Contractor Horror Story With A Happy Ending

It was the summer of 1996 and Jeff Dykeman was on one of the most important dates of his life. Because the moment he pulled up to his girlfriend Helen’s Southampton summer house, he knew that one day he would call the 2,100-square-foot ranch house home.

What he never imagined was, 16 years later, he’d be fighting to keep it standing.

In September of this past year, Mr. Dykeman and his now wife splurged on much-needed repairs to fix a leaky roof, drafty windows and dated cedar shakes. But they hired the wrong contractor and, over the course of 45 days, he turned their dream home into a nightmare.

“We saved money for 10 years so we could do this to save this house that was built by my grandparents for their grandchildren and their kids. He almost ruined it. He almost took that away,” Ms. Dykeman said during an interview last week, shaking her head. “We don’t live next to Howard Stern. We don’t have that kind of money. This definitely took us for a ride and it’s going to take us a long time to recover from it.”

As frustrating as it can be for those who have gone through a negative contractor experience, talking about it can be humiliating, Mr. Dykeman said.

“I felt embarrassed that I let it get that far,” he said. “That’s probably why most people don’t come out about it because they’re more embarrassed than anything. But this is something that’s happening, and obviously not just to us. Tell Michael J. Fox that I’m sorry. I know what he’s going through. If he wants to get together, we can do a little ‘Back to the Future’ thing. I’m ready. We’ll do something about these bad contractors. We’ll work it out. Tell Michael I’ve got his back, even though his house is probably much different than ours.”

In 1966, Ms. Dykeman’s grandparents—Charles and Helen Konz—built the four-bedroom, four-bathroom, white cedar shake ranch on one acre in the woods on Island Creek Road. They wanted a place to retire and a home in which to entertain their seven grandchildren. So from the day she was born, Ms. Dykeman spent every holiday, weekend and summer on the East End.

“Every birthday of my life has been spent in this house. All 45 years,” she reminisced. “After my grandparents passed away, they always knew I wanted this house. It went to my mother, who sold it to my husband and I around 2000. We wanted to keep it so that it stays in the family and will now go to our girls, Jessie and Morgan.”

“So we wanted these repairs done once because the way the world’s going, I don’t have a million dollars to leave my children,” her husband agreed, noting his daughters are 16 and 9, respectively, “but I’m leaving this home.”

Between labor and materials, the couple shelled out more than $20,000 to a local contractor who said he was insured and licensed with Southampton Town. The man, whom the Dykemans did not choose to identify, was also the couple’s friend. As it turns out, he was none of those things.

“This whole time, we haven’t said the guy’s name to anybody,” Mr. Dykeman said. “And we won’t. We won’t. He knows.”

“Oh yeah, he knows,” his wife said.

“What goes around comes around, and I’d imagine one of these days ...” Mr. Dykeman began.

“He’ll get hit,” Ms. Dykeman finished. “I hope everyone understands that if it’s happening to you, stop it. Stop it.”

The Dykemans were too late. During construction, Mr. Dykeman began noticing detail-oriented problems on the home’s exterior. The roofing beams didn’t line up with the gutters. The trim wasn’t level with the foundation. There were gaps between the newly installed windows and their walls. And that was just the beginning.

“The cedar shake was put up so tight and so wrong that it would have started popping after a couple rainstorms in April,” Mr. Dykeman said. “Our house would have sounded like popcorn.”

“The contractor was like, ‘Wait until I’m done. This house is gonna pop,’” Ms. Dykeman said.

“He meant it,” her husband said. “It was literally going to pop like popcorn.”

“We thought it was going to look really nice,” she said.

The contractor hadn’t even finished one wall when Hurricane Sandy hit in October, the couple said.

“We were no power, no siding, just cheap tar paper covering the house,” Ms. Dykeman said. “We had no electricity. We literally sat by the fireplace ripping shingles off the side of the house to keep ourselves warm. It was just horrendous. And then he never came back. He left us.”

She wiped at her teary eyes. “After all this time trying to keep a house that has been in my family and I’ve grown up in, to keep it the way that we always wanted it, for him to do that—somebody we’ve known for well over a decade—and then to find out he lied and stole from us,” she continued. “Not even an apology. I’m heartbroken.”

Mr. Dykeman fired the contractor and they regrouped, he said.

“It went really wrong fast—but not fast enough,” he said.

“We didn’t know what to do,” his wife said.

“After Sandy, sitting here with trees down,” he said.

“We were cracking,” she said.

After the eighth day without power, they called Ed Bailey of Shelter Island-based Bailey Brothers Building, Mr. Dykeman said. He came by the house on November 4—a Sunday morning—and surveyed the construction.

Mr. Dykeman said he expected to be told the worst. And that’s exactly what came.

“He said it so nicely, told us, basically, that ‘you’re screwed and everything has to be done again,’” Ms. Dykeman said.

“Nothing was done correctly,” her husband said. “After two hours, Ed said, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna have to demolish everything and start from scratch.’”

“I lost it at that point,” she said.

“I was actually calm at that moment. It was so strange. Nine days no power, no sleep and I felt very calm,” her husband added.

“I started crying,” Ms. Dykeman remembered.

The Bailey Brothers began working the Monday after Thanksgiving. Unlike the first contractor, they drafted a proposal and a building materials list—detailed down to the last box of nails—that cost the Dykemans less than the first go-around and covered more repairs.

Just 17 12-hour days later, Ms. Dykeman was moved to tears again when she saw her completed home—a Mulberry cedar shake that would have made her grandparents proud, she said. The experience taught her a valuable lesson, she added.

“To be taken advantage of was just devastating. The Bailey Brothers made you believe there’s still hope. There’s still good people out there,” she said.

“We learned now that there’s a terrible game out there,” Mr. Dykeman said. “Beware. Beware of the guy who’s not licensed or insured.”

“And follow up, because he said he was and he wasn’t,” his wife added.

“Always follow up and take that time,” he said. “Don’t go for the guy that’s asking for cash in your driveway. Just don’t do it. We didn’t go out to save a buck. We wanted it done right. And it cost less. We shelled it out the first time, which is killing us, but I’m past it now, I think.”

“I’m not. I learned my lesson. It will never happen again,” Ms. Dykeman said. “I love the feel of this house. It’s always felt like home.”

“Yeah, I had that feeling when I first pulled up that night,” her husband recalled. “You’re not getting all teary on me, are ya?”

“I know,” she laughed with a sniff.

“Yes, I said that secretly in the driveway. I was like, ‘Wow, I’m going to live here,’” he continued. “So, it worked out.”