SENECA COUNTY, Ohio — UPDATE: After our story aired on Tuesday, MJ Stephens called Call 11 for Action and said, "I had already been in communication with Mary and there is a date set to complete the work."
The original report is below.
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Our Call 11 for Action team is seeing a lot of complaints involving contractors taking money and their time with jobs.
It was December of 2022 when Mary Davis's pipes burst, flooding her Seneca County home.
The work to fix it is still not done, and there's no end in sight.
"I want my house done, period," said Davis. "I'm not expecting perfection from you. I've given you enough and I want my house done."
Davis is as frustrated as anyone would be. She and her adopted children have been living without the use of their foyer and dining room and dealing with dripping water into a bucket for a year and a half.
Davis said it all started when she hired a man named MJ Stephens to repair severe damage to her historic home she'd bought just five months earlier.
"This whole ceiling was pouring down like a waterfall, and that ceiling was pouring down like a waterfall," Davis said, pointing to the dining room.
Davis said no other companies or contractors would touch the project until the pipes that had burst were repaired, so she turned to Stephens, who she had met through her sister.
"I didn't know anything about any of this," Davis said. "I didn't know how to pursue anything."
Davis said Stephens agreed to do the work.
"He said, 'I can get this done for you, I mean we can get it done quick, quick, quick, quick.'" Davis said.
But "quick" would be the word used to describe how her problems arrived.
"MJ never put up plastic or anything like that, so now my whole house was completely contaminated. So, no one would touch it," said Davis. "They were just worried about all the contamination from everything that had been in the walls, because it was like a dust like this, it was not only dust but insulation and everything."
Davis explained that, since the work had already begun, she figured she might as well see it through with him.
"I don't like conflict, so I just went with it," said Davis. "I'd already hired him; he'd already started work. Basically, I just went with it."
Davis approved Stephens as her contractor with her insurance company, which cut him a check for $27,278.25.
"I said, 'Why would you send him a check? I don't even know this guy; how do we know he's not just going to walk away with all this money?'" Davis said.
Stephens didn't walk away, but he hasn't exactly shown up either.
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"What he did was he just took plaster and started building it up with paper and I was like, 'Oh my God, I don't know what this guy is doing," Davis said. "He keeps telling me, 'I'm coming down and going to do it in one day.' 'Are you kidding me dude? We've been a year without lights in here.'"
According to records found in Lucas County Common Pleas Court, a family in Genoa filed a civil lawsuit against Stephens in 2022 for breach of contract, negligence, deceptive practices and conversion.
That suit was settled.
Stephens initially did not answer calls from Call 11 for Action. However, after this report aired on Tuesday, Stephens called Call 11 for Action.
"I had already been in communication with Mary and there is a date set to complete the work," he said.
If you have a problem you need help solving, email 11investigates@wtol.com.
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