'Christian-based' contractor comes up short
McSki Construction claims to be "a Christian-based company and a name that you can trust."
But people who've hired the company say its owner, John Skuzinski III, has done lots of un-Christianlike things.
(Matthew Grotto/Southtown Star)
Customers of the Chicago Ridge company allege Skuzinski has done shoddy work, or received money for work that was never performed. Tradesmen who've worked for Skuzinski said they're owed thousands of dollars.
Denise Cash paid Skuzinski $28,000 to put an addition on her Evergreen Park home, but the little work Skuzinski did wasn't up to village code and will have to be demolished. He promised to get a loan and repay her but hasn't, Cash said.
"It makes me sick he could do this," she said. "I couldn't imagine doing that to someone."
A single mother, Cash recently completed treatment for Hodgkin's disease and is living with a family member in Evergreen Park. Her house is uninhabitable and will have to be torn down, but family, friends and even complete strangers have pitched in to build her a new one.
In August, just days before she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's, Cash signed a contract to have McSki put a 300-square-foot addition on her home. She wanted it completed by Oct. 13 - a day before her son's birthday.
"He wanted to have some friends over for a sleepover," Cash said.
But promised start dates came and went with no work being done, she said.
"There were a million excuses," Cash said. "He said the village was holding up the permit."
It turns out early last October, Skuzinski wrote two checks totaling $1,800 to Evergreen Park's building department - including one for $1,300 for the building permit for Cash's addition - and both checks bounced. Skuzinski didn't respond to a letter from the building department seeking payment, and the matter has since been turned over to the police, according to the building department. His license to work in the village has been revoked.
Although he'd promised to have the addition finished by mid-October, Skuzinski didn't put the framework up until almost the end of that month, Cash said.
Pushing Skuzinski to get the job going was Alan Walters, general superintendent for TCB Design-Build. The Tinley Park company is one of the Chicago area's biggest builders of industrial and retail buildings, and Walters volunteered to help after being told of Cash's problems by her sister, who works for TCB.
"I've been doing this for 25 years, and after I saw his work, I thought, 'This guy doesn't know what he's doing,' " Walters said of Skuzinski. "The work was so shoddy I kicked him out."
Walters said there was no vapor barrier between the concrete foundation and the walls to keep water from wicking up into the wood, and Skuzinski didn't use headers for doors and windows. He estimates Skuzinski spent about $4,000 on Cash's addition.
The existing portion of the home was unsafe because of termite damage and other problems. Mold and asbestos also were found in the home, and it will have to be demolished, Walters said.
"There wasn't a way to use the structure that's there now" and build onto it, he said.
He's counting on donations of materials and labor to build Cash a new house and thinks a 1,500-square-foot home can be completed for $100,000.
Nawal Yousef paid Skuzinski $9,700 in June 2006 to replace the roof and gutters of her Palos Hills home and paid a $4,600 deposit to install new windows.
It took him nearly a year to finish the roof and gutters - both have since sprung leaks - and the windows never materialized, Yousef said. She said Skuzinski has repaid $1,200 of the deposit, but she hasn't seen any more money since last September.
"He frustrated the heck out of me," she said.
Mike Masalsky said he's been friends with Skuzinski for about 10 years and has worked with him on several jobs in the Southland but now is considering taking him to court. Masalsky, who lives in Oak Lawn, said Skuzinski owes him $4,400 in back pay.
"It would be a couple hundred bucks for one job or $50 here and there," Masalsky said. "He kept promising I'd get paid on the next job, then it was the job after that and the one after that."
He said the last time he spoke to Skuzinski was last August.
"He told me I wasn't getting paid and to ... off," Masalsky said. "The only thing he cares about is himself."
Even if Masalsky sues his former friend, there's no guarantee he'll see any money.
Last month, a judge in Bridgeview awarded Salvador Zermeno $1,736 plus court costs after he sued Skuzinski about an unpaid debt. Despite the judgment in his favor, Zermeno said "I don't expect to be paid by (Skuzinski)."
He lives on the same block in Chicago Ridge as Skuzinski and had loaned him the money in spring 2006 to pay his cell phone bill. Zermeno said he had considered partnering with Skuzinski to buy a run-down home, fix it then sell it.
"At the time, we were buddies," Zermeno said. "We were going to use my money to buy the house."
Zermeno said he backed out after learning another neighbor who'd worked for Skuzinski was owed money. Also, pestering Skuzinski about the cell phone loan wasn't getting results, he said.
"He (Skuzinski) said he meant to make good (on the debt) and that he was a good guy," Zermeno said.
Phone numbers for McSki no longer are in service, and Skuzinski has an unlisted number. The Better Business Bureau of Chicago said it has sought basic information about McSki, but the company never responded, nor did it respond to two customer complaints received by the bureau.
Some McSki customers, including Yousef, were instructed by Skuzinski to make checks out to Harriet Rizzi, his mother-in-law. She promised to forward messages to him from a reporter, but Skuzinski didn't respond.
"He's really a good person," Rizzi said. "I feel sorry for him that he got into a situation with these people."
Despite issues with both her health and her home, Cash remains upbeat and calls the discovery of the problems with her home a "blessing." If they hadn't been spotted, and the addition built, "my house would have been worth nothing" and unsafe for her and her son to live in, she said.
Still, the 41-year-old, who grew up in Hickory Hills, is paying $1,100 a month in mortgages on a house that's due to be razed. She took out a second mortgage to pay Skuzinski, who wanted all the money for the addition up front.
Family and friends held a fundraiser earlier this month for Cash at 115 Bourbon Street in Merrionette Park and have established an account at Founders Bank in Worth to help pay for medical bills and the cost of building a new home. Someone she went to grade school with, who now lives in Wisconsin, sent a check for $1,000.
"It's incredible how nice people have been," she said.
Still, Cash feels a bit overwhelmed by the help. She said she doesn't receive child support and relies on her job selling sleep apnea equipment to support herself and her son.
"I've worked hard to do everything for myself," she said proudly.
Dealing with Hodgkin's and losing her home "was just a setback in my life, an obstacle," Cash said. "I will come out of this stronger."