Montrealers claim contractor took their money, then disappeared

Several West Island residents say they were scammed by a contractor who took thousands in deposits but left jobs unfinished.

Some West Island residents are warning others about a contractor who they say collected money but did not complete the work.

Jenna Adoluca and Daniel Foster, who live in Pincourt, off the western tip of the Island of Montreal, were just one of thousands of families whose homes were flooded during last August’s record rainfall.

“The water was coming in very quickly,” recalled Foster. “We were scooping water with buckets and then finally thought of going to get my sump pump for the pool, putting that in and thankfully have a friend around the corner that brought another sump pump to help us out.”

Despite their efforts, the damage to the basement was extensive.

The couple says, to make matters worse, the aftermath of the flood was the beginning of a second nightmare.

Contractors were hard to come by, and the couple says they thought they had gotten lucky when they finally found one.

“I have a co-worker that I hold in high regard, so I took his word on this individual that was going to go and fix his house,” said Foster.

The couple says E.A Renovations did an assessment and sent them a quotation.

They say they then paid-out initial deposits that added up to close to $8,500.

“He seemed to kind of know what he was doing when he was cutting the floor, you know, jamming it into the cement,” explained Foster.

But then the couple started having doubts.

“The drywall in the storage room was way off. Nothing was matching up and the bathroom was awful,” said Foster.

“He didn’t put a drain in our shower. He put up the shower tiles with a very minimal amount of cement,” added Adoluca. “When I say minimal, they were dime-size glue spots.”

The couple complained to E.A Renovations, and say that’s when the two workers from the company stopped coming.

“I think that’s when the lights started going off in our heads, being like, who is this guy, really?” Foster said.

The couple has since hired another company to complete the work.

Not too far away, in Dollard-des-Ormeaux (DDO) in Montreal’s West Island, Mitch Levis says he was helping his mother-in-law fix her damaged basement.

“When the flood hit in August, my wife and I spent a week taking all our furniture, all the belongings out of the basement and throwing everything out,” Levis told CTV News.

He says he was approached by E.A. Renovations, who was fixing a neighbour’s roof, and received an estimate to redo the basement.

“Take out the subfloor, put back the subfloor, of course. Sanitize everything from any possibility of mold developing. Redo the broken ceiling and put it back to being a finished basement,” explained Levis.

He says he paid the company a $7,500 deposit, mostly to cover materials. The total cost of the project was $14,000. He adds that work began shortly after.

“He ripped the plywood, threw that out; took out the walls, paneling some of it, as we can see. He didn’t take it all out,” he said.

Levis says E.A. Renovations never returned to finish the job.

“We last saw him here in, I want to say, Aug. 24...He basically ghosted us a month later,” he said.

Levis says he couldn’t hire someone else to finish the job because his mother-in-law, who owns the house, ran out money.

“We are left without the funds to find someone, to pay someone else, to do the work,” he said.

No licence, no insurance

An investigation shows that E.A Renovations does not have a licence from the Régie du bâtiment du Québec (RBQ), which is required by Quebec law.

Quebec’s business registry lists the owner of the company as Eric Arella from LaSalle.

“A contractor who wants an RBQ licence must undertake a series of exams to make sure they have the skills needed in their trade,” said Laurent Bérubé, a spokesperson with the RBQ.

Contractors must also have insurance and post a $20,000 bond.

“The bond is there if someone files a claim for a job that’s either not finished or substandard,” explained Bérubé.

According to CTV News’ research, E.A Renovations does not have insurance or a bond, and the RBQ has confirmed that it is now investigating the company.

Adoluca and Foster also claim that Arella did electrical work for them.

They say he told them he was qualified, but his name doesn’t appear on the list of licensed electricians in Quebec.

The couple has now filed a lawsuit against the company in small claims court.

According to court documents, there are several other pending lawsuits against Arella.

Quebec’s consumer protection office (OPC) says it has also received complaints.

“In the last two years, we had two complaints about him, and basically, it’s people who just say that they’ve paid for work that [was] never done, or they’ve paid for badly done work and not finished,” said Charles Tanguay, a spokesperson with the OPC.

In looking into the company, CTV News also found that Arella’s GST and PST numbers were not valid.

At least five other homeowners have said they also conducted business with E.A. Renovations in the West Island.

Arella first agreed to give his side of the story, but after several exchanges and interview cancellations, CTV News went to his business’ official address in LaSalle.

There was no answer.

There was also no answer at his home address, also in LaSalle.

A tip received by CTV News, and confirmed through the housing tribunal, revealed that Arella is currently under an eviction notice for failure to pay his rent.

Protect yourself

Both the RBQ and the housing tribunal say there are precautions customers need to take before giving a contactor their money.

“The very first thing to ask a contractor is his RBQ number,” said Bérubé.

The agency’s website has a search tool that allows customers to verify that their contractor has the right licence for the right trade.

The OPC adds it’s important to get good references and multiple quotations.

It’s a hard lesson that Foster and Adoluca say they’ve now learned.

“We’re overrun by this situation,” said Foster. “We wanted to make sure that things were getting done as quickly as possible, and unfortunately, it was the complete opposite which occurred. We’ve definitely learned a hard lesson and we’ll do a lot more due diligence if it happens again.”

Here are some helpful links:

To verify if a contractor has an RBQ licence, and tips on how to select one, click here.

To check if a contractor is legally registered as a business, click here.

To learn about your consumer rights and where to file a complaint, click here.

For information on how to to file a suit in small claims court (under $1,500).