A while back I was going through my Google Anayltics stats and noticed a lot of people surfing in here searching on information about Armando Montelongo. I had done an entry on him back in December of 2006, but it wasn’t what people were looking for.

I saw they were being a bit more specific were looking for stories about an episode of Flip This House they were calling “The Cathouse”. As I missed the episode when it originally aired, I finally hunted it down and discovered it was really called “Little House of Horrors“. Everyone had discussed how this was like the must see episode when it came to the Montelongos. Eh.

All the hoopla was over the fact that it seemed the Montelongo brothers finally called it quits with David, the “nice” one of the two, saying he didn’t want his name associated with this particular house.

See, Armando, in his usual fashion, was going for the cheapest way to flip the house he had purchased, the problem was, this time it was a bio-hazard. No, I am not exaggerating, it truly was a hazard. Who ever owned the house before him had not exactly kept it, honestly, I won’t even tell you the details, they were disturbing enough to watch. The house was a disaster, and unsafe for people to enter, let alone live in it.

After learning what would would need to be done, he tried skimp out on the clean-up since he only had $3,000 left in the budget. He got a quote for $18,000, talked them down to $13,500, and went with it. Even after five dumpsters were taken away, the house still had damaged walls, roach excrement, and a foul smell. Instead of pulling out the dry wall, he wanted to paint over it, and that’s when David and his wife walked out. Eventually Armando did have to rip out everything, but only when he learned the walls were filled with rat nests.

Here’s the thing that got me, according to everything I can find, this really was the end of their partnership, but talk about going out with a whimper. “I don’t want my name on this project and I’m walking away.” Um… okay… really… that’s it? That was the WHOLE “fight” to dissolve the partnership? And apparently the brothers don’t even talk now. Over… one house. Okay, that makes PERFECT sense.

Anyone else thinking there’s a bunch of stuff we didn’t see? Yeah… I thought so too.

Since then, Armando has gone on to start ArmandoMontelongo.com, where for ONLY $997 he will teach you his “secrets” to flipping houses without even using your own money! Yes… it’s called “kiting” loans and it’s about as dangerous as can be if you have no clue what you’re doing. Oh… and low morals about people’s health safety helps too.

As I said back in December, I have no clue how anyone could buy a house from these people after seeing them on the show.  They do shoddy work (to my untrained eye), have no concern for the quality of work, and generally treat everyone like they’re there to serve at their pleasure.

Oh, and that brings me to another point: How does any contractor end up working with them?   How did the bio clean-up people afford to cut their estimate (which they swore they couldn’t do it for less then $18,000) by 25%?  I mean, I’m in business, I understand negotiation, but 25%?  Yeah, sure the fact the folks getting advertising on a national cable channel doesn’t help with that at all.

UPDATE 04/13/09 – Read about the email I got from Armando’s “legal team“