Unstarted, but paid for bath remodel project

NEW JERSEY (WABC) -- The company bills itself as the "world's largest bathroom remodeler," but a New Jersey homeowner says a local franchisee took the money and did nothing - it was time for 7 On Your Side to roll up its sleeves and go to work.

You want rush hour - check out mornings in the Sweeney family's bathroom. Five people, including 3 growing girls, share one bathroom that's cramped and now cracked. (38:20 t1 possibly)

"It's our only bathroom and we needed to have it done quickly, so we agreed to have it done while we were on vacation," Lisa Sweeney said.

Bathroom remodeler, Re-bath, seemed like the perfect solution.

"They were gonna replace the fixtures and put shelves up," Sweeney said.

Lisa picked Tuscan elegance, which was cheaper than gutting it and, as their commercial showed, fast.

"They do it in hotels and they looked absolutely stunning so we thought it was a perfect fit for us," she said.

Last June, Lisa paid $2400 to an independent, local Re-bath franchisee called ATF Contracting. The approximate finish date was mid-August. The work still has not started.

" We left phone call after phone call, message after message, and no phone calls back," Sweeney said.

So we visited the franchise's local office.

The office was empty. Only a stack of mail was visible.

"I thought they took my money and ran," she said.

Our calls to the local contractor went unanswered, so we called the parent company, Re-bath.

Re-bath stepped up quickly, apologized for its franchisee and sent out a check for nearly 24-hundred.

"They did it quickly. They did it professionally and I couldn't ask for a better resolution," Sweeney said.

The homeowner said it contacted the parent company a few days before getting in touch with me - and hadn't yet gotten results. Re-bath acknowledged some problems with this franchisee and said it had already begun working on Lisa's issue before we called.

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