Two homeowners and a construction supplier are each locked in a months-long dispute with an Ottawa-based pool contractor over who’s at fault for tens of thousands of dollars worth of incomplete work and unpaid bills.Helen Catselis says she has struggled to recover funds from an Ottawa pool contractor and feels vulnerable as a consumer.
Leblanc refused to enter consumer mediation with one of the clients, accusing the woman of holding his tools "ransom." The homeowners have since connected on social media and posted publicly about their experiences — actions that Leblanc said cost him potential contracts in the present and future.Catselis booked her job for a new pool with Leblanc in late 2021 on the recommendation of a friend who had worked in the pool industry. She paid a deposit of $7,200 to secure the work.
Catselis says Leblanc and his workers cut down some trees, did some parging and moved this play structure. The work ended there. "I understand the $7,200 is negotiable with what work and what he had to pay," Catselis said about the prospect of losing the deposit. "We're definitely willing to negotiate that.""I've asked him to even deliver the kit. We asked to pick up the kit. We'll store it, we'll sell it, we'll do something with it. He's yet to produce it," she said.
Around the same time Catselis cancelled her job, Dan Coates said he was waiting for Leblanc to replace his pool heater. Coates had paid $4,000 up front and was going to pay the rest upon completion, as agreed via text messages."We trusted this person," Coates said. "We fully expected to give him the money and get our product."
Leblanc was unclear on what exactly unfolded during the period in question, though he said he was in traffic court on June 23. He also recalled one of the people scheduled on the job had a heart attack around that time. The outstanding amount, Tubman said, is for the concrete he supplied at four Poolcasso job sites from the summer of 2022.Gary Tubman of Dial-a-Mix Concrete says he is waiting on thousands of dollars in unpaid bills from Poolcasso.
Running parallel to the war of words on Facebook was yet another dispute between Leblanc and Catselis over the fate of his tools, some of which he had left behind in a bag while working on her backyard in the spring. When he said he was too "pissed off" to come by on June 27, Catselis responded: "You need to tell us when you want to come by and we will be there to meet you and give you your tools and discuss what we owe you and when you will have our money."
The couple also claimed Leblanc gave excuses that turned out to be false, when they called a manufacturer directly to fact-check why an order was delayed.
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