DENVER — Remodel work takes a lot of screws.
One of them should not be from the company you hire.
Several homeowners and a former associate of Schwalb Builders are seeking money back from the contractor, some through lawsuits.
“I never thought he wasn't going to pay me until it became $20,000, then it became $36,000,” subcontractor Yesenia Perez said.
Perez filed a lawsuit seeking the money -- $80,000 -- she said bounced in a series of checks.
Schwalb Builders is the same contractor that Kevin and Noelle Collins hired to remodel their home north of City Park.
That home is now unlivable, and they say they are out $260,000.
Patty Klingenbjerg also hired Schwalb, with a deposit for a basement expansion that they halted based on the plans provided.
They are out $14,500.
An Arapahoe County resident sued Schwalb Builders and was awarded $146,000 for unfinished remodel work.
Perez said she worked with clients of Schwalb who were waiting for work to be done.
“I couldn’t keep on lying to the client and say, ‘listen, your kitchen, it’s on backorder.’ I just had to say the truth. The kitchen was never ordered,” Perez said.
She said Schwalb paid her and then she paid her employees, but the checks started to bounce.
“I would feel bad for the clients. I mean, I couldn't just tell them, ‘listen, I'm not going to come and work on your house anymore because I'm not getting paid.' So I will still come, out of my pocket to pay my employees, in order for them to continue working, obviously thinking they would pay me back,” Perez said.
She kept text messages between her and Schwalb showing the conversations about bad checks.
“One of them was $12,410. The other one was $14,306,” Perez said.
She is suing for $81,000.
“Sometimes they would come back as insufficient funds,” Perez said. “The checks would, sometimes, come from Schwalb Builders, but most of his payroll came from Avi’s Remodeling, which is his father's company.”
“I found, probably, three or four different addresses and phone numbers for Avi’s Remodeling,” Arapahoe County resident Eran Fraenkel said.
Fraenkel needed work done at his house because of a leak in his mudroom down to the basement.
“About $30,000 worth of work that had to be done,” Fraenkel said.
He paid a $5,000 deposit. Before work began, workers for Avi’s Remodeling were over while his mother-in-law was home.
“My mom started speaking to the project manager, who happened to be Israeli, similar to Avi and his son, Sean. So, they were speaking in Hebrew. My mom said, ‘Avi Schwalb?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ And my mom lost her mind,” Anat Fraenkel said.
“We won't go into the details of what happened at her house, but she let us know, ‘hey, you should not proceed with them,’” Eran Fraenkel said. “So we told them and we said ‘hey sorry, we don't feel comfortable proceeding.’ They said, ‘no problem. We'll get you back your deposit.’”
The Fraenkels are still waiting for their deposit.
That led to Eran Fraenkel becoming a bit of an amateur detective as he tried to serve Avi’s Remodeling with a lawsuit.
"I went to go find Schwalb Builders, even though I wasn't serving them,” Eran Fraenkel said.
“I drove to all the addresses," he said. "It was boarded up, again, three or four different addresses. And at that point, I started realizing, wow, something's going on."
He has not been able to serve the lawsuit yet.
He has since connected with homeowners who hired Schwalb Builders by looking through reviews to find other people in the same situation -- the same types of reviews that led him to hire Avi’s Remodeling.
“It's not like one of those obvious scam stories that your 70-year-old parents fall for, right? They get the email from the Prince of Zamunda and says like, ‘hey, why don't you come join me in this business venture? Give me $10,000.’ It wasn't anything like that. It's a professional business -- I mean, everything looks amazing. How do we prevent that from happening?” Eran Fraenkel said.
Northglenn Police said there is an investigation into Schwalb Builders for a case in that city. That case would be unrelated to the subcontractor or any homeowner who has talked with 9NEWS.
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