Contractor runs off after creating disaster in St. Louis Park, Minn.

ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. (KMSP) - A Twin Cities contractor is accused of doing demolition work for a home construction project, then running off with tens of thousands of dollars. A St. Louis Park, Minn. family says they hired contractor Mike Kappelhoff to build them a new house, but he instead allegedly collected over $50,000 and supplied only a partial demolition.

The company Armour Construction was hired for the job, but after two and a half weeks, work stopped. The family says the city of St. Louis Park told them there were no permits and Kappelhoff is not a licensed contractor.

"We were very nervous about writing those first few checks, but when he showed up and started doing work we thought, ‘this is good, we are going to have this dream house built,’” said Jennifer Hamm.

Kappelhoff says he intends to finish the job and return the Hamm family’s money. If the project is not finished in the next few weeks, the city will tear down the rest of the home and fill the hole in for safety reasons.