JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – In a wheelchair, unable to walk or speak, the family of a local teen with disabilities was hoping to build him a backyard oasis around a pool as part of his therapy.
However, 10 months after they paid for the job a local company hasn’t finished and they asked the News4JAX I-TEAM to help.
Dalton Brydges just turned 18 and his adoptive mother said she’s sickened someone would take advantage of her family.
“Dalton is the greatest gift I was ever given,” said his mother Robbin Brydges.
Robbin Brydges adopted him eight years ago. Dalton was born with cerebral palsy and is quadriplegic living in foster care with his brother Dawson.
With such special needs, it was hard to find someone who would care for Dalton and keep him together with his brother until Robbin and Steven Brydges came along. The rest is history a happy history.
“He is my purpose. Everything that I do, I always give me back my mind like, how’s it gonna work for him?” Robbin Brydges said.
She said they chose the Mandarin home where they now live because it had an inground swimming pool.
“He loves being in the swimming pool, and being able to take the pressure off his legs and his arms and all of that stuff. So like the pool is like huge for him,” Robbin Brydges said.
And last year the Brydges decided to upgrade their aging pool and screen porch. Robbin hired A1 Patio Solutions, of Orange Park, off Facebook after seeing positive reviews but she said her experience has been nothing but negative.
“His crew came and they were working hard. And it looked like they were doing a great job. I wasn’t going to micromanage them,” she said.
The estimate last May was for $10,000 and she showed records she paid owner Mike Ardolino $7,000 for supplies and the work they started. The remaining $3,000 balance was for completion of the job.
Then the work just stopped, and Brydges doesn’t know why.
“He just stopped communicating. They stopped coming,” she said.
Not only that, she said they left a mess including sand in the pool, a ruined pool pump and broken screens which cost her an additional $2,000. One of Dalton’s therapists referred her to News4JAX to help.
She had a message for the owner, who she said she tried to contact dozens of times to no avail.
“It’s sad. It’s just sad. It’s sad that you knew what my driving force was. My driving force was my son. This was entirely for him,” she said.
News4JAX tried calling Ardolino one more time from Robbin’s phone and it went straight to voicemail, but when we called from another number he picked up.
“So I’ve recently closed down on doing any kind of work so what can I do to help you?” he told her over the phone. “And I apologize that somehow somewhere we went down the wrong path. I’ll try to help you out the best I can. But I can’t possibly do all this right now. I haven’t, I don’t have any crews working for me. I mean, I don’t know what else to say.”
But that doesn’t seem to be the whole truth, because we’ve been watching his Facebook page and we’ve seen post after post of him soliciting new business in our area promising to do the same things he told Brydges he could no longer do.
A quick online search shows Brydges isn’t the only customer. There are multiple public complaints against Ardolino and his company.
News4JAX spoke to people who feel ripped off in Clay, St. Johns and Volusia Counties, all out thousands of dollars for jobs they say he started and never finished.
Steve Shivers, of St. Johns County, said he paid $4,500 in September 2023 for a job that Ardolino never even started.
“I really feel scammed,” Shivers told the I-TEAM. “You know, I just don’t understand how people like this can do this where they just take your money and then never even show up.”
Another homeowner, Judy C. of Clay County, said she hired A-1 in May of 2023. She said Ardolino even offered a law enforcement discount, because her husband is a first responder. However, she said his team left the job partially finished and not up to par.
“Mike promised that he would make it right and finish the job next week that he needed to order more coating and he would have his guys come out the next day to clean up the mess and they would be back the following week to finish. Unfortunately I took Mike for his word and paid him the balance.”
Judy said he took the money, $9,000, but never finished the job.
“The pool was supposed to be a sanctuary from our demanding and stressful jobs where we can spend quality time with our children and other loved ones,” she told the I-TEAM. “Now it’s just a sore spot in our lives and we have to save to have the job redone, hopefully correctly next time.”
A man in Volusia County said he paid a deposit of $8,000 for a gazebo project, but says A-1 Patio did no work. He said Ardolino offered to refund the money but never did. He paid by credit card and eventually disputed the charge and got his money back.
After the I-TEAM contacted him, Ardolino, who has a criminal history including fraud and burglary, showed up to Brydges home. We were around the corner and when we arrived, he drove off. That was January 31. For weeks after, he was unreachable.
Eventually, News4JAX got him on the phone and while he didn’t agree to an interview he swore he was going to fix everything to make it right for every angry customer within two weeks. That was early March. That time passed and he hasn’t done any work for any of them. In fact, recently he started another company for junk hauling using his former company’s email.
Tom Stephens, President of the Northeast Florida Better Business Bureau, said the company deserves its “F” rating for failing to address complaints customers have made to the BBB. He said customers who’ve had some work done can go to small claims court and those who’ve given money and had no work done could press charges for grand theft.
Stephens said an extra large upfront deposit is the number one red flag that a contractor may not follow through on their work.
“The absence of a written contract where he provides you a copy of the contract when you sign it. If he says, ‘I’ll mail it back to you, that is also a red flag,’” Stephens said.
Stephens said with the BBB and always search the company’s name with keywords like “scam.” Also, document everything and always file a police report even if officers may consider the case civil.
Brydges, who said she borrowed from her 401k to pay for the upgrades, has lost hope in what she calls empty promises but she’s determined to keep smiling for Dalton and find a way to build his dream backyard.
“I made a promise to him eight years ago that I would protect him with everything in me. And I would do right by him. And I would make sure that he never knew another day of sadness or hurt and I would protect him and this is for him,” she said.
Brydges and the other upset customers have filed police reports with their local agencies and they’ve reported this to the State Attorney General’s office. News4JAX has called Ardolino nearly a dozen times and we’ve had some lengthy conversations. He promises to make everything right but we’ve given him weeks of warnings before this story aired and we haven’t seen any progress.
On March 28, he said he was having issues with weather, staffing, and supplies. He acknowledged he did not meet the deadlines. He said he hopes to fix issues next week. The I-TEAM will let you know if he completes the jobs with the customers.