I hired Brad Wantt (Inflow Organization) in March 2025 to help clear out our family home so I could put it on the market after my elderly mother could no longer live on her own. Brad came highly recommended, and having met him in person a year prior, his warm, casual, and down-to-earth demeanor helped me feel comfortable trusting him and his subcontractors to do the delicate work of helping move my mom to assisted living, and clearing out our family home of 50 years filled with mountains of memories mixed in with a lot of junk. It was a complex project, and I diligently delivered detailed instructions every step of the way from out of state. At the outset, I asked Brad to provide an ongoing itemized accounting of his and his subcontractors' hours, since I was serving as sole trustee and needed a clear record of the work. He agreed and said he and his sub-contractor would track it in a shared document, but despite repeated follow-up throughout the engagement, no itemization was ever provided while the work was being done.
After I ended the arrangement in mid-April, as I scrambled to find other help so as not to delay my timeline, I received a brief hours summary about two weeks later through the professional who had referred him, broken down only by broad task category, with no dates or description of specific work performed. In an effort to keep my trustee records complete, and given the large price tag associated with it, I went back on my own and painstakingly added detail to account for the work Inflow Organization performed over the course of the four weeks I knew Brad and his team members were onsite, dates that were left out of his broad summary, so I could then pay him once my process was complete. I intended to follow up with him directly to finalize payment, as Brad and his team did perform work during this engagement and were owed payment for it. I never heard from Brad directly and assumed he was too busy and would get around to reaching out eventually, as was his pattern, or that he decided to walk away. I regret that the accounting breakdown made it difficult to resolve that in a timely and orderly way.
Four months after I'd lost contact with Brad, he recorded a mechanics lien on the property and stated he had served notice at the home, despite him helping me move my mother into assisted living and knowing I resided out of state. With the property being vacant at the time, neither of us received any notice. I only discovered the lien during escrow on the sale of the home three months after he'd filed it and had no choice but to pay it in order to complete the sale.
I contacted the California Contractors State License Board and the City of Chico directly and confirmed he holds no contractor's license and no business license to operate in Chico.
I'd encourage anyone considering this service to confirm licensing before hiring and to get a detailed written contract up front, and itemized invoicing on a regular basis.
