A woman who turned her home over to supposed renovation contractors prior to leaving for vacation later returned home to discover that they’d taken over her house and were, in fact, anything but contractors.
Maryland lawyer Cathy Lindberg Jarosz’s “nightmare” began in April of 2023 when she bought a home in Florida to be closer to her daughter, who’d just given birth, according to Independent Women’s Features.
Jarosz then turned her home over to Florida contractor Ray Badillo to renovate the place as she went on vacation outside the country. Badillo reportedly assured her that she “would come back to a beautiful home.”
Instead, she returned home to something altogether different.
“I drive to the house and see all this trash and debris and stuff, bad landscaping – really no landscaping on this house,” she recalled to IW Features.
“I drive by it and I go, ‘God, where’s my house?’ You know, it was a new house. So I go back and forth, trying to look for my house number, and I realized that thing is mine!” she added.
Things were even worse inside the “crack house,” as Jarosz called it.
“Wires popped out of the walls, the ceiling was coming down, the furniture was left outside in the sun, her artwork was ruined, one of her granddaughter’s toys had been used as a paint bucket, and what she described as semen stains were on the beds and couches,” according to IW Features.
Meanwhile, most of her furniture was gone, as were her clothes, her granddaughter’s toys, and everything in the kitchen.
Jarosz did the only thing she could — she locked the doors and called her husband back in Maryland. He “immediately” drove down to Florida, at which time the pair began cleaning up the damage.
It turned out that the contractors were, in fact, illegal aliens who’d been living in her home while she was on vacation — and who evidently were intent on still living in it after she returned home.
“[T]he workers continually came back to her house uninvited,” IW Features notes. “Some shook the locks attempting to enter as she slept, and one morning, when she opened her bedroom curtains, a worker was sitting on her porch.”
When Jarosz reached out to the authorities for help, they reportedly said they couldn’t do much of anything because the contractors were illegals and had evidently not committed a crime.
But this wasn’t Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ fault. Earlier this year, he signed a law making it easier to detain and arrest illegal aliens (see video below), but then an Obama-appointed district judge blocked it.
BREAKING – GOVERNOR RON DESANTIS: “It’s now a crime to enter Florida illegally. The days of catch and release are over. And all state/local law enforcement agencies have a duty to assist in interior immigration enforcement.”
“The voters have spoken, and Florida has responded.… pic.twitter.com/06C2hJocqJ
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 4, 2025
But it wasn’t just state officials and policies causing her concern.
“After receiving little help from the sheriff’s department, [Jarosz] said she placed signs on her lawn warning the contractors to keep out,” IW Features notes. “In response, her neighborhood’s Homeowners Association threatened her with a $5,000 fine if she kept them up.”
And then, when she sued Badillo, he refused to show up to court for six months. It didn’t help that the judge presiding over the case kept giving him extension after extension.
“I watched illegals having their fourth DWIs [in the courtroom],” Jarosz said. “Judges would say to these immigrants, ‘Well, I am so glad you came, just be careful and stop drinking.’ It took everything in my power not to scream. I’m an attorney from Maryland, and I’ve never seen something like this carnival.”
Not until June of 2024 was Badillo finally arrested and found guilty after it was discovered by prosecutors that he wasn’t licensed.
Jarosz blamed much of this on her realtor for recommending Badillo in the first place.
“Did she knowingly put this guy in our hands?” she asked rhetorically. “Did she know he’s going to steal?”
Jarosz also wished DeSantis and other state leaders would do more — anything more — to resolve the illegal alien crisis.
“It’s a nightmare. I have nothing good to say about it,” she said to IW Features. “DeSantis, he says, ‘I don’t like illegal migrants.’ But really? You’ve got so many, bud, even in the Panhandle. I see them in front of me!”
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V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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