Handyman Has Stolen From My Elderly Grandmother

Hey all! So here’s the situation, back in October my elderly grandmother hired a contractor/handyman that was recommended to her to fix a few windows around her house, install a door to her garage, and do some general maintenance that she was unable to do herself. He gave her a quote and she has paid about $2,500 so far.

Now to the issue-the work is still not done. He doesn’t show up when he says he will and she currently has 3 windows that have been reset due to deteriorating wood that are not weather sealed. I’m talking gaps in every window because he hasn’t come back to finish the trim work so that the window company can come and finish out their portion of the job. This is increasing her heating bill. He has not shown back up to her house in over 2 weeks even after telling her he would be there. The garage door he installed also does not close because he set it wrong. He hasn’t finished the trim on that nor has he finished re-caulking the 8 other windows she paid to be resealed.

He tried to tell her that he was waiting on the window company to come and do their portion of the work and she got sick of waiting so she called them. Turns out, they had came out and told this man that he did all of the trim work wrong and it needs to be redone. He also used the wrong materials for the trim work. And here’s the kicker-my grandmother gave him money to pay for the window company’s work and they relayed he has not paid them.

My grandmother is rightfully upset. He told her this would take a few weeks to complete and it has been over 8 weeks. He has also left a large amount of old materials in her driveway and now I am going to have to dig them out of the snow and transport them to our local trash facility myself.

She reached out to him and terminated their contract and relayed she needs to be paid back about $2000 since he has not completed the majority of the work and what work he has done has been done wrong and she now needs to pay someone else to come in and fix it. He replied with the following message- “Please allow me to do the necessary repairs to get the windows wrapped and to make this wrong a right. Since I am a new business a refund is not doable.” There was more but this was the important part. Obviously this is not going over well. What he has done at this point with a large portion of the money is considered theft because he did not pay the window company with it as he said he would. My grandmother also doesn’t trust him to redo the work correctly. Also, if he can’t provide a refund, then how is he expecting to pay the window company?

My grandmother is on a fixed income. This is a huge chunk of money to lose out on and she will be left having to pay for the work again with a different company.

Wondering what options we have to try to get this money back from him?

We have considered filing theft charges with the police. We have also considered small claims court but are unsure if it would be worth it due to the cost.

I suggested setting up a 4-6 month written repayment plan with him at 0% interest which I believe is extremely generous. If he does not go for this, I will threaten filling theft charges, reporting his license to the state, and airing the situation out on social media and potentially with the local news station. I don’t want to do that but I will if that is our best option.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Additional info- we are located in Iowa.