Was:

 

William Matzker
Matzker Construction
6921 Old Lemay Ferry Rd.
Imperial, Mo 63052
Ph. 314-306-3703

Mr. Matzker recruited and/or recommended, the following to do work on my new construction house.

Richard DuBois …………….. (See “Foundation”.)
Tim Rion   …………………… (See “Siding”.)
Richard “Richie” G’Sell ……. (See “Concrete”.)

 

The first General Contractor I hired, was someone my Grandson had worked for off-and-on for 15 years or so. … My Grandson had always spoken highly of him.

 

This man was, by trade, a Firefighter, with the rank of Captain. Firefighters usually work 48 hours a week. IE: Two 24 hour days in a row. They then have four days in a row off, so many of them have other enterprises they work at “on-the-side.” This Fire Captain built houses on the side.

 

In September of 2016, I started talking to him about acting as the General Contractor for me on building a new house. (My husband had died in 2015 and the house we had built 11 years before was more than I needed, or wanted to do the upkeep on.) Since this Fire Captain only lived about a mile away from me, I thought it would be a good arrangement for both of us.

 

We discussed in detail what I wanted and he was agreeable to doing all that I asked for.

 

As we finished our discussion, and seemed to be in agreement on everything, I said: “Do you have a contract with you”? … He answered: “Well; My contract is, that when the house is finished, if you are satisfied, you write me a check for 5 or 6 thousand dollars.” … That didn’t seem like very much money, but then I thought that he wasn’t actually going to be doing the building work himself, just getting things lined up and then turning the individual jobs over to the subcontractors.

 

He referred me to a local architect who drafted the house plans from my drawings. He then distributed the plans to sub-contractors he wanted to use in the building of my house.

When this GC and I had first talked about this building project,  I had asked him to get at least two bids for every sub contract job and he had said: “Oh, I always get at least two to three bids!”

 

When he got all the bids in, he came and presented the bids to me.  …When he came, he only had one bid for each job. When I questioned this, he said: “Well that’s all the bids that came back.” He also said that he had worked with all those people before and they were all good companies.

 

It wasn’t what I had asked for, but I trusted that what he was saying was true…. Who wouldn’t trust a Fire Captain?

 

In May of 2017, the First General Contractor, Mr. Matzker invited “Mr. Rion” to come to my house and urged me to contract with Mr. Rion. to do the siding on this house.

 

Since at that time I had no reason to distrust Mr. Matzker I agreed to have “Mr. Rion” do the siding.

 

On that same day, Mr. Matzker also invited an HVAC Contractor to come to give us a bid to do the Furnace and Air Conditioning. In discussing with the HVAC contractor where I wanted the furnace put, he said “No, I need to put it over there” and pointed to a spot that was where a walkway to the other side of the basement needed to go.

 

I explained to him why I didn’t want to put it where he pointed and he turned to “Mr. Matzker” and started to talk to him.

 

At that point, “Mr. Rion” the siding contractor, came to the back door and asked me a few questions about what I wanted put under the front porch roof. I told him: “Come on over to the other house and I will show you what we have there.” So the siding contractor and I walked over to my current house next door.

 

When we came back, Mr. Matzker told me that the HVAC contractor had gotten insulted that I “walked away from him” so he left. … The fact that he left made Mr. Matzger” very aggrivated. … Not at the HVAC guy, but at ME!

 

I said to Mr. Matzker … “Well, it doesn’t really make any difference, because all he was offering was a Heat Pump and I didn’t want a Heat Pump anyway!”

 

Shortly after that day, Mr. Matzker said to me: “I can’t help you anymore. You’ve rejected all the people I’ve brought to you and I’m losing too much money”. … So, I’m thinking: “How is he losing money, he wasn’t supposed to be paid until the house was finished anyway.”

 

Plus I had not rejected all the people he recommended anyway. I believe at that point it was just the plumber and the HVAC guy. I had told him upfront that I wanted a Union Plumber, as my husband had been in the Plumbers and Pipefitters Union for over 20 years.

 

In talking to a family member about all this, he said: “Well, how was he losing money, wasn’t he getting a 10% General Contractor fee for the workers you did hire?” … I said: “I don’t know, he never said anything to me about a “10% General Contractors fee.”