. The BBB must put complaints about him using his first and last name, so there is no chance he creates another fake company and continues to defraud people. I also found out that Beau is a felon serving time for stealing items from homes including a toilet. After I informed Beau I was keeping his final payment until work was fixed and finished that had already been paid for, I hired additional contractors who have found numerous problems with his work and have had difficulty fixing the work. I have filed complaints with the Ohio Attorney General, who has opened an investigation. One of the most shocking findings was that Beau and *** ***** fraudulently were paid for plumbing and instead installed a drain pipe to nowhere. The pipe caused flooding through my master closet and has required a great deal of work to be repaired. In addition, *** and Beau installed a sewage waste drain at an uphill angle which is a health hazard as is their installation of a shower using a toilet drain without installing a ptrap, and a drain for a bathtub without proper installation. In addition, two sinks had four separate leaks, and the problems with the plumbing has many many other documented problems. The plumbing is still not completed for what Beau was paid for and what done has not been fixed. My plumber has documented all problems. Your system limits the attachments to four, but I have numerous invoices for various problems and items not done proving Beau was paid for the items and the items were either done incorerectly or not done. Another example is the picture of a wall that was not completely removed causing a thirteen inch gap between the custom vanity and the wall. I also had an electrician come and repair all electric and among other things Beau and his electrician, ******, charged me to repair light switches in both bathrooms that have since been moved because they were put far too close to water, a safety hazzard. In addition, I have statements from the contractor hired to install vanity tops. The downstairs vanity would not fit in the space because *** and Beau mismeasured and bulit a very crooked wall. A framing contractor will attest to the bad craftsmanship that resulted in the crooked wall. I have invoices showing Beau and *** were paid too install a pocket door, framing, and a door to my laundry room. None of that work was done when Beau stopped working on my property. I have an invoice showing they were paid to do the work, and numerous text messages about why the doors were not yet done. The largest problem that has impacted all of the workmen trying to finish and fix ***'s and Beau's shotty work is that they had the tile installed before vanities were installed, before electric was done, before plumbing was done, and before drywall was done. The tile is very expensive, well over 20,000.00 plus insulation, so everyone has had to work around the tile as much as possible. Even so tile has had to be removed and will need to be reinstalled. A shelf wall has to be created to hide the gap between the vanity and wall because he did not move the wall. There are many many things left to do. I have documentation showing that every bit of Beau's final paymenrt has been spent and much more than it by the time all is done. Thankfully, everyone has felt so bad for us and what Beau did to us and so angry that con men like *** and Beau are pretending to be legitimate contractors that they have worked on weekends and afterhours and assisted us in every way that they can. The process is limited to four documents, but I have many many photos, statements, invoices, and proof of purchase. I also have pictures of Beau's business website showing that he posted work he did on my house and pictures and videos of him in my home. Beau also charged me for parts and then returned the parts for store credit. The total of this activity is estimated to be over 2,000.00. I have invoices for many parts and receipts that were not used in my home and I have an inventory of what parts were used in the home and which parts I paid for are missing. We also had a strange incident were a shower system valued at more than 1,000.00 was missing for weeks even though our home had been searched muttple times. Beau told me that he and *** had searched everywhere for it as well. The night Beau was told his work at my home was done, we found out that *** didn't even know the system had been delivered and disappeared. I had told Beau a couple days before that an investigation was open, and that there was video and pictures taken by the person who delivered the shower showing it was delivered. Then the shower somehow appeared a couple of days later. I could write many many examples. My husband is permanently disabled which I learned makes him a protected class resulting in stronger charges and penalties for committing fraud as a contractor or while pretending to have a company and being a contractor. Because of this, we hae cameras through out our home and yard. The images are saved indefinitely to a cloud, and they will be retrievable when the state is further along in their investigation of Beau. I don't believe Beau has anything to go after. I have been told by *** that he owes a substantial amount of money already to the IRS, and I submitted documentation of everything I paid him. I also have a video of *** telling me the amount of money that Beau and he made in a matter of a few months. My concern is only that Beau L*** and *** ***** do not continue to pretend to have a company and pretend to be contractors, so no one else is harmed by them in the way that we have been. I am sad there are people like the two of them and the electrician ****** (I am able to provide his last name too). Thank you for your continued work on this investigation. I will do anything I can to help you and the various government agencies stop Beau L*** and *** ***** from doing this to someone else. I am just concerned that during these various investigations, Beau and *** are continuing to greatly overcharge homeowners, which is also a crime, and providing shotty work or not compeleting work they were paid for or leaving pipes to fill walls with water just to make money. Thank you! 
  Regards,
  
  ***** ****

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