Columbia, SC (WLTX) - Columbia homeowner Odesser Harris says a contractor used federal grant money and did shoddy work on her kitchen.
After Harris contacted News19, we called the South Carolina Housing Authority. The agency is now taking action to fix the problem and bring Harris some peace of mind.
"It's a disgrace, a pure disgrace,"says Odesser Harris. She says she's angry after a contractor ruined her home. "It doesn't make no sense for somebody to come in here and make my kitchen worse than what it is,"says Harris. She says problems like crooked kitchen cabinets and unfinished plumbing are the results of the work of Wilson Dow, owner of Dow Construction Company in Columbia.
"I went without water for three months--yeah, three months--because of this,"says Harris. In March, Harris says she was approved for a $6,000 federal low income housing grant through Ames Road Richland County Housing Development Organization, the agency that hired Dow.
"They started working on the house, and immediately, I started complaining about what was wrong, right on the spot,"says Harris. She says she ended up spending $600 of her own money to fix some of the damage done by Dow.
News 19 contacted the state housing authority that provided the funds to Ames Housing Development and its director Isaac Prioleau. "Our agency was asked to provide funding for a specific set of repairs. It doesn't appear, at this point, that those repairs were done right,"says Director Clayton Ingram. He says action has been taken. "Neither of those organizations are on our approved list any longer,"says Ingram.
News19's investigation also found that in 2005, Wilson Dow appeared before the South Carolina Residential Builders Commission to appeal the rejection of his license renewal. The board recommended that his license not be renewed until he passed a builder's exam. The board's action appears to have stemmed from a complaint from a Saluda homeowner who accused Dow of shoddy work on renovations to her house.
Meanwhile, News19 contacted Dow by phone, but he declined to comment on Harris' situation and referred us to the Ames Housing Development. However, we did speak by phone with Isaac Prioleau. He says he was not informed about problems with Harris' home until after a state inspector approved the repairs. He also said that Wilson Dow has not been given anymore assignments through his agency and he has no plans to work with him in the future.
On Wednesday, a state-recommended plumber and contractor reviewed the work performed on Harris' home. State officials say they plan to fix the problems.
Harris has a message for others following her experience. "Just like they did this to me, they could do it to somebody else. See how I look? I used to look better than this. I look like that I have aged about 50 or 60 years because of this,"says Harris.
News 19 asked housing officials about how they selected contractors and other agencies. We were told to get on the approved list, each agency has to go through a rigorous application process. Officials declined to comment on whether Dow Construction Company and Ames Road Richland County Housing Development Organization would be re-instated.
11/18/2009 8:38:35 PM
