Homeowners around the Windham area are advised to think twice before accepting offers from a door-to-door paving and gravel company that offers cheap rates and has no permanent address.

The transient paving company, described as “gypsy pavers” by residents, has been approaching property owners this month and offering discounted services.

Lt. David DeGruchy, of the Windham Police Department, said this resembles an old con.

“They’ll say, ‘I’ve got an extra load of tar from a job,” he said. DeGruchy said they’ll promise a big discount and ask to be paid up front. Then, they’ll usually leave town.

“If they do put anything down, it’ll be a substandard job,” said DeGruchy. Paving scam artists have been known to jackhammer driveways and take off. Others leave a thin, brittle layer of tar.

DeGruchy said he hasn’t gotten any reports from citizens who have been ripped off, but said his department was warned of the pavers by one resident.

Rep. Gary Plummer, of Gray Road, said he considered accepting the business offer, but declined when things got fishy.

“It just didn’t sound right to me, and there were too many different stories,” he said.

He said the paving company in question appears to be a family of seven or eight people. He said they gave several different Italian last names and appear to be of Italian descent. The pavers bickered among themselves and contradicted each other’s stories, he said.

Plummer said several of them claimed to own the business. Some of them said the company is based out of Casco, others said Windham.

“They took credit for several jobs I don’t know if they actually did,” said Plummer. He said one of them told him he had done the driveway for Moonshine Signs in Windham.

Moonshine Signs owner Keith Stiles said that may be an exaggeration. He said he uses a different company that he has a good relationship with for his paving needs. Stiles said he thinks one of the pavers may have worked on his driveway as part of the first company, then struck out on his own and started the transient company.

Stiles said he is very happy with his paving company, and he doesn’t know if the one roaming Windham is doing anything illegal or immoral for sure.

Plummer said when he told the company he wasn’t interested, one of the pavers told him, “Let me show you what we can do,” and scraped off a layer of his gravel driveway with a Bobcat front-end loader. They put down a pile of new gravel in his driveway and said they’d be back that weekend.

Plummer said the gypsy pavers told him on Saturday they didn’t have an account with the only gravel company open on the weekend and needed cash for the purchase.

“I said, ‘are you kidding me?'” Plummer recalls. Although he halted all business talks with the company after that, he said he plans to use the pile of driveway gravel they left.

Former Windham town councilor David Tobin was also approached by the pavers and told they had some extra materials and offered a discounted rate. Tobin turned them down.

“We dodged a bullet, I guess,” said Tobin.

Pavingscam1-2: State Rep. Gary Plummer of Gray Road in Windham stands behind the pile of driveway gravel a suspicious paving business gave him as a sample. Their method of operation resembles an old scam where they collect money for work and skip town.Pavingscam1-2: State Rep. Gary Plummer of Gray Road in Windham stands behind the pile of driveway gravel a suspicious paving business gave him as a sample. Their method of operation resembles an old scam where they collect money for work and skip town.