When Cathy Lindberg Jarosz handed over her keys to a recommended Florida contractor, Ray Badillo, for home repairs while she traveled, she had no idea it would be the start of a years-long nightmare.

Wishing to be closer to her daughter, who had just had a baby, Lindberg, a Maryland lawyer, decided to purchase a home in Destin, Florida, in April 2023. Knowing they’d be out of the country that summer for several weeks, Lindberg also decided to renovate the new place. Her realtor assured her that when she came back from her trip, she “would come back to a beautiful home.” 

On August 13, 2023, Lindberg landed back in Florida, excited to see her newly renovated house. 

“I drive to the house and see all this trash and debris and stuff, bad landscaping – really no landscaping on this house. I drive by it and I go, ‘God, where’s my house?’ You know, it was a new house,” Lindberg told IW Features. “So I go back and forth, trying to look for my house number, and I realized that thing is mine!”

The scene indoors wasn’t much better, Lindberg said, describing the sight as akin to a “crack house.” Wires popped out of the walls, the ceiling was coming down, the furniture was left outside in the sun, her artwork was ruined, one of her granddaughter’s toys had been used as a paint bucket, and what she described as semen stains were on the beds and couches. 

Most of the furniture she had moved into the house had been stolen, as well as everything in the kitchen cabinets, her clothes, and her granddaughter’s toys. 

Lindberg locked the doors and called her husband, who immediately hopped in the car and drove from Maryland. 

As Lindberg and her husband spent thousands of dollars cleaning up the damage left by the contractors, who had apparently lived in her house while she was traveling, the workers continually came back to her house uninvited. Some shook the locks attempting to enter as she slept, and one morning, when she opened her bedroom curtains, a worker was sitting on her porch. 

Lindberg said she reached out to the sheriff’s office for help, but was told that because many of the contractors were likely illegal immigrants, local law enforcement couldn’t do much unless they were committing a crime. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law earlier this year to make it easier for local law enforcement to detain and arrest individuals suspected of being illegal immigrants, but a U.S. District Court judge has blocked enforcement of the law. However, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier told local law enforcement in April that “no lawful, legitimate order currently impedes your agencies from continuing to enforce Florida’s new illegal entry and reentry laws.” 

After receiving little help from the sheriff’s department, Lindberg said she placed signs on her lawn warning the contractors to keep out. In response, her neighborhood’s Homeowners Association threatened her with a $5,000 fine if she kept them up. 

Lindberg’s legal battle seeking restitution for her ruined house became her next nightmare. The contractor she had hired for her home’s renovations, Ray Badillo, refused to show up in court for six months. Instead of working to hold Badillo accountable, the judge overseeing the case gave him extension after extension, she said. 

“I watched illegals having their fourth DWIs [in the courtroom],” Lindberg said. “Judges would say to these immigrants, ‘Well, I am so glad you came, just be careful and stop drinking.’ It took everything in my power not to scream. I’m an attorney from Maryland, and I’ve never seen something like this carnival.”

Badillo eventually was arrested and found guilty in June 2024 and ordered to pay partial restitution, Lindberg said. The deciding factor in the case was an investigation by the  Walton County state’s attorney’s office in December 2023, which found Badillo was not licensed. An unlicensed electrician by the name of Luis Alejandro Morales Alvarez, whom Badillo often hired, was also fined for his illegal business in April 2023, before Lindberg bought her home. 

Lindberg said if she had known Badillo was operating an unlicensed business, she likely would have avoided hiring him in the first place. To that end, she also blasted her realtor, whom she is also suing, for being negligent in wholeheartedly recommending Badillo to her.

“I don’t know one realtor since 2016 that has not been scared that they’re going to be sued for negligence [if they endorse unlicensed contractors]. Did she knowingly put this guy in our hands? Did she know he’s going to steal?” Lindberg asked.

Lindberg said she also wishes Florida officials would do more to address the flood of illegal migrants into the state’s communities since the Biden administration’s border crisis began in 2021 — especially when it comes to removing those here illegally.

“It’s a nightmare. I have nothing good to say about it,” she said. “DeSantis, he says, ‘I don’t like illegal migrants.’ But really? You’ve got so many, bud, even in the Panhandle. I see them in front of me!”

Florida, like many red states, has ramped up its own immigration enforcement in recent years to help mitigate the consequences of President Joe Biden’s open borders policies. But Lindberg’s story proves these policies have touched every community—red or blue. 

In fact, in just the last year, Florida has experienced a massive influx of illegal migrant encounters, experiencing more encounters in 2024 than in 2021, 2022, and 2023 combined. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has ramped up deportation efforts in the state, partnering with the Glades County Sheriff’s Office to add 500 more beds in the jails for detainees. 

“But we’re tied emotionally,” Cathy said of how important her move to Florida was. “Because our daughter has two little ones, and she needs help, you know. So she can say, ‘Mom, take care of them,’ and I can say, ‘not only will I take care of them, I’m gonna let them spend the night for two or three days so you can get a break.’”