ORANGEVALE, Calif. — The promise of top quality ADU tiny homes has turned into a nightmare for many families in the Sacramento area. Now, the CEO of Anchored Tiny Homes is defending himself and promising to make things right by his customers.
Sarah Shuman's backyard in Orangevale is supposed to be a fresh start for her father-in-law. He lost his home in the 2018 Camp Fire.
"Dad was very persistent on, 'I want my own washer and dryer, and I want my own oven,'" she said.
The project to build him a tiny home started in February when Shuman and her family decided to hire Anchored Tiny Homes. Shuman agreed to pay around $120,000 for the completion of the project, but problems started happening when she noticed it was difficult to reach the company about potential flooding.
"I couldn't get an engineer or anybody from Anchored Tiny Homes to come out and take a look at it," she said.
The problems continued when she started to get notices of liens being put on her property.
"I'd reach out to my project manager. He said everything is fine," she recalled.
But nothing was fine as subcontractors stopped showing up to the project. It's been two and a half weeks since any work has been done and remnants of an unfinished construction site sit in her backyard.
"I just wanna kind of humbly come on here and say that I'm sorry to everybody," said Colton Paulhus, the CEO of Anchored Tiny Homes. "It was not our intention for any of this to happen and we just grew too fast. We took on too much debt and accounts payable built up to where we couldn't pay contractors on time just due to the explosive growth and it leaves, obviously jobs being stopped at this point. We're working, you know, 12-14 hour days to get investors in the door."
Shuman's family is one of many and Paulhus confirmed to ABC10 he canceled some contracts for other families in an attempt to make things right. It's an intention he says he has for all families.
"It is our intention to finish every single job. It is not our intention to stop projects. We're not abandoning people and leaving them high and dry," he said.
Shuman says the damage is done after spending about $116,000 on the unfinished project in her backyard.
"We're done. I'm done," she said.
Shuman also sent a letter to the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office explaining the problems she's experienced with Anchored Tiny Homes, asking them to investigate any potential illegal activity. A spokesperson with the DA's Office was unable to let us know if they're looking into it at this point, but will have an update soon.
Paulhus is aware of the letter and reassures his customers nothing illegal is happening and is hoping investors will join his company soon. He also hopes to have a positive update in the next few weeks.
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