A resident of the Laverock section of Cheltenham Township is getting some much-needed help from his neighbors.
Last week, Chris and Shannon Imhof-Clark got a knock on their door from their neighbor, “Mr. Bill”, because he needed to borrow a phone. It was then that they learned the 79-year-old widower was living in squalor. His roof had taken on several holes which left the home’s interior a festering mess, and in addition to living without a phone, he was also living without electricity.
Bill told the family that in 2024, men posing as inspectors showed up on his doorstep. They brought in a contractor and, after making extensive repairs to the roof, told Bill that there was additional work to be done to the property.
In the end, the group defrauded Bill out of roughly $400,000, according to Chris.
“They robbed him blind. They tore off his roof down to the wood and completely tore out his chimney. They just left it like that. The tarp had blown off sometime last winter. The ceiling collapsed in a couple rooms,” Chris, a father of five, said. “We had been checking on him every now and then, but we had no idea things had gotten to that point.”
By trade, Chris is a contractor who works regularly with household fire, water, and mold as they pertain to mitigation and reconstruction. On Saturday, he and other volunteers from the Laverock community came together to get started on making Bill’s home safe to live in.
“We used shovels to haul out a lot of stuff from various rooms. There was a pile of clothes that had mushrooms growing on them,” Chris said. “We don’t know if his insurance is going to cover it. I’m waiting for him to receive his policy documents which could bring some leverage from influential people to get him some coverage on the interior work. There’s mold throughout the home. He has a few rooms that are okay to be in, in the sense that they aren’t bad as other rooms.”
Chris said the good news is that Bill is no longer living in immediate danger.
“His electricity was off for two weeks. We got his furnace running again. We have the roof tarped. He’s living on Social Security which covers 60 percent of his total expenses. At the moment, he’s doing okay. He seems like he’s in good cheer,” Chris said, noting that even though the fraudulent contractors have since been allegedly arrested and imprisoned, Bill’s money is lost and gone forever. He estimates $100,000 – $200,000 of work to sell the house.
Bill was unavailable to speak with Glenside Local directly, though the Imhofs were able to share footage of the home’s roof and interior as of yesterday:
Shannon launched a GoFundMe on Friday to help with Bill’s financial status. The fundraiser has accumulated $1,197 at the time of this writing.
From the description:
This week, we learned that Mr. Bill is living in a house with holes in the roof, which have caused considerable debris, wildlife, and mold to collect in his home. He no longer has electricity in his home. He did something out of character when he rang our doorbell to ask to borrow a phone. It was then that we realized how much he was struggling. He told my husband his story about a contractor company and a scheme in which criminals posed as inspectors and pressured him to commit to roof work and other repairs. The perpetrators were supposedly arrested and are in jail, but Mr. Bill is left penniless in a house left in shambles, borrowing against his mortgage to make ends meet and stay alive. The total financial damage to Mr. Bill appears to exceed $400K, and we cannot fathom how a senior citizen on a fixed income is supposed to recover from this.
More to come.
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Photos: GoFundMe, Chris Imhof