Forever family home. Been building for two years and was taken badly by several scam artist contractors. Our account is now drained and we can't finish the build. We are a family of 6 with 4 children. My mother pass...
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We are a family of 6 with 4 children. My mother passed away in April of 2020 and paid off her home in March of 2020. The home was left to me to be a forever home for our family. We spent all of what we had to get the house ready and get the addition to the point it is at.
The house was originally a 3/2 1200 sq ft home that would have been too small for our family so we decided to take the money my mother left to us and do the renovation. We planned it out and budgeted and we even built in a contingency. When complete the home will be 5 bedrooms 3 baths for the 6 of us in the family to reside. We currently rent a 4 bedroom 2 bath 1000 sq ft home that is not in a good part of town.
The house was built as my parents only home they owned and my father passed away in the home in 2007 from cancer. This home was my parent's final and forever home and I want it to be our family's final and forever home as well. We started the renovation in May of 2020 and were told by several contractors that we would be celebrating Christmas 2020 in the new home completed. Some things went right but there were a lot of problems as well during the build and construction of the home. We are entering two years into this remodel and the home is still not done and we don’t have a certificate of occupancy to get the power restored.
We have had several bad contractors who in the end were scam artists who did not even have contractors licenses, a hard lesson to learn. They caused many things to be taken apart, items to be repurchased and rebuilt or reinstalled correctly afterwards. The wrong roof truss were purchased and new ones had to be reordered because the designer put the wrong roof pitch. Where we were told it would take 3 weeks to install the roof truss it took 3 months because we kept getting excuse after excuse.
Our last contractor installed all plumbing incorrect and used the wrong plumbing items, electrical was incorrectly installed, wrong wiring. The last contractor we had installed the drywall without finishing the electrical, installing the hvac and before the mechanical inspection, this drywall now has to be removed to finish install of A/C and electrical. Windows were installed into the concrete without being shimmed and squared off and we now we have to uninstall them and reinstall the windows for them to function correctly. He stole our A/C unit and all A/C duct and supplies, took all our tools, the money for our septic he was returning and supposed to purchase the epoxy flooring supplies, He left the state, changed his Facebook, phone number and we have no way to contact him, he also scammed about 8 other people in the area as well.
We have no money to purchase these materials and supplies again and have no money to hire another contractor to finish the house. The children are upset and have been looking forward to moving into a forever home. My husband has been working every day in the house for the past several months undoing all the work that was previously done and doing it the correct way. Myself and my two older children are at the house on the weekends assisting with the renovation. The four of us have been working on the home on the weekends but we are not contractors and do not have the money to purchase the materials and build items. My husband is a Marine Veteran filing for disability and should not be building this house in his health, but we are doing everything we can on our own because we have no funds to pay for help.
We have now been told a large old oak tree has to be removed to connect the home to the city sewer. The original home was on septic but the septic would have to be upgraded to stay on it so we were able to get the city to hook us up to city sewer under a grant and decommission the existing septic tank and hook us up to the system, a septic would cost over 6,000 so this was a great savings. We have now been told a large old oak tree has to be removed to connect the home to the city sewer, this is the only expense we would have to handle to hook us up to sewer. This is another 2300 expense that we don’t have and must be completed in the next two weeks. Removing this tree will also tear up the concrete driveway which we will live with.
Being able to complete this house is very important to me to know that my children will always have a roof over their head and a place to call home. We are a single income and live paycheck to paycheck and often have difficulty with that, this house will alleviate some of that stress as we would not have an expensive rent but we will have insurance and upkeep but that will be less than we pay in rent now.
Being able to complete this house knowing it can never be taken away from the children, knowing they have the security of a house gives me the peace of mind knowing my children will always have that security. My parents wanted that security for me to have that home when they built it and now, I want it for my children. My younger two children currently share a room and the one is now a teen. The room is very small, and I have been promising them their own room for two years. I would like to keep that promise to them. At the current location where we reside there is no yard to play in. The new home has a fenced yard which will allow them to get out and play. Our current home is too small for a family table and our children have been looking forward to being able to sit at the dinner table as a family currently the children can eat at a small card table and the adults eat on a couch.
We are not able to have holidays for the past several years and they have been looking forward to the holidays with their grandparents (from my husband’s side). I promised them we would spend the holidays for 2020 and had to disappoint them told them we would have 2021 holidays in the house as a family and disappointed them and am now asking for your help to have 2022 holidays in this house.
The new home location has much better schools as well for all the children. I have two highschoolers, one middle schooler and one in elementary school. My younger two currently ride a bus for an hour and 20 minutes each way to a school to the other end of the county because it is the better choice for education for them because their zoned school had bad state assessments, so the school system offered to allow the children to go to another school with better scores if we wanted, we thought their education was important and of course agreed. Please help us complete this home for our children. They ask every day when it will be done and due to the horrible cards we were delt while trying to get this done for them, I cannot give them a definite answer. Due to the length of time on this project our permit expires this month. It can be extended if we pass the mechanical inspection in 4 weeks but there is so much that needs undone and redone and finished to accomplish that, we are a little overwhelmed. We need your help please.
The funds will be used to
• Undo incorrect plumbing and electrical (purchase new plumbing pipe and fittings where needed)
• Finish the plumbing and gas lines
• Undo and rerun the electrical wires to the box outside to hook up correctly to code
• Rerun and connect the lines in the house to the circuit breakers
• Finish the electrical inside
• Uninstall, and reinstall 13 windows, purchase new windows where needed.
• Purchase the A/C duct boxes, and finish A/C duct and installation
• Remove the large oak tree to run the sewer pipe underground to connect to the home
• Install all the roof vents that were not installed
• Frame out the showers which were not done
• Finish the attic where the A/C is supposed to go
• Home insulation in attic, the existing was all removed during demo
• Install and run all the proper vents and exhaust ducts
• Install the tile we acquired
• Stucco the outside of the new addition
• Purchase paint for the inside and outside of the house
It says to let you know what the funds are for
The funds will be to complete the house enough so we can pass all inspections to move in, this is most important.
If we go over goal and any money is left over once we have moved into the home, it will be used in this order.
1. Memorial Service for Nana (the children’s grandmother) because of covid we did not have a memorial service for my mother and that is something the kids feel very strongly about having in order to say a proper goodbye. They often ask when we will be able to schedule one.
2. A vacation for the children, just a couple days away from the house (nothing large, but the children are in need of something because we have been doing this so long we have not spent much time with them as a family, maybe a day or two at the beach or a park somewhere)
3. Any left-over funds once the house is completed and we have moved in will be to fix the broken concrete where the tree was dug up and removed.
4. New mattress for us as we have been sleeping on a mattress with major issues
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