Far Northwest Side woman says contractor on her dream home took money, failed to finish work, and went bankrupt

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A dream home turned into a nightmare for a woman on the Far Northwest Side.

Now, she is sounding the alarm to CBS 2's Tim McNicholas about a contractor conundrum.

The home tour on which Anissa Rindfleisch took McNicholas was not a typical one. She pointed out things like the sides on her front porch where railings are supposed to be mounted and aren't, and water damage on her ceiling caused by a leak in a shower above.

Indeed, she showed us everything wrong with the house.

"There was a lot of electrical work we had to pay for ourselves - over like $6,000 worth," Rindfleisch said. "Stuff just wasn't up to par."

The story starts back in 2018, when Rindfleisch hired a Piotr Gawron with PMG Builders and Construction to build the house. This document signed by both parties shows that PMG received hundreds of thousands of dollars for the job over the past few years.

But as the house moved closer to completion, she started hearing from subcontractors claiming they were still owed money. And then, last spring, she learned PMG hadn't even properly completed the inspection process.

Now, a spokesperson for the county has confirmed to us that the house was not built up to code.

"Frustrated - I feel like we trusted him," Rindfleisch said. "At some point, after a year, you know, we kind of gained this relationship."

Rindflesich eventually learned the contractor filed for bankruptcy in August of last year, and she started to worry her home would never be fully finished.

"So it just a lot of excuses and a lot of things that just didn't add up," she said. "Come September, he just stopped answering my phone calls."

We couldn't get a hold of him either. But after we called and emailed him, he finally reached back out to Rindfleisch - prompting a long back-and-forth via text in which he claimed he did more than the contract called for. That baffled Rindfleisch.

"I'd probably say a good at least $20,000 to $30,000 - just the things he didn't finish or that we had to pay out our pockets," she said.

Now she's warning others - always take your time to research your contractor thoroughly, or you could end up like her, researching legal action.

We discovered PMG Builders and Construction dissolved in November 2021, but that same contractor then launched a new company called PMG Builders 3, which still active.