'We Haven't Slept In Months': Twin Cities Landscaper Accused Of Leaving Homeowners With Mounds Of Dirt
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- To say Tom McNamara has been through a stressful remodel might be understating what's happened at his Bloomington home.
"We haven't slept in months," McNamara said.
It started this summer when he hired Chris Chadwell and North Shore Gardens to landscape his aging backyard.
"We knew that we had to do something to make the house more sellable," McNamara said.
McNamara paid him $10,000 when he went with Chadwell's bid.
"He dumped a pile of boulders probably 30 feet by 50 feet right at the end of my driveway," McNamara recalled.
Along with eight dump trucks full of dirt in his yard. That was basically the last McNamara saw of his landscaper.
"It's like someone walked into your house and took $10,000 and said, 'See ya,'" McNamara said.
McNamara isn't alone.
The Light of the World Slavic Church in St. Louis Park hired Chadwell's company two summers ago to re-do its parking lot.
Church members tell WCCO he tore it up and hasn't been seen since. They paid him $70,000 for what they estimate was $20,000 worth of work.
Two more homeowners told us within the last year Chadwell's done the same thing, leaving behind a muddy mess.
Chadwell did not return our repeated calls and he didn't answer the door when we stopped by his house.
"It's almost identical stories," McNamara said.
McNamara believes Chadwell knows the system well. We checked and there are no landscaper requirements in Minnesota and a criminal charge requires proof that a person never intended to finish work.
"We have no recourse," McNamara said.
Leaving only small claims court that McNamara and others are moving forward with.
As a new company called Every Season Landscaping scrambles to finish the work now before the snow flies.
"I just don't want anyone else to go through what we did," McNamara said.
McNamara told us several employees have showed up at his house after Chadwell hasn't paid them. In another case, a homeowner told us his employees took the bulldozer from the yard since they'd gone months without a paycheck.
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