CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — On this segment of Troubleshooters, a young family hired a contractor in May to build a room addition and bath at their Kingsville home. They put half of the payment down, but considering it is Oct. 7, and the job is not done, so the family called the Troubleshooters for help.
The plan, according to Sadie Salinas, was to add a bedroom and bath onto her young family's Kingsville home because the family was about to grow by one.
They hired a contractor named Robert Loewe, who owns a business called I Know a Guy Construction.
"He said he would have it done in 2 weeks," Sadie Salinas said. "And we promised to pay the $4700.00 upfront and then the rest was going to be in payments after the project was done."
The total cost for the job would be nearly $10,000.00. But months later, the work is nowhere close to being completed.
Salinas saved text messages between her, her husband, and Loewe. There are questions about the materials necessary for the job. In others, the Salinas' lay out their frustrations. They've paid him the down payment, plus more money for materials, plumbing, and personal use.
"So we would give him money and then he would say "I need it for diesel or I need to pay a bill or my electricity's gonna get turned off," she said.
There's an exchange where the Salinas' ask Loewe if he's going to keep his promises and show up and do the work.
This one, dated July 31, reads "Sadie, i apologize for not being there today..." Then later "But I swear to you, I will put up floor and walls tomorrow. Again, I do apologize for this inconvenience"
Then, on Aug. 1, "yes ma'am. Framing floors and walls now."
Then, from Aug. 7 on, there was no communication from Loewe until the 13. He said, "Sorry, I have been in the hospital with an eye injury."
Loewe returned the call later on the same day the Troubleshooters visited the Salinas'.
His side of this situation is that he kept trying to work with the Salinas' money issues, that they kept on changing the plans, and that a Salinas family member interfered with Loewe and his workers.
So the Troubleshooters asked Salinas what she wanted at this point.
"I really want this done somehow or another, even if we have to go through someone else because my kids deserve to have a room," she said. "My daughter, it made me sad because she sees this now and she's like 'Mommy, where's my room?'"
The Troubleshooters keep following this one and let you know what happens next.
As always, whenever you have a story you'd us to look into, just send an email to Troubleshooters @ KRISTV.com or call our hotline at 361-885-0100...and leave a short message.
