- Sylvia Blankenship lost approximately $120,000 to a contractor who abandoned the renovation of her historic farmhouse in Alamance County, North Carolina.
An Alamance County, North Carolina, woman says she lost roughly $120,000 to a contractor who abandoned the renovation of her historic farmhouse and later pleaded guilty to six felonies. Sylvia Blankenship hired Danny Lynch in 2021 to restore a farmhouse she had recently purchased, a home built in 1910 with a log cabin as part of the structure, WFMY News 2 reported. She came forward a day after the station reported on a Guilford County homeowner with a nearly identical account of the same contractor.
Blankenship says she attempted to vet Lynch prior to signing the agreement. To do this, she requested that he provide some of his previous employers as references, then called each reference personally to determine whether they would recommend him. According to Blankenship, the response from these references was sufficient for her to continue on and sign the renovation contract, which totaled approximately $150,000.
The job started well, Blankenship said. Lynch showed up every day at first and was doing all kinds of things around the property. The daily visits then dropped to weekly ones, and eventually he stopped coming at all. She said she texted him repeatedly asking where he was and why the work had halted, and that he simply quit showing up…