Volunteers pitch in to finish Mville house after contractor disappears

MARYSVILLE Its about the happiest ending possible for the nightmare a Marysville family has lived through this past year.
Last December a contractor disappeared in the middle of a remodeling project for the Zeigler family house. Several of the teens living in the home have severe health problems and the additional rooms and added story were to provide more space for the extended family.
But after pouring a foundation and tearing off the walls and part of the roof, the contractor left the $105,000 job halfway through, taking off with about $20,000 of the familys money.
Now volunteers are using materials donated by BMC West to complete a scaled-back design, and last weekend a crew got the roof trusses installed on the family abode. In addition to the generous donation from the Everett lumber supplier, the Zeiglers also got a boost from the Marysville United Methodist Church, who gave a $1,500 offering to the family.
Numerous other contractors have signed on to finish the work, spearheaded by Pat McDonnell of the Ask Mac construction management firm. He persuaded several other firms to pitch in, including Scaup General Contractors of Mountlake Terrace.
Carpenter Tyler Uptain was working on the site near Marysville-Pilchuck High School last weekend for the company. He said he was happy to help.
Well be here all weekend, Uptain said. They got screwed.
Michelle Zeigler said the entire family was extremely grateful for the support from so many people. Last spring the entire family was chosen to be the Strawberry Festival Presidents Marshals to highlight their plight. The year before their teenage daughter Alyssa was the Presidents Marshal to recognize her battle with a rare form of intestinal cancer. Her younger brother also has Gardners Syndrome and both are in remission but have to take a huge amount of costly medicines every day. In addition, father Mike had to take time off from his job at Boeing due to chronic back problems.
The last thing the Zeiglers needed was to have their house torn apart.
Unfortunately it happens all the time, according to Pat McDonnell, owner of the www.askmac.net Web site and construction management firm. He said he hears of debacles like the Zeiglers happening at least three times a week, and it makes him upset. Many times he has wanted to help one of the victims but didnt have the money or resources to do so.
Now he works to put contractors, suppliers and customers together, so it didnt take much effort to get BMC West to donate the materials or to find firms like Scaup and other volunteers to put things right.
It was kind of a goal of mine to do something like this, McDonnell said.
It should take another month to get the home finished, according to McDonnell, who pointed out that the contractors are spending their weekends working while maintaining their own businesses during the week. In addition the Zeiglers have some friends and volunteers from their church who are pitching in. But without the plywood, lumber and sheetrock from BMC it would all be moot.
They stepped right up, without a question they wanted to help out, McDonnell said. It was extremely cool of them.
We are extremely grateful to everybody, Michelle Zeigler said. This is so nice of them.
As for the contractor who skipped out on the job, Mike Zeigler said he is apparently working in the Yakima area and the less they hear from him, the better.

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