Posted in Personal Injury Lawyer
James and Anna Morrissey, who purchased a $1.36 million home featured on the reality show “Windy City Rehab,” have filed a lawsuit against the show’s hosts to force them to take the home back, which allegedly has shoddy work.
The couple claim that just one day after they closed on the luxury home in Lincoln Square, an upper-floor shower leaked gallons of water into the kitchen and ceiling below. Things continued to get worse after that. The roof and windows started to leak, the door was crooked and large areas of masonry started to crumble.
The show’s episode about the 4,000 square foot home, which aired last January, ended with a gorgeous rehab filled with beautiful furnishings. During the big reveal at the end of the show, a couple of stand-ins substituted for the Morriseys, who didn’t want to be on camera.
“You killed it,” the actress pretending to be the buyer told the show’s host, Alison Victoria Gramenos, “It’s amazing,” she went on to say. Alison Victoria said, “It’s a huge house and a huge risk, and we hope that this is your forever home.”
The couple tried multiple times to get Victoria, and her co-star, Eckhardt, to repair several problems with the home but didn’t have any success.
“Know you guys are on it but it looks like the whole area for a few inches around the window frames are now bubbling and still dripping,” reads one text from owner, Anna Morrissey, on April 29. “Could be seeping through from the roof and making its way through the wall above and around the windows … Just worried because we’re taking on a good amount of water.”
In September, she texted Eckhardt about the leaking shower: “We really need an update … It’s been nearly 7 months since the bathroom was first reporting leaking … please please”.
The Morrisseys have sued TV hosts Alison Gramenos and Donovan Eckhardt for defective and shoddy work, breach of contract, breach of warranty and consumer fraud. They demand the reversal of the sale last March of the home, in addition to the $80,000 they paid for upgrades and landscaping and emotional distress and punitive damages.