Lil Snoozy has closed shop

[Ice-breaker]

Originally Posted by Jack L

I am very sorry for those of you (45) who have deposits on these trailers.

Something "stinks" here. As I read all of these posts, several things jump out as alarming.
1. It appears the last announced lead time was 14 months.
2. There are 45 deposits on un-started trailers
3. The factory was working on 2 units at a time.

If all of this is spot on 100% correct, and I suspect it's pretty close it would appear the real lead time for the 45th order is 26+ YEARS.

A rotten situation.

Unless you know the actual time required to construct a trailer, it is not possible to predict the "real lead time" with the information provided in your 3 bullets. However, given that Snoozy is no longer producing, the lead time on all of the 45 trailers on order will definitely be consistent with your prediction of 26+ years.

[Ed Harris]

OK this seems to me like an obvious place to start and I am not trying to sound too nasty about the "Birth Father" of the company but.......

Has it occurred to anyone or is anyone here near the factory that could just go knock on the door at the Pool Company AlaGlass next door that clearly bears the name of Alan Smoak who started Snoozy from there in the first place?
Is the pool place out of business too?

I know he was said to have sold the company but it sounds like he was surely still involved more than a little bit and maybe in many ways and this is at least a physical location where someone will have to know something,it just is not believable to me that it would be otherwise?
It should not be to difficult to have a face to face talk about this if you were so motivated?

There is not much to lose here and many thousands to maybe gain but that is sure where I go first be if in this position.

[Raspy]

Originally Posted by Ed Harris

OK this seems to me like an obvious place to start and I am not trying to sound too nasty about the "Birth Father" of the company but.......

Has it occurred to anyone or is anyone here near the factory that could just go knock on the door at the Pool Company AlaGlass next door that clearly bears the name of Alan Smoak who started Snoozy from there in the first place?
Is the pool place out of business too?

I know he was said to have sold the company but it sounds like he was surely still involved more than a little bit and maybe in many ways and this is at least a physical location where someone will have to know something,it just is not believable to me that it would be otherwise?
It should not be to difficult to have a face to face talk about this if you were so motivated?

There is not much to lose here and many thousands to maybe gain but that is sure where I go first be if in this position.

Ed,

Alan was contacted. Read posts 17 and 42.

It's not clear how much Alan knows, but he came up with a very nice design and pushed it into production. Then sold the business and kept the building. If he would have had any knowledge that this was going to happen, it's likely he would have done something to protect his interests, his income, and possibly the people that had put down deposits. He surely is not part of some illegal scheme here or he is in serious trouble. It seems more likely that Richard just ran away with no notice to anyone. Alan will definitely be contacted because he is running a business right next door as I understand it.

Yes, it would be good to have a conversation with Alan, just in case. And some already have.

[Kevin7]

[Ed Harris: OK this seems to me like an obvious place to start and I am not trying to sound too nasty about the "Birth Father" of the company but.......
Has it occurred to anyone or is anyone here near the factory that could just go knock on the door at the Pool Company AlaGlass next door that clearly bears the name of Alan Smoak who started Snoozy from there in the first place?
Is the pool place out of business too?]


Oh yeah, it has occurred to me, Ed... unfortunately it is not an easy drive for me, but I'd love to have a little heart to heart with anyone and everyone involved. I did call Alaglas Pool (803-655-5000) and talked to Marlin (sp?), who didn't know anything about Lil' Snoozy, asked me to spell it and said he'd ask his manager and call me back. He did say that Alaglas Pool is owned by a couple -the names I don't recall- but not Alan Smoak.

[Ed Harris]

Originally Posted by Raspy

Ed,

Alan was contacted. Read posts 17 and 42.

It's not clear how much Alan knows, but he came up with a very nice design and pushed it into production. Then sold the business and kept the building. If he would have had any knowledge that this was going to happen, it's likely he would have done something to protect his interests, his income, and possibly the people that had put down deposits. He surely is not part of some illegal scheme here or he is in serious trouble. It seems more likely that Richard just ran away with no notice to anyone. Alan will definitely be contacted because he is running a business right next door as I understand it.

Yes, it would be good to have a conversation with Alan, just in case. And some already have.

Yeah I read those posts,I have read every post but some things here just do not seem plausible to me and likely not all should be taken at face value.

I am not buying into or pointing the finger at anything really but not all of this adds up either to me on a practical level.

So I am just saying that if it were me and I was in the area I would knocking the doors down to get any answers that I could.

I am also not suggesting that any of this is on the buyers,not even a little bit just to be clear.

I would not be one who went quietly on my way though waiting for something to happen without getting in there first.

[jgilliam1955]

Originally Posted by Dekcrab

I placed my order and deposit on October 18 last year and was told the wait would be 14 months. I retired in December and have enjoyed reading about full time RVing, studying solar power systems and slowly aquiring hoses, cables, adapters and scissor jacks. A generator is on order and a manual laundry machine is in the back of my truck. Luckily 99% of the things can be used on another brand of fiberglass camper.

Scott aka Dekcrab

I did the same thing in 2017 until March 2019.. But Yesterday I ordered a Castia Fiberglass camper. They had a couple on the lot you can purchase today. I went ahead and ordered one the wife picked out. Delivery date is May 6th. Big difference in attitude. It was a very pleasant experience.

[Glenn Baglo]

Congrats. Update your profile.

[Dan and Liz in VT]

Just to add a little more fuel to this fire...…

My wife and I are one of the people stuck in this mess having ordered our Snoozy back in early August 2017. This may give us the distinction of being one of the oldest outstanding orders that wasn't built. I spoke a couple of days ago to Harrison Penn, Richard's bankruptcy attorney. Let me acknowledge from the outset that this is Richard's attorney, so everything he told me needs to be taken with a healthy grain of salt but none the less, a lot of it made sense.

This is a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The business is closed. The US Bankruptcy Court in Columbia will be appointing a trustee. The trustee's job is to liquidate anything that can be sold to make the largest possible payout to the creditors. All of us with deposits are in the highest class of creditors owed money. There are higher classes of creditors than us (e.g. state and federal taxes) but no money is owed to them. The bad news is, there isn't much to liquidate. No partially built trailers or other inventory, no building, etc. The most promising news was that LilSnoozy LLC may have cause for legal action against someone (don't know who) for patent infringement. This Harrison Penn guy is not the attorney handling that case but he has spoken with whoever it is. That attorney thinks there may be some legitimate hope LilSnoozy can recover at least some of what it is owed from that lawsuit. That money would go to paying us all back. Penn told me that Richard personally owes money apart from what LilSnoozy LLC owes. My guess is that debt is probably what he owes Alan Smoake for the original purchase.

Mr. Penn told me that the inventory of owner supplied items (fridges, batteries, fans, etc.) has been moved off site. Penn will be working with Richard to get those items returned to the people who purchased them.

I asked about liquidating the molds. Penn said the molds are in very bad condition and likely won't bring much or anything when the trustee goes to sell them.

The next steps are for Penn to get the full list and contact information of the creditors. If you have not yet spoken to him, you should to make certain you are on the list and he knows how to contact you. Sometime in the next 90 days, Penn will file the bankruptcy papers with the court and the trustee will be appointed. From there, we will hear more information about the process from the trustee as it moves forward.

My final question to Penn was how did all this happen? It sounded like it was a multitude of factors. When LilSnoozy was formed, the fiberglass boat business was way off. Since then, fiberglass boats have made a comeback and it was very difficult for Richard to find the labor and suppliers to keep a steady stream of shells flowing to him. Unemployment in his area is apparently low and he also had problems keeping reliable labor in the shop. As delivery times kept getting extended, his cash flow was hurt and he had ongoing costs for rent, pay for Amy, etc. that he fell behind on. Eventually the whole thing snowballed and orders for new Snoozys slowed down because delivery was so long. It all sounded believable to me.

Bottom line- it sounds pretty unlikely any of us will get much back on our deposits. Probably not a story of anything other than a small business that was mismanaged and went under. It certainly leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[Raspy]

Dan,

Thanks for that report. It all sounds reasonable and sad.

Interesting that there may be a patent infringement and also interesting that the molds are in bad shape.

Judging by how simple the design is and that so much of it was outsourced, it seems like it could be re-started by someone else, but it will have to be an entirely new company and that won't help the people who lost their deposits. Now, with even the molds in bad shape, there really isn't much to re-start.

[Vintage Vagabonds]

Dan, thank you for the update. I emailed my contact info to the attorney a couple days ago, but hadn't heard from him yet. It is good to hear that the personal property items will be returned, though I suspect that I will have a 14 hour drive to pick up the damn Truck Fridge. Looks like I will be moving on to a Casita, like Jack did.

[CarlD]

When I was at Lil Snoozy last spring. Richard had the original plug in the back building. It is used to make the molds. Richard did indicate at the time that he was considering making an additional set of molds. Who knows what condition they are in.


By the way, the serial number on my Lil Hauley, which I picked up just before Christmas is 375. I would assume it is the same series as the Lil Snoozys.

[JBB]

Originally Posted by CarlD

When I was at Lil Snoozy last spring. Richard had the original plug in the back building. It is used to make the molds. Richard did indicate at the time that he was considering making an additional set of molds. Who knows what condition they are in.


By the way, the serial number on my Lil Hauley, which I picked up just before Christmas is 375. I would assume it is the same series as the Lil Snoozys.

Carl - I started a thread on production numbers asking a question about them.

[CarlD]

I did not see the other thread, I duplicated the information there.

[Dan-NS27]

Originally Posted by Dan and Liz in VT

I asked about liquidating the molds. Penn said the molds are in very bad condition and likely won't bring much or anything when the trustee goes to sell them.

Curious what their condition is. Depending on how they are, it's possible to have them reconditioned and put back into service. That's at least what the builder of my sailboat had done on the last couple years before selling the molds.

But, if the plugs are still available, then a new set is very possible. Either way will take some effort to get going again.

[Raspy]

Starting up again by someone else would, of course, do zero for those that have lost their deposits. Their credibility is also now very damaged. And there are only old molds not worth saving and suppliers that may not want to deal with them anymore.

It would be starting from scratch.

And that makes it much harder than stepping into a running business with a loyal customer base. The design is good, but the rest is a disaster.

So it would have to be a long term commitment by someone with fairly deep pockets. Who is that?

It would probably be easier and better to start fresh with a new plug and some modifications to make it a new model. But then use the same idea assembling parts, like the frame and interior parts from outside manufacturers. The overall design is remarkably simple.

Oliver would be a good place to get the molds and the shells produced. They have been in the fiberglass business for years. They do very high quality work and have the manufacturing capacity to supply more shells than could be sold. Then get the frame manufacturer to produce more of those, and off we go! Those frames are modified boat trailers, and according to Alan, are produced by a company doing it since the 50s.

[Steve L.]

For a while, I worked for a contract engineering house. They went out of business. I did not get paid for two months. The company I was being leased to even went with the contract house owner with their check to cover pay for us contract engineers and watched him deposit the check so we could then resubmit our checks and get paid. However, the sleazeball had his wife at another branch who immediately withdrew what her husband was depositing at another branch. Nothing left for us.

We couldn't even collect unemployment for the two months because we were employed, we just weren't being paid. To the government, being paid was not a necessary requirement for being employed.

The point of my story is that, frankly, I doubt any of them feels guilty and I further suspect nobody's going to get squat. A hard lesson but I can't articulate what it is exactly.

I won't be disappointed to be wrong, but I think it's unlikely.

[gordon2]

Originally Posted by Steve L.

... A hard lesson but I can't articulate what it is exactly.....

Never put down a deposit larger than you are willing to lose.

[Dan-NS27]

Originally Posted by jerrys

We are one of the 45 that lost deposit and have been waiting.

Welcome to the forum jerrys. Sorry you got caught up in all this.

[bsedwebt]

This could have been me in 2015 with another brand that went under. I am so glad I took the advice from this group and did not put out $15k as was being demanded. I thought ordering a new trailer would be like having my house built - some down, some more when it reached 30% etc... Then I was told how Casita and Scamp do it and was floored. I really wanted that one as it was a perfect fit for us and was within minutes of doing the deal - I had even bought several items and was going to deliver them. A few days later they closed up shop. I feel really bad for all the folks in this situation - not just for the financial hardship but the broken heart for losing their dream. It is years later and I still have feelings about it and I had very little financial loss. After this I ordered a Casita and it could not have gone any better. We love it and the Casita are top notch in our book.

[CompactJR-Sailor]

We were close to putting in an order for a trailer, but someone told me they required 10k. Also, behind by 40 some campers. I was an accountant and they were holding too much deposit money.
We purchased a 2018 Casita Freedom and love it