Homeowner wants contractor to finish building her garage - wave3.com-Louisville News, Weather & Sports

By Eric Flack - bio | email

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - A local woman wants to know "Dude, where's my garage?" Carolyn Edds paid a contractor more than $9,000 to build a new garage. Months later, the work, is nowhere near done.

Edds hired contractor James Bennett on April 22, 2010. She's paid him $9,239 for a new garage. So far, all she's got is the floor.

"It's a beautiful floor, it's a lovely floor," Edds said. "But I would like to have some walls, maybe a door. A window would be nice."

Edds has made two of her three payments to Bennett. He has been out to her house a grand total of two times. Bennett showed up once to move a shed to make way for the new garage, then again a few weeks later to lay the floor.

"Maybe he's just gotten himself in too deep or maybe he's got too much to do," Edds said. "But even if you've got too much to do at least answer the phone or email the person back."

Edds said it has been almost a month without any more work. She said Bennett asked that she contact him by email, which Edds said she has tried more than a dozen times. But Edds said Bennett rarely responds and he never follows through on his promise to return to finish what he started.

In late July, Edds sent one final email to Bennett telling him she was going to take her story to the local media. The next morning, Bennett showed up for the first time in a long time, and promised to get the job done. He wrote out a hand written note pledging to finish the garage in four to six weeks.

In the meantime, Edds garage is work in progress right down to the makeshift steps she built herself using cinder blocks stacked on top of each other so she doesn't walk out of a side door that has been left exposed by the empty space where her garage is supposed to go.

"I was afraid I would come out and that I would open that door half asleep and step out into nothingness," said Edds.

Bennett did not responded to a request for an interview, but a reporter did speak with him briefly on the phone. Bennett said the reason things have moved so slowly with Edds garage is that he's been busy.

One big mistake Edds made was not writing a completion date into her contract. It's something anybody who hires a contractor should do.

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