The companies were fined hundreds of thousands of dollars and sued repeatedly over shoddy construction and work that destroyed neighbors’ homes. Then, many of them simply disappeared.

Based on the document trail leading to its doorstep, 7710 Castor Ave. in Northeast Philadelphia should be a hive of corporate activity — the past or current headquarters of at least 25 companies doing framing, roofing, foundations or other construction work in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Yet, on a recent weekday afternoon, the doors were locked and no one answered at the modest storefront, which houses a school called the Philadelphia English Language Institute and features a small poster with a Brazilian flag advertising a notary service. All that’s visible of these company headquarters is a bank of mailboxes along a wall of the tidy waiting room.

Many of those companies are short-lived — and none are, or ever were, actually located at the address.

The existence of some of the companies comes to light only when disaster strikes — in a trail of lawsuits alleging defective construction, stolen money, and work that damaged or destroyed neighboring homes, and in grim Occupational Safety and Health Administration reports of workers being endangered, harmed, or even killed.

Despite amassing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and dozens of civil lawsuits, the companies using the Castor address have largely been able to evade actual accountability by changing their names and moving on, an Inquirer investigation has found.

These fly-by-night companies often operate without licenses or permits, and therefore without oversight. But a review of public records revealed that some were licensed with the state Attorney General or the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections.

In many cases, these companies were found working on the projects of much larger, licensed companies — part of an epidemic of illegal subcontracting that the city and developers have struggled to curb.

That so much mayhem could be linked to one small storefront is not entirely surprising, said Philadelphia Controller Christy Brady, who recently announced plans to audit L&I’s building oversight in response to the Inquirer’s “Crumbling City” series.

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