TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A Florida woman attempting to sell her home was left shocked and searching for answers after her entire driveway was removed last month.
Amanda Brochu first shared her shocking story on GoFundMe back on Dec. 28. She said shortly after listing her Orlando-area home for sale, she began getting calls from people claiming they were “sent by a landlord to replace the driveway.”
The problem? Brochu owns the home and said she never needed a new driveway.
According to WFTV, Brochu’s son told her that people had stopped by the house to measure the driveway. The local outlet said Brochu counted five different contractors in the span of just a few days.
Then, one day when she came home, she found ripped-up grass and a muddy patch in the place where her concrete driveway used to sit.
“I came home and my driveway is gone,” she told WFTV.
According to WFTV, Brochu had confronted one of the contractors, who said a man claiming to be the landlord, named “Andre,” reached out to him to ask about a driveway replacement quote.
“While I was preparing to head out of town for my birthday and Christmas with my kids, I received a Ring doorbell notification that someone was outside of my house, ripping up my driveway before my eyes,” she wrote in her GoFundMe campaign.
Brochu added that by the time the cops got to her home, her driveway was “only dirt.”
She stated that when the cops called the number for whomever “requested” the job, “they first denied it and hung up on the cops, but then proceeded to text the cop ‘it was a mistake’ and sent the number of a supposed contractor that was actually the number to the Orlando Airport.”
“They said that he said it was a mistake,” she told WFTV. “He just got the address wrong, nothing else will happen again.” The next week, her driveway was gone.
The sight even left Brochu’s real estate agent, Rocki Sanchez, in disbelief, according to WSVN.
“Utter shock. I’ve never seen this before. I’ve never had this happen to myself or anyone in our office,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez told WSVN that she posted about the incident in a Facebook group for relators, who said they’ve “seen things like this happen” before. Sanchez said she believes Brochu is a victim of a scam.
“I had multiple people come forward saying that they’ve seen things like this happen — whether it be driveways, roofs, painting, even outside the exterior,” she told WSVN. “So it happens more often than we actually see it.”
According to WSVN, Brochu had previously replaced her roof and made another investment, and didn’t have the $10,000 she was quoted to replace her driveway. With a missing driveway, she feared that no one would buy her home.
“No one’s gonna buy this. This brings down the property now, and that just messes it up for me and my family,” she said.
Luckily for Brochu and her family, WFTV reported that after hearing her story, a sponsor for a local radio station offered to install a new driveway at no cost. The local outlet said Brochu plans to donate the $13,543 raised on GoFundMe to a local nonprofit.
