Patryk Tararuj, the owner of a local cleaning business, said he tried every which way to get paid by one of his biggest clients — texting, calling, even showing up in person at its offices on Eastern Avenue in Fells Point.

Nothing worked, so Green Apple Cleaning of Baltimore sued Chasen Cos. This month, Tararuj’s business won.

Citing economic headwinds in the housing industry, the Baltimore developer has scaled back national expansion plans and reduced its headcount. Locally, it is facing lawsuits both big and small, including from vendors such as Green Apple Cleaning.

In a case in the District Court of Maryland for Baltimore City, the cleaner sought almost $22,000 in missing payments, in addition to interest, court costs and attorney fees. Chasen Cos. did not dispute that it owed Tararuj’s business money but contested the amount.

“It was just taking a lot of my time to chase this money,” Tararuj testified July 1. “I just couldn’t do this anymore.”

In ruling for the cleaner, the judge questioned Chasen Cos.’ recordkeeping and chided the developer for its unwillingness to work with a vendor.

Representatives of Chasen Cos., including its namesake co-founder, Brandon Chasen, did not respond to requests for comment. But they said in a previous interview that they were working to resolve legal matters and that such cases often are not as serious as they seem.

In another case, a contractor is seeking to establish liens on one of Chasen Cos.’ highest-profile projects, the redevelopment of the former Meyer Seed Co. warehouse on South Caroline Street, as well as on a property next door on Aliceanna Street.

Patriot Steel Fabrication Inc., a company based on the Eastern Shore, alleges in a lawsuit in Baltimore Circuit Court that Chasen Cos. owes more than $915,000 for work on the Meyer Seed building and almost $105,000 for work on the Aliceanna Street property.

Chasen Cos.’ project to transform Meyer Seed into boutique apartments and commercial space called The Whitney at the border of Fells Point and Harbor East spawned another lawsuit.

Emerging Concepts LLC of Chicago claims that Chasen Cos. hasn’t paid the first installment of a commission worth more than $500,000 for coordinating a deal with Puttshack, an upscale mini-golf and bar space that’s supposed to open on the building’s ground floor.

Chasen Cos.’ completed properties also are central to some of the new litigation.

Baltimore District Judge Jennifer Etheridge recently ordered Chasen Cos. to install surveillance cameras by Aug. 1 at a Mount Vernon property on Park Avenue near West Madison Street, after the city alleged the real estate company repeatedly violated an agreement to deal with trash.

Chasen Cos. has made a name for itself with a bullish acquisition strategy in neighborhoods including Fells Point and Mount Vernon, where it has become relatively prolific. Chasen and his business partner, Paul Davis, previously opened a string of CrossFit gyms and flipped single-family homes in the Baltimore area before launching what would eventually become Chasen Cos.

The two had ambitions that included taking the firm national with a $100 million expansion. The company owns residential buildings in Florida and Virginia and has a minority stake in an upscale condominium project in Florida called Glass House Boca Raton that is expected to open in 2026.

But Chasen Cos. has been reorienting, Chasen and Davis said in an interview in late May. They said their reconsideration of national plans would enable them to concentrate on Baltimore.

“Understanding the opportunity that we have to really shape the city of Baltimore excites us and energizes us and makes it where we want to continue to put our best foot forward,” Davis said. He added that Chasen Cos. wants to “make Baltimore what we sometimes call it, the Brooklyn of the mid-Atlantic.”

Chasen Cos. also is rehabilitating One Calvert Plaza skyscraper in downtown Baltimore. Work on the former Continental Trust Co. Building, Chasen has said, is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

The historic downtown skyscraper would join more than two dozen Baltimore properties included in the Chasen Cos. portfolio. Green Apple Cleaning of Baltimore was contracted to service most of them.

In his closing argument, Michael Coyle, Green Apple Cleaning’s attorney, said the business went above and beyond and responded to all types of “unusual circumstances,” including cleaning up human waste.

That’s despite the fact that Chasen Cos., Coyle said, was almost “constantly in arrears on the payments” and, at one point, owed the small business almost $70,000.

”For a small business, that is a devastating amount of money to not be paid,” Coyle said.

Still, Coyle said, his client never stopped providing cleaning services. Tararuj, he said, spent a significant amount of time out of his day “chasing Chasen down to get paid on invoices that were clearly due.”

Coyle called the developer the “600-pound gorilla in the room.”

“They knew that they could essentially bully my client into just continuing to do the work and not being paid,” Coyle said. “And they were really taken advantage of because of that dynamic.”

Greg Waterworth, Chasen Cos.’ attorney, said “things were very complex at that time” and “up in the air” because his client was changing property management companies. Property management now is handled by a Chasen Cos.-owned entity.

Waterworth disputed the allegations that his client tried to bully or take advantage of Green Apple Cleaning. Chasen Cos., he said, did not have all the invoices and paid at least one of them at issue. The appropriate amount, he contended, was less than $14,450. He provided paperwork that differed from what Green Apple Cleaning had in its records.

As the trial concluded, Baltimore District Judge Lydie Essama Glynn said there was clearly “no desire” from Chasen Cos. to meet with Tararuj to solve the problem, which pushed the owner to turn to the courts.

Glynn ordered Chasen Cos. to pay more than $23,000, plus court costs and almost $7,750 in attorney fees.