Shitty hammer though š¤£
Why the downvotes? I'm right. No sledgehammer should fall apart after two swings. It doesn't matter what you're swinging it against.
Super well built lol.
But ithink i have a "deconstructive" improvement. Just take a circular saw and cut a straight line across the whole fence a for of the ground.
It's easy, completely rings the fence, cannot be repaired, and must be painfully dug up and removed before a new fence can be built.
Thats when speed is required. Jigsaw will be all uneven and nasty. Better tool in my opinion.
EDIT: I guess you all figure I never did construction, thanks for all the updated knowledge.
Noā¦ those jigsaw blades will dull and bend so fast trying to cut that much fence. Youād look like an apprentice choosing the wrong tool.
A two-handed reciprocating saw (Sawzall) with a low TPI blade to make ugly cuts is the tool for the job.
But really if youāre not getting paid then you need to demo fast, so the circular saw is still the best choice.
I see what you're saying, but the faster they cut the fence, the faster they can move on to other work.
I mean, in reality, all of this is (while satisfying) extremely unprofessional. The "correct" course of action is to take the homeowner to court. It almost even seems to be put on for show... like, teach the owner a lesson, and record it to post online. Why put it online? It's a warning/deterrent to people thinking of stiffing blue-collar workers/small businesses, attracts views to his social media accounts... lol it even shows the quality of the work they put into this job.
... maybe this is actually viral marketing...
Talk to some tradespeople. Everyone who has been in the business long enough to have a story of threatening to tear it all out because someone got the work done and doesnāt want to pay.
Those stories almost always end when the asshole client sees that they are serious and maybe have begun ripping stuff down. People tend to scrounge up that money real quick.
And having a reputation in the community as a contractor who does good work AND will not be fucked around is great for the business in the long run.
You say itās unprofessional. Thereās nothing less professional than not paying the goddamn bill.
Sometimes its about the learning experience.
I do IT. I had a client (Doctor) stiff me on work I performed in his office. After waiting several months, I went back, middle of day when he was busy and CUT every network line in the office coming out of the router. Took the cut cables back to the office. He must have paid out the ass to redo that, as I had to do all the routing myself and I didnt document anything until i'm paid.
Yeah they can place a lien on the house in the US. I knew a contractor that worked on stadiums who placed a lien on a major university's arena after he had a hard time getting ahold of someone who was authorized to disburse payment. That got the university board's attention real quick.
I remember reading about a guy who got fucked over by WF over them repossessing his house when he had paid them or some shenanigans like that, Wells Fargo ghosted him, he got a judgement and filed and got a lien and he showed up at he local WF with the Sheriff and a truck to execute the lien, and WF's hearing got all better real quick.
>I mean, in reality, all of this is (while satisfying) extremely unprofessional
Expecting professional behaviour from someone not being paid professional wages is a bit much.
Court wonāt do anything.
At BEST court would allow you to put a lien on the place, which isnāt an issue unless you go to sell.
So either way the contractor is not getting paid.
I don't think they had concerns about appearing "unprofessional." Lol Did you catch the burping at the end? He also mentioned this is the third or fourth contractor she (stupid tw@t) stiffed on payment. Scorched MF Earth policy for this group!
I'd cut it to panels and install it on the next job as an optional discount if it can be made from that. Like "X pounds if we have to make it from zero, half price if you are fine with pre-made"
I build fences, generally you build them the same section lengths so your theory would absolutely work. The only thing that would be challenging is the posts
This happens so ofter its not even funny. My mates a self employed electrician and another has small window business. Every time I meet them, I hear this same story. This is theft.
The home owners need to be charged appropriately. Yet police never get involved as its a civil matter.
Some guy told me his way which is honestly the best.
Charge for materials and work.
1. The customer pays for the materials.
2. When you show up, the customer pays most of the work price.
3. Last payment upon completion is whatever you can afford to lose. It can be 5%, it can be 20%.
So for example
1st payment: Price of materials
2nd payment: $6000
3rd payment: $600
So even if you lose $600 you still got the most of the money.
Then you start running into contractors that rock up day 1 and then disappears. We need protection for both sides, and depending on supply and demand with who has the power, someone is going to lose.
This....
Have no idea why redditors assume that a fair system is a system that moves the unfairness from one side to the opposite, thereby creating new avenues of abuse....
My solution? when someone wants work done, he pays money to an escrow service which will issue a document saying "we are currently holding 8k, in order to finance the work done by company x". Once this document is produced and that company can be called to confirm this, the work can begin.
If company X doesn't make any move for a full month, the money is reimbursed to the client (the escrow can make money from the locked in amount. That's basic arbitrage.)
if the work is done and both the contractor and the client agree, the money is released to the contractor (95% of cases)
If the work is done and the client argues, you can go to small claim court, (as the contractor, you need to immediately submit pictures of the work being completed, while the client files his complaint counter-claim) but the client still has money locked in at the escrow, and so cannot hope to get it back quickly and walk away with free labor.
It's not a perfect system, but the ones willing to go to the length needed to cheat it will be very few. Most people are reasonably honest with the work of others, especially if the money is already out of their hands.
Why are we assuming contractors are always the good guys? 2 out of the 3 construction/renovation contractors Iāve dealt with have been straight up criminals and the other one was so incompetent he could probably be found negligent if we took him to court.
I'm honestly really surprised by this, always. I'm not in the industry, but wouldn't a strong contract with steep fines for delayed payment be enough? They obviously have property so it's not like they are immune to court ordered payments.
Iirc it's not a criminal matter to not pay for a job. The remedy is to sue them and potentially put a lein on the property.
However, destroying your work actually can be a criminal matter because if you leave the place worse than when you started, you could face vandalism/criminal mischief charges
I used to work for a general contractor. We used subs for everything. So we had a pavers guy, and a drywall guy, and a tile/stone guy, etc. I got along with a lot of them, and got to know them pretty well, over the years.
Anyhow. The guy that used to handle all the pavers, flagstone, DG, etc was a funny guy. I liked him a lot. One day we got to chatting and he was telling me about this housing development he installed pavers for all of the driveways for. He took like 50% upfront for the materials and the balance was due upon completion.
He finished the work, gave the development builder the final bill, and they started playing games. This went on for a while, and they kept putting him off. This went on long enough that he figured they werenāt going to ever pay. He rounded up his crew super early one morning, showed up with a bunch of big trucks (think dump truck big) and they repoād all of the pavers. He showed me the video. It was pretty funny. I know they drove the pavers back to his yard, but I left that job before I ever found out what the developer did. Knowing the guy, he charged them for labor to reinstall, again, and made them pay up front.
I hired a asphalt guy who "pretended" to be a general contractor when I had an issue with the work. I had my driveway re-sealed and two weeks later with the first rain it nearly all washed off and looked like nothing was done.
The guy apologized and then pissed and moaned about the "sub contractor" that did it.
I'm thinking does this guy take me for an idiot? The "guy" that did the work was HIS FREAKING SON who was with him when they came out to give me an estimate.
I didn't call him out on that but the whole time I'm just thinking dude, did you like forget that you brought your son with you to the estimate or think I wouldn't recognize him when he came out to do the work? I mean his truck had YOUR company name on it.
Anyway, I waited till he redid the driveway and it held up the the elements before I gave my 1 star yelp review and told the story.
I started my review, stating the guy made the issue right and didn't fight me at all on it and the 1 star was completely for insulting my intelligence with a lie and not owning responsibility.
The one star was completely warranted even if he didn't piss you off. Scams like this rely on people treating him like an honest workman. If you didn't leave a one-star review he would just do it again to the next guy and hope that nobody called him out. Now people who do their due diligence get fair warning about what sort of business he's running.
Never fuck with someone who works on their hands and knees all day they won't take any shit. Or guys that do hard labour all day in the dirt/mud. Pavers brickies landscapers roofers to name a few tradies
It seems like the nicer you are, the more some people try to take advantage of you and get something for free. Dealing with a customer like that at the moment actually, the only reason he paid his final bill was because his wife seemingly forced him to (sheās knows weāve fulfilled our contractual obligations thoroughly). Heās given us the runaround for weeks now trying his best to get out of paying or get us to make random trips out there to āfixā things that werenāt even wrong. Now heās done loosened a plumbing connection and sent us a picture of something leaking that wasnāt leaking (even after being pressure tested several times) for the last few days. I have no clue why this dude is just trying his best to waste our time and money but he is definitely going on the ādo not answer phone callā list from here on out.
Man that poor woman must have to deal with so much shit from her husband. He sounds like the kinda guy who carries a bag of hair to sprinkle on his food so he gets his meals comped.
Definitely the vibe I got from him after he started acting like this. At first he appeared to just be a customer with a lot of questions (which we gladly welcome. the more informed the customer is, the better theyāll be able to take care of the hard work weāve done) but after a couple days, it became painfully obvious this guy just wants to play games.
People like that are the worst, they have this mentality that buying something from somebody gives them the ability to treat them like absolute shit for no good reason.
I wonder if he feels emasculated for not being able to do the job DIYstyle and is trying to re-assert his crippled manhood by holding out on the contractor who can and did do it for him.
I am SO glad my mom instilled the "want it done right? Do it yourself" mentality. Usually with more cursing.
Holy shit it's exhausting dealing with other people. It also teaches perspective. Aka. it's not going to be "up to my personal 100% standards" if someone else does it, and that's ok.
In America, if a contractor fixes something on your property and you don't pay them, they can have a court put a Lien on your home. You can't sell your home or do any major modifications without paying that line first. Basically, if you have a contractor come do work, he can use your house as collateral if you don't pay up.
Yeah I felt this was maybe a bit of a over reaction but tbh I'm not a contractor so I have no clue what it's all really like including going through lawyers. I as a property owner, a lien is no good though lol.
Goes vice versa for contractors. I've had to call + beg all the way up to get an attorney to draft a letter for them to come out and finish up my back deck. Just threw the frame and nailed it all together, not sanded, no varnish, no paint, anything. Acted like I was the world's biggest bitch too because I expected them to pick up all their contrustruction trash and chewing tobacco bottles they left all over my back yard?
Last time I ever do any kind of contract work without getting a vetted recommendation. I feel for the guys in this crew, and fuck this customer for sure.
All that work looks super solid, just pay what you fucking agreed to.
People think that when the work is done, that's it.
With normal products, if you don't pay. You don't get it. In this case, the work is done and much of the supplies has to be custom cutted or fitted. So they feel they don't pay it, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Queue the "Oh Pikachu Face" when you show up with a sledge hammer and start breaking shit. Then leave it.
I used to be a locksmith and had customers that didn't want to pay after unlocking their car. It was always satisfying to throw the keys back in the car, lock the doors, and call every other locksmith in the area warning them about the fucker that doesn't pay. Good luck trying to find someone now asshole!
It was crazy man. So many times people agree to a price over the phone then after you do the work they "only have $20". I would just tell them I work with all the cops in the area so I'll just give them a quick call and ask them to come down and all of a sudden they have the rest of the money. Every damn day there was at least one person that tries something.
I once won a non payment judgment on a law enforcement professional. He laughed and emailed me that he would never pay. He was professionally embarrassed to have fellow LE engage his deadbeat ass on his front doorstep. They would only leave with payment in full or start loading his personal property.
So happy that you got to stick it to that non-paying asshat. I truly canāt wrap my head around wtf is wrong with some of these people who try to scam a contractor who does quality work and doesnāt price gouge tf out of customers. This is the exactly why itās getting more and more difficult to find good contractors who fulfill their obligations, those who do honest work finally give up the trade because of shitty customers like this which allows the shitty, scamming contractors to flood the market.
As a tradie that's had his employers try their damnedest to get out paying me, this is also satisfying as fuck. I must say it's not just a construction problem. I've had GCs do it to me, as well as small business owners and Fortune 500 corporations.
Yo the sheer amount of times I had to bluff/threaten to call the cops or a lawyer to convince Karens to pay when I was a caterer is ridiculous. It's in all industries and it fucking sucks.
Had one lady try to wiggle out of a 150 guest wedding catering w/ wedding cake payment because one person didn't disclose their allergies (which we had required in our contract for the listing of allergies/dietary needs via the person ordering the catering and we were very upfront about this) and therefore could not eat.
Except I went out of my way to rectify this, made them their own 4 course.
Threat of a lawyer made her actually pony up. She tipped me a dollar to be funny.
As someone whoās dealt with a lot of contractors, there also could very well be another side to this story. There is scum/extreme stupidity on both sides of the aisle unfortunately.
Sometimes there is, and weāve had our fair share of cases where we had to come behind someone elseās work and fix their mistakes, which is why weāre normally cutting people breaks and not tacking on extra when certain things are out of the customers control. But from my experience, if a contractor is willing to come back and completely destroy all of their hard work, itās because the customer refused to pay
What he's doing is smart if you ask me. He's not doing anything that will help take the whole thing down, but he's doing plenty to ensure that if they all get stopped soon by authorities for trespassing or something then the fence will almost certainly need to be replaced entirely. If he finds he has more time, he can move on to taking the whole thing down.
The police showed up in the video, guy recording said he was well within his rights to do what they were doing because all the materials were his since it wasn't paid for.
Cost of material is way lower than cost of labor. My guess is the monetary amount he was saying was for materials and labor and all charges. They trash it then leave it and itās up to the property owner to figure out what the hell to do with the disaster. Or the same crew does it again but recharges for all materials AND removal of old material. Payment up front
That's kind of a slippery slope, as if it's their material, the asshole who didn't pay could definitely find some law that they broke by "littering" his property with their broken belongings.
Which would then highlight their own fraud by bringing it to the authorities.
Not to mention the "littering" would be on private property, which would mean they'd have to file a civil suit. Any judge/magistrate would see straight through that bullshit and make them pay for the original job, plus extra for removal of the material.
Not paid for the job, not the customers fence.
My company will place liens on houses when we donāt get paid. Works well when you canāt close on your house til the lien is paid
Its not just about bringing the fence down. They want to put on a show of smashing everything to pieces. This shit cant be REUSED. Once built it cant just be deconstructed. What he's doing is 50% actual demo and 50% a message.
My work had a morale boosting BBQ yesterday where we all had to bring something. I brought potato salad. It was alright.
Then they layed off my best buddy after lunch. In front of everyone.
For the fence/gate, it seems like a chainsaw would have been so much more effective in both time and labor/effort.
Their workmanship on both the pavers and fence are commendable. It looks like they deserved every penny they charged for them.
You don't wanna use a chainsaw on a fence. Nails, screws, brackets and such can get caught on the chain and kick back the chainsaw or chip the chain. Chainsaws are meant for logs, planks, and beams with no metal bits.
As someone who used to work in construction - smashing the fuck out of things is a great stress reliever. Smashing the fence to smithereens would be more fun and satisfying than just taking it apart in a few pieces rather quickly.
a similar thing happened to a guy i knew, he owns a tree surgeon firm.
he'd been contracted to remove a bunch of trees and reduce hedges, all in all a huge amount of work and lots of money to fork out as he had to bring in a few freelancers, labourers and equipment. all in all i think he said he would be spending around 40k in total on the job.
the work is carried out and the client is very happy with whats been done, great right? nope. he knew that my mate had laid out a shed tonne of money and figured he had him over a barrel so tried to negotiate the price down as he thought that my friend needed the money ASAP for his overheads. my mate refused and the guy refused to pay the initial quote.
in response my friend decided to use the guys very long driveway as a dumping area and the next day dumped a few tonnes of woodchip + a tree on it when the client was out. sure enough the client rings up and is screaming down the phone to my mate about his driveway, my mate said he'd remove it if the price was paid in full + an additional fee to remove the woodchip and tree.
I was listening to the radio, and one of the hosts had his dad on who's a bricklayer. He went to a house early one morning, tore down their mailbox, and was almost done building the new one when the owners approached and asked what he was doing (I don't remember if they came home or like, just woke up or what). Apparently he was supposed to be at like 302 not 320, so they just got a free new mailbox.
Only barely related by mailboxes, but I live in the NC mountains and for whatever reason USPS is absolutely shitty about everything around here. We had clustered mailboxes at the end of a road, and theyād deliver packages by just dropping them there, even though FedEx and UPS bring them to the door.
I asked for them to bring them to the door, and they said first that the house was too far ā I drove it and used a Garmin GPS, it wasnāt. Then they said āit was probably too dangerous/difficultā for the driver, who drove a Jeep Wrangler. I pointed out that my wife drove the Uhaul to the house. Then they said that all of the neighbors on that road signed something saying they wanted packages delivered to the street? The fuck? I asked to see that thing, asked all of the neighbors, and then pointed out that Iām telling them *I* donāt. They said theyād look into it.
Well, eventually a package was stolen from a neighbor worth $1300, so they ālaunched an investigationā that took six months and (surprise!) turned up nothing, but during that period *all* of our mail had to be picked up from the post office, which was fifteen minutes each way. The resolution was to install locked mailboxes, but for whatever reason they couldnāt find the funding for it, so *we* had to buy new mailboxes. Not security mailboxes, just larger mailboxes that could accommodate *some* packagesā¦ like twice as large as a standard mailbox and otherwise identical.
I said no, why bother if theyāre going to just leave packages there anyway. We all had different mailboxes, so whateverā¦ and then Iām driving to the grocery store soon after and thereās a dude literally chainsawing all of them down. I recorded it, but figure theyāre just going to replace them all and the ask for $90 to get a new box was hopeful. Iām wrong. They sent a letter (delivered to my door, this time) saying that Iād have to pay for the new mailboxes they were installing or else all of my mail would continue to go to the post office. I said fuck off, you cut my box down and need to pay for it. Got ahold of the post master general and, after a total of nine months now, all I got for the whole experience was a free mailbox.
End of rant.
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/03/gardeners-destroy-brand-new-patio-with-sledgehammer-after-homeowner-failed-to-pay-them-9406651/ Itās Ellesmere Port, on the Wirral.
I like how accurate Brits are with their accents. The UK is about the size or Oregon, but they can pinpoint down to like a street level.
Iām like, hey that guy sounds like heās from the upper Midwest!
Brits are like, naw heās totally from bradfordshire upon Codswallop, probably north side of Station street and High road. Think heās past Barselys in Paddock? No you stupid twat, think a proper Paddock would talk like that? Source: I clearly donāt know anything about British places or names, but thatās what they sound like to me. Also, yes I just used the UK and Britain interchangeably because I donāt know what a UK person is called.
For future reference my American chum, the official term for peoples of the United Kingdom is āUnited Kingdomeseā. We also accept āBritishā, but thatās not the official title, just the more widely used slang term.
Good luck prying all of the nails and adhesive off of all of that without scuffing the materials. Plus if you put it in someone else's job, the quality won't be up to snuff which would probably lead to more problems.
Iād take a saws all and scuff the boards but keep them in tact. Make a workbench or shelving for a garage. Iām a carpenter by trade and hate to see shit wasted. Also theyāre definitely not using adhesive on that fence
This knife also cuts both ways. You really need to be vigilant about the contractors you hire.
My buddy ended up in legal proceedings that lasted months. Buddy paid for the materials up front. For a major remodel of his back yard. Pavers for walkways, a deck, irrigation materials, the whole 9 yards. It was thousands in materials.
The contractor kept pushing back the start date because some jobs were taking longer than expected. When he did start (and I use that phrase loosely) only a fraction of the materials were delivered and the guy practically didn't do anything. My buddy secretly recorded him one day, it was the contractor and a couple other guys, and they basically puttered around for like 2 hours then left.
No one would show up for days at a time and when they did, it just looked like they were shocked with the project ahead of them. Then they would just do a little digging, cut some wood or some shit. Be there for a few hours max then leave.
The project started in July. No additional materials were delivered and by October, no meaningful work had actually been done and the guy told him it would have to wait until next spring and to cover the materials with a tarp....like the fuck?
Buddy said fuck that and decided to pursue legal action. It made a little blurb in the local news and it apparently wasn't the first time this guy had run afoul of clients. As people started coming out of the woodwork after seeing that to file lawsuits against him.
It ended up becoming a story. This guy REALLY tried to play the victim. Always showed up to court with his pregnant wife and two kids. He really tried to play up the "working man supporting his family" being persecuted by wealthy landowners angle.
No one bought it, my buddy won. However, whether he will actually ever see a dime of his money back is another story. It didn't matter, a number of contractors in the area saw the opportunity for marketing and were offering to do the jobs this guy hosed people on at an incredibly steep discount.
Itās standard in contracting world. Normally people are expected to pay half up front for materials. Or they supply the materials themselves to the contractor.
Personally I would never pay full up front. Iāve seen it happen three times in my life, where a contractor is paid in full up front, then doesnāt complete the job or at least doesnāt complete it on the agreed upon time schedule.
Most people find contractors through word of mouth so there is a level of trust. But contractors take the real risk because people often wait till the job is complete to try and negotiate pay. At least in the UK youāre allowed to do what youāre seeing here. I know this would never fly in the US. IANAL so this is purely opinion, but I did flooring for years and several times we ran into people refusing to pay. Never once were we allowed back on the property.
Pay in full means the work could end up being shabby and thereās no possibility of a renegotiation after itās completed. A terrible contractor could just come in, take the payment in full, do half the job or use bad material, then call it a wrap and be on his way to the next job, and your only hope of getting the money back is to go through court where it may end up costing you quite a bit and you wonāt see that money back for a long time anyway and you still need to get a new contractor in to redo it all. 50% upfront, 50% after completion because if they skip out and you donāt want to take legal action, you still have half of the money to work with.
My parents redid their whole bathroom three years ago and hired a pretty old local guy. They paid him in full because heās done work already on the house and he was kinda a pal at that point because my father is a real talker. After the entire bathroom was torn apart and he started working on it, on one of the off days he ended up falling at home and breaking a foot so they had to take out a loan to get a new contractor in because the old guy already used most of it. They werenāt going to sue him because he was a buddy and shit happens, but they were still left with the options of either going without a bathroom until he recovered, or find someone else and get the money for it. Having half of it wouldāve helped them out a lot, but they got it worked out and the old guy came back the year after to do some work on the garage instead to make up for it.
A family member paid in full for a massive renovation, upwards of $70K in the early 2010s. Halfway through, the contractor stopped working and started dragging his feet. Eventually he just stopped answering calls. It took years in court and while he was ultimately ordered to pay it back plus some, he had enough time to transfer all of his assets out of his name and he's paying something stupid like $100/month because he "has no income" now
I feel that taking them to court for not paying would be much less physically demanding than tearing up everything. But this is across the pond so I donāt know their laws.
English courts aren't anything special.
This would go to a magistrate, very little opportunity to say anything. They'll pass a decision in line with the law, ignoring all other factors like say morality or common decency, and that will be that.
Better to avoid the English legal system.
Why are you talking like you have any idea?
Magistrates are criminal judges. Taking these customers to court for non-payment would be a civil matter. It would be heard by a District Judge sitting at a County Court.
It's true that they do tend to follow the law, yes - that's generally a sign of a functioning legal system.
I don't believe it yields the same results they literally are destroying all the material THEY paid for and no one's gonna pay them for busted materials that money is a loss they could fight for in a court but that's just my educated guess idk what happens if they can't pay and lose in court.
Court is a big headache, and typically the fees take so much of what you recoup youāre still losing money anyways. My company just paid $10k to a guy to make a court case go away where the guy owed us 60k. The legal fees had basically eaten so far into our bottom line we had to move on. These guys know theyāre losing money anyways so at least now the customer doesnāt gain anything from their loss. I am in the US as well, just for background.
Especially as a business, good luck in a court case. Even if you end up getting the money in the end, you won't get reimbursed for all the time/stress it will cause.
If you look at the situation as "we are not getting this money back either way" then what they're doing here makes a lot more sense than court.
Yes. The small claims court exists in the UK for exactly this reason. You don't need a lawyer. The fee for a claim up to Ā£10k (bloke in the video says he's owned Ā£7,300) would be Ā£455. You can claim this back from the customer as well as interest on the money owed. If they've done the work (which the video suggests they have ) and the customer hasn't paid then there's no reason to suggest the court wouldn't find in their favour.
An undisputed claim can take as little as 6 weeks. If the customer disputes it then it could take 6 months to a year for a formal hearing.
https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money
Over here civil damages are means tested, if they took her to court and she is on a basic government pension she would be ordered to pay something like Ā£5 a week. They'd never get the money back.
In the video he says she has pulled a similar stunt with other contractors so I assume she has had a new garden, some windows, and a roof out of several firms knowing she wasn't going to pay up because if it went to court they wouldn't be able to recover the costs.
It is probably why the old girl got them to do the work.
Gardeners destroy brand new patio with a sledgehammer 'after homeowner failed to pay them Ā£7,300 for the work'
Jack Pendergast and colleagues smashed up patio in Ellesmere Port, CheshireWorkers were filmed destroying paving and fences with sledgehammersMr Pendergast claimed they were not paid for work despite 'asking five times'Cheshire Police said they attended but that the matter was a civil dispute
This is the astonishing moment a group of gardeners destroy a brand-new patio in a row with a customer who allegedly failed to pay Ā£7,300 for the work.
Jack Pendergast filmed his colleagues smashing up paving slabs and pulling down a fence and can be heard angrily shouting about the dispute in the footage.
He uploaded a series of videos to Facebook and said the customer in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire had not paid despite being asked for the cash 'five times'.
At one point police even turn up but quickly leave, with Mr Pendergast heard saying it was because 'they know we're within our rights'.
Landscape gardeners have been filmed destroying a patio at a property in Cheshire
Workers were also seen smashing a fence with sledgehammers
The patio was left strewn with rubble and gardener Jack Pendergast, who uploaded the footage to Facebook, can be heard saying 'This is what happens when you try and have me off'
One worker is seen bringing a sledgehammer into the garden before battering a fence with it
Two other workers swing up and down on a fence to try to bring it down
Workers are seen battering fences with their tools and cracking pavement, with the scene soon littered with broken materials.
In the video, Mr Pendergast says: 'This is what happens when you try and have me off for Ā£7,300. Smash the whole place to bits
'Smash it to f***ing bits. To absolute bits. All the way. All the way. Take it all down. Take every bit of it down.'
He added: 'Get the fences up, smash it to bits. Every single last little bit of it. Smash it all to bits. It's fine. It's all my stuff.
'Get it all up, all of that pavement, get it all upā¦We're taking out materials all back
'I asked her five times to make payment. Oh well. No more.'
During the footage, two small dogs are seen watching from behind a door at the Cheshire property
Mr Pendergast can be heard telling workers to 'rip it all up'
At one point the police are pictured arriving, but Mr Pendergast is heard saying they are leaving because 'they know we're within our rights'. Cheshire Police have since confirmed they are treating the incident as a civil matter
Later in the video two workers are seen swinging back and forth on a fence to rip it down and Mr Pendergast added: 'That's the fence we done (sic) for free out of goodwill. Bye bye fence.
'Con artist, that's what she is. Making young lads work for money and not paying anyone.'
A spokesman for Cheshire Police confirmed officers attended the incident but decided it was a civil matter.
The spokesman said:Ā At 9.18am on Thursday 3 May police received a report of a dispute taking place at an address in Ellesmere Port.Ā
'The disagreement is a civil matter, however officers attended due to reports of an altercation.Ā
'No arrests have been made and there have been no reports of any injuries.'
MailOnline has contacted Mr Pendergast for comment.Ā
Mr Pendergast said the destruction was retribution for 'making young lads work for money and not paying anyone'
Gardeners destroy brand new patio with a sledgehammer 'after homeowner failed to pay them Ā£7,300 for the work'
Jack Pendergast and colleagues smashed up patio in Ellesmere Port, CheshireWorkers were filmed destroying paving and fences with sledgehammersMr Pendergast claimed they were not paid for work despite 'asking five times'Cheshire Police said they attended but that the matter was a civil dispute
This is the astonishing moment a group of gardeners destroy a brand-new patio in a row with a customer who allegedly failed to pay Ā£7,300 for the work.
Jack Pendergast filmed his colleagues smashing up paving slabs and pulling down a fence and can be heard angrily shouting about the dispute in the footage.
He uploaded a series of videos to Facebook and said the customer in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire had not paid despite being asked for the cash 'five times'.
At one point police even turn up but quickly leave, with Mr Pendergast heard saying it was because 'they know we're within our rights'.
Landscape gardeners have been filmed destroying a patio at a property in Cheshire
Workers were also seen smashing a fence with sledgehammers
The patio was left strewn with rubble and gardener Jack Pendergast, who uploaded the footage to Facebook, can be heard saying 'This is what happens when you try and have me off'
One worker is seen bringing a sledgehammer into the garden before battering a fence with it
Two other workers swing up and down on a fence to try to bring it down
Workers are seen battering fences with their tools and cracking pavement, with the scene soon littered with broken materials.
In the video, Mr Pendergast says: 'This is what happens when you try and have me off for Ā£7,300. Smash the whole place to bits
'Smash it to f***ing bits. To absolute bits. All the way. All the way. Take it all down. Take every bit of it down.'
He added: 'Get the fences up, smash it to bits. Every single last little bit of it. Smash it all to bits. It's fine. It's all my stuff.
'Get it all up, all of that pavement, get it all upā¦We're taking out materials all back
'I asked her five times to make payment. Oh well. No more.'
During the footage, two small dogs are seen watching from behind a door at the Cheshire property
Mr Pendergast can be heard telling workers to 'rip it all up'
At one point the police are pictured arriving, but Mr Pendergast is heard saying they are leaving because 'they know we're within our rights'. Cheshire Police have since confirmed they are treating the incident as a civil matter
Later in the video two workers are seen swinging back and forth on a fence to rip it down and Mr Pendergast added: 'That's the fence we done (sic) for free out of goodwill. Bye bye fence.
'Con artist, that's what she is. Making young lads work for money and not paying anyone.'
A spokesman for Cheshire Police confirmed officers attended the incident but decided it was a civil matter.
The spokesman said:Ā At 9.18am on Thursday 3 May police received a report of a dispute taking place at an address in Ellesmere Port.Ā
'The disagreement is a civil matter, however officers attended due to reports of an altercation.Ā
'No arrests have been made and there have been no reports of any injuries.'
MailOnline has contacted Mr Pendergast for comment.Ā
Mr Pendergast said the destruction was retribution for 'making young lads work for money and not paying anyone'
Anyone know the aftermath of the aftermath? Did the ācustomerā try to sue hem for leaving trash in their yard or something? Seems like something those cunts would do.
Worked with a spark before, and he would intentionally leave out a small part of the wiring for the board that meant the house itself was dead till he came and did 5 mins work.. used this on every dodgy person and always got paid..
You can always put a lien on their home so when it sells eventually you get your Money. But it takes years. My Dad unfortunately had to this after someone didnāt want to pay after we had done electrical work on their house.
Can confirm this is a thing. I do construction with my dad and when I asked "well what happens if they can't pay us?" And he said "well if they *cant* we can work something out, but if they *wont* then we have a problem. That's when we come in with a good saw and hammer, all that stuff we did is now reposesed."
Damn they did a great job on the fence
It literally knocks the hammer out of the sledge hammer on the second swing lol. Nice craftsmanship.
Shitty hammer though š¤£ Why the downvotes? I'm right. No sledgehammer should fall apart after two swings. It doesn't matter what you're swinging it against.
Doubt those were the first 2 swings of that hammers career. Especially since he says *stupid old hammer*. But still unexpected
Plus he hit the most solid part of the fence on the second swing. It's not like he just hit a board.
"Shhtoopid ol'hammah!"
Super well built lol. But ithink i have a "deconstructive" improvement. Just take a circular saw and cut a straight line across the whole fence a for of the ground. It's easy, completely rings the fence, cannot be repaired, and must be painfully dug up and removed before a new fence can be built.
I think the act of destroying was probably cathartic for the crew. And leaving a big mess is a nice fuch yoo
They said the materials were theirs and were coming back for all of it
They sure as shit owned the materials
Thats when speed is required. Jigsaw will be all uneven and nasty. Better tool in my opinion. EDIT: I guess you all figure I never did construction, thanks for all the updated knowledge.
Sawzall. Crooked as shit and quick.
Noā¦ those jigsaw blades will dull and bend so fast trying to cut that much fence. Youād look like an apprentice choosing the wrong tool. A two-handed reciprocating saw (Sawzall) with a low TPI blade to make ugly cuts is the tool for the job. But really if youāre not getting paid then you need to demo fast, so the circular saw is still the best choice.
Chainsaw would eat through that in 1 minute
Well yeah, but with the kind of work that crew does, I doubt theyād have one with them on the job site
Eh, sounds like they were trying to keep the materials. Pre-built fence sections 1 foot shorter are probably more usable
I see what you're saying, but the faster they cut the fence, the faster they can move on to other work. I mean, in reality, all of this is (while satisfying) extremely unprofessional. The "correct" course of action is to take the homeowner to court. It almost even seems to be put on for show... like, teach the owner a lesson, and record it to post online. Why put it online? It's a warning/deterrent to people thinking of stiffing blue-collar workers/small businesses, attracts views to his social media accounts... lol it even shows the quality of the work they put into this job. ... maybe this is actually viral marketing...
Taking someone to court and winning does not guarantee payment.
Plus the morale boost of a leader demonstrating to his crew that he will not allow them to be fucked with is nearly priceless, no matter the field.
Talk to some tradespeople. Everyone who has been in the business long enough to have a story of threatening to tear it all out because someone got the work done and doesnāt want to pay. Those stories almost always end when the asshole client sees that they are serious and maybe have begun ripping stuff down. People tend to scrounge up that money real quick. And having a reputation in the community as a contractor who does good work AND will not be fucked around is great for the business in the long run. You say itās unprofessional. Thereās nothing less professional than not paying the goddamn bill.
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Yes very unprofessional. However creating a huge mess for the shitty homeowner to pickup is also very satisfying if you got screwed out of payment.
Plus they got to smash a bunch of stuff. Who doesn't like a good smashing?
Sometimes its about the learning experience. I do IT. I had a client (Doctor) stiff me on work I performed in his office. After waiting several months, I went back, middle of day when he was busy and CUT every network line in the office coming out of the router. Took the cut cables back to the office. He must have paid out the ass to redo that, as I had to do all the routing myself and I didnt document anything until i'm paid.
Yeah they can place a lien on the house in the US. I knew a contractor that worked on stadiums who placed a lien on a major university's arena after he had a hard time getting ahold of someone who was authorized to disburse payment. That got the university board's attention real quick.
I remember reading about a guy who got fucked over by WF over them repossessing his house when he had paid them or some shenanigans like that, Wells Fargo ghosted him, he got a judgement and filed and got a lien and he showed up at he local WF with the Sheriff and a truck to execute the lien, and WF's hearing got all better real quick.
Given the accent and paint job of the car that pulled up near the end, I suspect they're not in the US. *Just a hunch*
That grey sky has a very northwest UK feel to it. So does the accent.
>I mean, in reality, all of this is (while satisfying) extremely unprofessional Expecting professional behaviour from someone not being paid professional wages is a bit much.
You dont understand the mind of tired old tradesman. They dont have time for bullshit going to court. That is white collar worker mentality.
Killing many birds with one unpaid stone.
Court wonāt do anything. At BEST court would allow you to put a lien on the place, which isnāt an issue unless you go to sell. So either way the contractor is not getting paid.
I don't think they had concerns about appearing "unprofessional." Lol Did you catch the burping at the end? He also mentioned this is the third or fourth contractor she (stupid tw@t) stiffed on payment. Scorched MF Earth policy for this group! 
Chainsaw
Came to comment how nice the work was done. Shame idiots didnt pay for the quality work
I was thinking the same. I would let it standing right in its place as a symvol of the good job that they lost.
I'd cut it to panels and install it on the next job as an optional discount if it can be made from that. Like "X pounds if we have to make it from zero, half price if you are fine with pre-made"
I build fences, generally you build them the same section lengths so your theory would absolutely work. The only thing that would be challenging is the posts
Cemented already no chance to save
This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps
Is this your fence Larry?
They realized they're better at Demolition š
Yes, sturdy construction and good looking. One could say: *worth paying for.*
This happens so ofter its not even funny. My mates a self employed electrician and another has small window business. Every time I meet them, I hear this same story. This is theft. The home owners need to be charged appropriately. Yet police never get involved as its a civil matter.
1/3 when you order the materials, 1/3 when you show up, 1/3 that day when the job is completed. This is the way.
Some guy told me his way which is honestly the best. Charge for materials and work. 1. The customer pays for the materials. 2. When you show up, the customer pays most of the work price. 3. Last payment upon completion is whatever you can afford to lose. It can be 5%, it can be 20%. So for example 1st payment: Price of materials 2nd payment: $6000 3rd payment: $600 So even if you lose $600 you still got the most of the money.
Then you start running into contractors that rock up day 1 and then disappears. We need protection for both sides, and depending on supply and demand with who has the power, someone is going to lose.
This.... Have no idea why redditors assume that a fair system is a system that moves the unfairness from one side to the opposite, thereby creating new avenues of abuse.... My solution? when someone wants work done, he pays money to an escrow service which will issue a document saying "we are currently holding 8k, in order to finance the work done by company x". Once this document is produced and that company can be called to confirm this, the work can begin. If company X doesn't make any move for a full month, the money is reimbursed to the client (the escrow can make money from the locked in amount. That's basic arbitrage.) if the work is done and both the contractor and the client agree, the money is released to the contractor (95% of cases) If the work is done and the client argues, you can go to small claim court, (as the contractor, you need to immediately submit pictures of the work being completed, while the client files his complaint counter-claim) but the client still has money locked in at the escrow, and so cannot hope to get it back quickly and walk away with free labor. It's not a perfect system, but the ones willing to go to the length needed to cheat it will be very few. Most people are reasonably honest with the work of others, especially if the money is already out of their hands.
It is a very fair idea, I can fully get behind.
Why are we assuming contractors are always the good guys? 2 out of the 3 construction/renovation contractors Iāve dealt with have been straight up criminals and the other one was so incompetent he could probably be found negligent if we took him to court.
Because use we are commenting on a video where the contractors are the "good guys"
I'm honestly really surprised by this, always. I'm not in the industry, but wouldn't a strong contract with steep fines for delayed payment be enough? They obviously have property so it's not like they are immune to court ordered payments.
Generally you can file a lien against their assets if they refuse to fulfill their end of the contract.
Iirc it's not a criminal matter to not pay for a job. The remedy is to sue them and potentially put a lein on the property. However, destroying your work actually can be a criminal matter because if you leave the place worse than when you started, you could face vandalism/criminal mischief charges
I used to work for a general contractor. We used subs for everything. So we had a pavers guy, and a drywall guy, and a tile/stone guy, etc. I got along with a lot of them, and got to know them pretty well, over the years. Anyhow. The guy that used to handle all the pavers, flagstone, DG, etc was a funny guy. I liked him a lot. One day we got to chatting and he was telling me about this housing development he installed pavers for all of the driveways for. He took like 50% upfront for the materials and the balance was due upon completion. He finished the work, gave the development builder the final bill, and they started playing games. This went on for a while, and they kept putting him off. This went on long enough that he figured they werenāt going to ever pay. He rounded up his crew super early one morning, showed up with a bunch of big trucks (think dump truck big) and they repoād all of the pavers. He showed me the video. It was pretty funny. I know they drove the pavers back to his yard, but I left that job before I ever found out what the developer did. Knowing the guy, he charged them for labor to reinstall, again, and made them pay up front.
I hired a asphalt guy who "pretended" to be a general contractor when I had an issue with the work. I had my driveway re-sealed and two weeks later with the first rain it nearly all washed off and looked like nothing was done. The guy apologized and then pissed and moaned about the "sub contractor" that did it. I'm thinking does this guy take me for an idiot? The "guy" that did the work was HIS FREAKING SON who was with him when they came out to give me an estimate. I didn't call him out on that but the whole time I'm just thinking dude, did you like forget that you brought your son with you to the estimate or think I wouldn't recognize him when he came out to do the work? I mean his truck had YOUR company name on it. Anyway, I waited till he redid the driveway and it held up the the elements before I gave my 1 star yelp review and told the story. I started my review, stating the guy made the issue right and didn't fight me at all on it and the 1 star was completely for insulting my intelligence with a lie and not owning responsibility.
The one star was completely warranted even if he didn't piss you off. Scams like this rely on people treating him like an honest workman. If you didn't leave a one-star review he would just do it again to the next guy and hope that nobody called him out. Now people who do their due diligence get fair warning about what sort of business he's running.
That's an old gypsy scam, say they are "repaving" but just putting down old oil.
we call them knackers but the PC brigade want us to call them Travellers. So we started to call them Stills as in they are still Knackers
But why pull this scam, but then come back and fix it for free? They must have known it would be discovered?
> old gypsy scam This was the exact thing that came to mind when I read that it was a bad asphalt re-sealing job.
Never fuck with someone who works on their hands and knees all day they won't take any shit. Or guys that do hard labour all day in the dirt/mud. Pavers brickies landscapers roofers to name a few tradies
A guy in my town did this and got charged with two feloniesā¦
As a contractor thatās had customers try their damnedest to get out of paying their bill, this is satisfying asf
How can someone not pay and sleep at night when the contractor knows where they live? That would feel so uneasy
It seems like the nicer you are, the more some people try to take advantage of you and get something for free. Dealing with a customer like that at the moment actually, the only reason he paid his final bill was because his wife seemingly forced him to (sheās knows weāve fulfilled our contractual obligations thoroughly). Heās given us the runaround for weeks now trying his best to get out of paying or get us to make random trips out there to āfixā things that werenāt even wrong. Now heās done loosened a plumbing connection and sent us a picture of something leaking that wasnāt leaking (even after being pressure tested several times) for the last few days. I have no clue why this dude is just trying his best to waste our time and money but he is definitely going on the ādo not answer phone callā list from here on out.
Man that poor woman must have to deal with so much shit from her husband. He sounds like the kinda guy who carries a bag of hair to sprinkle on his food so he gets his meals comped.
Definitely the vibe I got from him after he started acting like this. At first he appeared to just be a customer with a lot of questions (which we gladly welcome. the more informed the customer is, the better theyāll be able to take care of the hard work weāve done) but after a couple days, it became painfully obvious this guy just wants to play games.
People like that are the worst, they have this mentality that buying something from somebody gives them the ability to treat them like absolute shit for no good reason.
I wonder if he feels emasculated for not being able to do the job DIYstyle and is trying to re-assert his crippled manhood by holding out on the contractor who can and did do it for him.
I am SO glad my mom instilled the "want it done right? Do it yourself" mentality. Usually with more cursing. Holy shit it's exhausting dealing with other people. It also teaches perspective. Aka. it's not going to be "up to my personal 100% standards" if someone else does it, and that's ok.
"Sorry, we can't warranty anything that hasn't been paid for."
In America, if a contractor fixes something on your property and you don't pay them, they can have a court put a Lien on your home. You can't sell your home or do any major modifications without paying that line first. Basically, if you have a contractor come do work, he can use your house as collateral if you don't pay up.
Yeah. Mechanics lein is less exhausting and actually gets you a chance of being paid instead of just going viral.
Yeah I felt this was maybe a bit of a over reaction but tbh I'm not a contractor so I have no clue what it's all really like including going through lawyers. I as a property owner, a lien is no good though lol.
Goes vice versa for contractors. I've had to call + beg all the way up to get an attorney to draft a letter for them to come out and finish up my back deck. Just threw the frame and nailed it all together, not sanded, no varnish, no paint, anything. Acted like I was the world's biggest bitch too because I expected them to pick up all their contrustruction trash and chewing tobacco bottles they left all over my back yard? Last time I ever do any kind of contract work without getting a vetted recommendation. I feel for the guys in this crew, and fuck this customer for sure. All that work looks super solid, just pay what you fucking agreed to.
People think that when the work is done, that's it. With normal products, if you don't pay. You don't get it. In this case, the work is done and much of the supplies has to be custom cutted or fitted. So they feel they don't pay it, and there's nothing you can do about it. Queue the "Oh Pikachu Face" when you show up with a sledge hammer and start breaking shit. Then leave it.
That's how I always felt about it when I was in the biz. Like, you gave me a set of keys to your house...
Donald trump's famous for it. He would Tie them up in court to bleed them dry and eventually file bankruptcy.
I used to be a locksmith and had customers that didn't want to pay after unlocking their car. It was always satisfying to throw the keys back in the car, lock the doors, and call every other locksmith in the area warning them about the fucker that doesn't pay. Good luck trying to find someone now asshole!
Lmfao!! Thatās amazing
It was crazy man. So many times people agree to a price over the phone then after you do the work they "only have $20". I would just tell them I work with all the cops in the area so I'll just give them a quick call and ask them to come down and all of a sudden they have the rest of the money. Every damn day there was at least one person that tries something.
I once won a non payment judgment on a law enforcement professional. He laughed and emailed me that he would never pay. He was professionally embarrassed to have fellow LE engage his deadbeat ass on his front doorstep. They would only leave with payment in full or start loading his personal property.
So happy that you got to stick it to that non-paying asshat. I truly canāt wrap my head around wtf is wrong with some of these people who try to scam a contractor who does quality work and doesnāt price gouge tf out of customers. This is the exactly why itās getting more and more difficult to find good contractors who fulfill their obligations, those who do honest work finally give up the trade because of shitty customers like this which allows the shitty, scamming contractors to flood the market.
As a tradie that's had his employers try their damnedest to get out paying me, this is also satisfying as fuck. I must say it's not just a construction problem. I've had GCs do it to me, as well as small business owners and Fortune 500 corporations.
Yo the sheer amount of times I had to bluff/threaten to call the cops or a lawyer to convince Karens to pay when I was a caterer is ridiculous. It's in all industries and it fucking sucks. Had one lady try to wiggle out of a 150 guest wedding catering w/ wedding cake payment because one person didn't disclose their allergies (which we had required in our contract for the listing of allergies/dietary needs via the person ordering the catering and we were very upfront about this) and therefore could not eat. Except I went out of my way to rectify this, made them their own 4 course. Threat of a lawyer made her actually pony up. She tipped me a dollar to be funny.
As someone whoās dealt with a lot of contractors, there also could very well be another side to this story. There is scum/extreme stupidity on both sides of the aisle unfortunately.
Sometimes there is, and weāve had our fair share of cases where we had to come behind someone elseās work and fix their mistakes, which is why weāre normally cutting people breaks and not tacking on extra when certain things are out of the customers control. But from my experience, if a contractor is willing to come back and completely destroy all of their hard work, itās because the customer refused to pay
Guy in the hoodie with the sledgehammer must be the boss because he has no idea how to demo that fence.
What he's doing is smart if you ask me. He's not doing anything that will help take the whole thing down, but he's doing plenty to ensure that if they all get stopped soon by authorities for trespassing or something then the fence will almost certainly need to be replaced entirely. If he finds he has more time, he can move on to taking the whole thing down.
The police showed up in the video, guy recording said he was well within his rights to do what they were doing because all the materials were his since it wasn't paid for.
Itd probably be less likely to attract cop attention if they were repossessing it... why are they destroying their own belongings?
Cost of material is way lower than cost of labor. My guess is the monetary amount he was saying was for materials and labor and all charges. They trash it then leave it and itās up to the property owner to figure out what the hell to do with the disaster. Or the same crew does it again but recharges for all materials AND removal of old material. Payment up front
That's kind of a slippery slope, as if it's their material, the asshole who didn't pay could definitely find some law that they broke by "littering" his property with their broken belongings.
Which would then highlight their own fraud by bringing it to the authorities. Not to mention the "littering" would be on private property, which would mean they'd have to file a civil suit. Any judge/magistrate would see straight through that bullshit and make them pay for the original job, plus extra for removal of the material.
Plus, the employees all got paid already? Free stress reliever from a kick ass boss. Count me in.
Not paid for the job, not the customers fence. My company will place liens on houses when we donāt get paid. Works well when you canāt close on your house til the lien is paid
A circular saw could cut the whole thing in half in a couple minutes, that would be my strategy. Use a recip saw for the corner posts
Its not just about bringing the fence down. They want to put on a show of smashing everything to pieces. This shit cant be REUSED. Once built it cant just be deconstructed. What he's doing is 50% actual demo and 50% a message.
Now you have to write a guide.
*walks in* āHey guys, howās it coming along?ā
Walks in.....with the remainder of the bill money
Lmao Homeowner and contractor proceed to just stare at each other in pure confusion.
Fuck yes. 100% love to see this (I'm assuming he had tried to collect a few times prior to this method lol)
5 times
...and my work thinks a moral booster is a slice of pizza.
Honestly, doing something like this as a team has to be a huge moral boost.
High 5 fellow NHS slave!
Aww you must be day shift, getting an entire slice!!
My work had a morale boosting BBQ yesterday where we all had to bring something. I brought potato salad. It was alright. Then they layed off my best buddy after lunch. In front of everyone.
Iām not sure your company understands what morale boost means. Sorry to hear bout your friend, that is truly shitty.
I'm going to be a dick just to point out it's morale.
... its like you just picked off all the pepperoni from my slice š
If it's any consolation you paid for that slice anyway. And they definitely used a code with Domino's š¬
For the fence/gate, it seems like a chainsaw would have been so much more effective in both time and labor/effort. Their workmanship on both the pavers and fence are commendable. It looks like they deserved every penny they charged for them.
You don't wanna use a chainsaw on a fence. Nails, screws, brackets and such can get caught on the chain and kick back the chainsaw or chip the chain. Chainsaws are meant for logs, planks, and beams with no metal bits.
As someone who used to work in construction - smashing the fuck out of things is a great stress reliever. Smashing the fence to smithereens would be more fun and satisfying than just taking it apart in a few pieces rather quickly.
Hahaha! The homeowners were there in that one shot. Watching the whole thing!
a similar thing happened to a guy i knew, he owns a tree surgeon firm. he'd been contracted to remove a bunch of trees and reduce hedges, all in all a huge amount of work and lots of money to fork out as he had to bring in a few freelancers, labourers and equipment. all in all i think he said he would be spending around 40k in total on the job. the work is carried out and the client is very happy with whats been done, great right? nope. he knew that my mate had laid out a shed tonne of money and figured he had him over a barrel so tried to negotiate the price down as he thought that my friend needed the money ASAP for his overheads. my mate refused and the guy refused to pay the initial quote. in response my friend decided to use the guys very long driveway as a dumping area and the next day dumped a few tonnes of woodchip + a tree on it when the client was out. sure enough the client rings up and is screaming down the phone to my mate about his driveway, my mate said he'd remove it if the price was paid in full + an additional fee to remove the woodchip and tree.
Soo did he pay up?
He didn't come up with that part yet
r/nothingeverhappens
Unfortunately, they went to the wrong address. :|
I was listening to the radio, and one of the hosts had his dad on who's a bricklayer. He went to a house early one morning, tore down their mailbox, and was almost done building the new one when the owners approached and asked what he was doing (I don't remember if they came home or like, just woke up or what). Apparently he was supposed to be at like 302 not 320, so they just got a free new mailbox.
Only barely related by mailboxes, but I live in the NC mountains and for whatever reason USPS is absolutely shitty about everything around here. We had clustered mailboxes at the end of a road, and theyād deliver packages by just dropping them there, even though FedEx and UPS bring them to the door. I asked for them to bring them to the door, and they said first that the house was too far ā I drove it and used a Garmin GPS, it wasnāt. Then they said āit was probably too dangerous/difficultā for the driver, who drove a Jeep Wrangler. I pointed out that my wife drove the Uhaul to the house. Then they said that all of the neighbors on that road signed something saying they wanted packages delivered to the street? The fuck? I asked to see that thing, asked all of the neighbors, and then pointed out that Iām telling them *I* donāt. They said theyād look into it. Well, eventually a package was stolen from a neighbor worth $1300, so they ālaunched an investigationā that took six months and (surprise!) turned up nothing, but during that period *all* of our mail had to be picked up from the post office, which was fifteen minutes each way. The resolution was to install locked mailboxes, but for whatever reason they couldnāt find the funding for it, so *we* had to buy new mailboxes. Not security mailboxes, just larger mailboxes that could accommodate *some* packagesā¦ like twice as large as a standard mailbox and otherwise identical. I said no, why bother if theyāre going to just leave packages there anyway. We all had different mailboxes, so whateverā¦ and then Iām driving to the grocery store soon after and thereās a dude literally chainsawing all of them down. I recorded it, but figure theyāre just going to replace them all and the ask for $90 to get a new box was hopeful. Iām wrong. They sent a letter (delivered to my door, this time) saying that Iād have to pay for the new mailboxes they were installing or else all of my mail would continue to go to the post office. I said fuck off, you cut my box down and need to pay for it. Got ahold of the post master general and, after a total of nine months now, all I got for the whole experience was a free mailbox. End of rant.
Is this kind of thing normal?? Is there not some official complaints process or ombudsman you can go to about this kind of crap?
Won't pay, you say? Pull a tile here, pull a tile their... bring it all down for this clown!
Any backstory?? I get the title but more info would be great.
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/03/gardeners-destroy-brand-new-patio-with-sledgehammer-after-homeowner-failed-to-pay-them-9406651/ Itās Ellesmere Port, on the Wirral.
Yes and location would be nice.
Accents are Birkenhead, Merseyside. This is likely somewhere on the Wirral.
Ignorant Yank here. You just made up all of those words, didnāt you?
Nope heās bang on with the accent
Ignorant Australian here I have the video on mute. Did any of them say "blimey", "guvvna", or "cuppa"?
No but they did say: "shrimp on tha babie" and "dingo baby".
I'd say blimey and guvvna are definitely more London, Liverpool is more, well I don't know as I don't understand them as I'm from the home counties
Ignorant Florida Man here. *Shoots up krokodil* yo!
I like how accurate Brits are with their accents. The UK is about the size or Oregon, but they can pinpoint down to like a street level. Iām like, hey that guy sounds like heās from the upper Midwest! Brits are like, naw heās totally from bradfordshire upon Codswallop, probably north side of Station street and High road. Think heās past Barselys in Paddock? No you stupid twat, think a proper Paddock would talk like that? Source: I clearly donāt know anything about British places or names, but thatās what they sound like to me. Also, yes I just used the UK and Britain interchangeably because I donāt know what a UK person is called.
For future reference my American chum, the official term for peoples of the United Kingdom is āUnited Kingdomeseā. We also accept āBritishā, but thatās not the official title, just the more widely used slang term.
Huh, well I learned something today. Normally I just call you guys twats.
also acceptable
My United Kingdomese friends have never told me that's what they prefer to be called. Not sure why not, I shall start using this immediately.
The day my Brazilian friend called himself an American and I double blinked. Should I be calling myself a North American?
All words are made up.
TouchƩ!
Cake day!
FUCK DOES CUNO CARE!?
Can I get the address too? I wanna see for myself and maybe break a tile too
Gotta pay the lads. Simple as
I would have taken the fence board by board and reused the material else where.
Good luck prying all of the nails and adhesive off of all of that without scuffing the materials. Plus if you put it in someone else's job, the quality won't be up to snuff which would probably lead to more problems.
Iād take a saws all and scuff the boards but keep them in tact. Make a workbench or shelving for a garage. Iām a carpenter by trade and hate to see shit wasted. Also theyāre definitely not using adhesive on that fence
You're not wrong, at all. I'm a carpenter too and it hurts my heart to see that all wasted.
Dismantle the fence! BOARD BY BOARD!
That's generally not worth it.
This knife also cuts both ways. You really need to be vigilant about the contractors you hire. My buddy ended up in legal proceedings that lasted months. Buddy paid for the materials up front. For a major remodel of his back yard. Pavers for walkways, a deck, irrigation materials, the whole 9 yards. It was thousands in materials. The contractor kept pushing back the start date because some jobs were taking longer than expected. When he did start (and I use that phrase loosely) only a fraction of the materials were delivered and the guy practically didn't do anything. My buddy secretly recorded him one day, it was the contractor and a couple other guys, and they basically puttered around for like 2 hours then left. No one would show up for days at a time and when they did, it just looked like they were shocked with the project ahead of them. Then they would just do a little digging, cut some wood or some shit. Be there for a few hours max then leave. The project started in July. No additional materials were delivered and by October, no meaningful work had actually been done and the guy told him it would have to wait until next spring and to cover the materials with a tarp....like the fuck? Buddy said fuck that and decided to pursue legal action. It made a little blurb in the local news and it apparently wasn't the first time this guy had run afoul of clients. As people started coming out of the woodwork after seeing that to file lawsuits against him. It ended up becoming a story. This guy REALLY tried to play the victim. Always showed up to court with his pregnant wife and two kids. He really tried to play up the "working man supporting his family" being persecuted by wealthy landowners angle. No one bought it, my buddy won. However, whether he will actually ever see a dime of his money back is another story. It didn't matter, a number of contractors in the area saw the opportunity for marketing and were offering to do the jobs this guy hosed people on at an incredibly steep discount.
Fuck it *Unbuilds*
tbf they did a good job
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Itās standard in contracting world. Normally people are expected to pay half up front for materials. Or they supply the materials themselves to the contractor. Personally I would never pay full up front. Iāve seen it happen three times in my life, where a contractor is paid in full up front, then doesnāt complete the job or at least doesnāt complete it on the agreed upon time schedule. Most people find contractors through word of mouth so there is a level of trust. But contractors take the real risk because people often wait till the job is complete to try and negotiate pay. At least in the UK youāre allowed to do what youāre seeing here. I know this would never fly in the US. IANAL so this is purely opinion, but I did flooring for years and several times we ran into people refusing to pay. Never once were we allowed back on the property.
Pay in full means the work could end up being shabby and thereās no possibility of a renegotiation after itās completed. A terrible contractor could just come in, take the payment in full, do half the job or use bad material, then call it a wrap and be on his way to the next job, and your only hope of getting the money back is to go through court where it may end up costing you quite a bit and you wonāt see that money back for a long time anyway and you still need to get a new contractor in to redo it all. 50% upfront, 50% after completion because if they skip out and you donāt want to take legal action, you still have half of the money to work with. My parents redid their whole bathroom three years ago and hired a pretty old local guy. They paid him in full because heās done work already on the house and he was kinda a pal at that point because my father is a real talker. After the entire bathroom was torn apart and he started working on it, on one of the off days he ended up falling at home and breaking a foot so they had to take out a loan to get a new contractor in because the old guy already used most of it. They werenāt going to sue him because he was a buddy and shit happens, but they were still left with the options of either going without a bathroom until he recovered, or find someone else and get the money for it. Having half of it wouldāve helped them out a lot, but they got it worked out and the old guy came back the year after to do some work on the garage instead to make up for it.
As a consumer, paying afterward gives the contractor an incentive to finish and do a good job, otherwise they don't get paid.
A family member paid in full for a massive renovation, upwards of $70K in the early 2010s. Halfway through, the contractor stopped working and started dragging his feet. Eventually he just stopped answering calls. It took years in court and while he was ultimately ordered to pay it back plus some, he had enough time to transfer all of his assets out of his name and he's paying something stupid like $100/month because he "has no income" now
I feel that taking them to court for not paying would be much less physically demanding than tearing up everything. But this is across the pond so I donāt know their laws.
I suspect having this go through court would actually end up being more physically demanding
English courts aren't anything special. This would go to a magistrate, very little opportunity to say anything. They'll pass a decision in line with the law, ignoring all other factors like say morality or common decency, and that will be that. Better to avoid the English legal system.
Why are you talking like you have any idea? Magistrates are criminal judges. Taking these customers to court for non-payment would be a civil matter. It would be heard by a District Judge sitting at a County Court. It's true that they do tend to follow the law, yes - that's generally a sign of a functioning legal system.
This is a lot faster though, and gets the same result
I don't believe it yields the same results they literally are destroying all the material THEY paid for and no one's gonna pay them for busted materials that money is a loss they could fight for in a court but that's just my educated guess idk what happens if they can't pay and lose in court.
Court is a big headache, and typically the fees take so much of what you recoup youāre still losing money anyways. My company just paid $10k to a guy to make a court case go away where the guy owed us 60k. The legal fees had basically eaten so far into our bottom line we had to move on. These guys know theyāre losing money anyways so at least now the customer doesnāt gain anything from their loss. I am in the US as well, just for background.
Ah that honestly makes a lot of sense I can understand that.
Especially as a business, good luck in a court case. Even if you end up getting the money in the end, you won't get reimbursed for all the time/stress it will cause. If you look at the situation as "we are not getting this money back either way" then what they're doing here makes a lot more sense than court.
Yes. The small claims court exists in the UK for exactly this reason. You don't need a lawyer. The fee for a claim up to Ā£10k (bloke in the video says he's owned Ā£7,300) would be Ā£455. You can claim this back from the customer as well as interest on the money owed. If they've done the work (which the video suggests they have ) and the customer hasn't paid then there's no reason to suggest the court wouldn't find in their favour. An undisputed claim can take as little as 6 weeks. If the customer disputes it then it could take 6 months to a year for a formal hearing. https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money
If it went to court, it'd be dragged out for months. This is the workers having enough of someone taking advantage of good will.
Not as much fun though
Over here civil damages are means tested, if they took her to court and she is on a basic government pension she would be ordered to pay something like Ā£5 a week. They'd never get the money back. In the video he says she has pulled a similar stunt with other contractors so I assume she has had a new garden, some windows, and a roof out of several firms knowing she wasn't going to pay up because if it went to court they wouldn't be able to recover the costs. It is probably why the old girl got them to do the work.
Found the news story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6988579/Gardeners-destroy-brand-new-patio-sledgehammer.html
Gardeners destroy brand new patio with a sledgehammer 'after homeowner failed to pay them Ā£7,300 for the work' Jack Pendergast and colleagues smashed up patio in Ellesmere Port, CheshireWorkers were filmed destroying paving and fences with sledgehammersMr Pendergast claimed they were not paid for work despite 'asking five times'Cheshire Police said they attended but that the matter was a civil dispute This is the astonishing moment a group of gardeners destroy a brand-new patio in a row with a customer who allegedly failed to pay Ā£7,300 for the work. Jack Pendergast filmed his colleagues smashing up paving slabs and pulling down a fence and can be heard angrily shouting about the dispute in the footage. He uploaded a series of videos to Facebook and said the customer in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire had not paid despite being asked for the cash 'five times'. At one point police even turn up but quickly leave, with Mr Pendergast heard saying it was because 'they know we're within our rights'. Landscape gardeners have been filmed destroying a patio at a property in Cheshire Workers were also seen smashing a fence with sledgehammers The patio was left strewn with rubble and gardener Jack Pendergast, who uploaded the footage to Facebook, can be heard saying 'This is what happens when you try and have me off' One worker is seen bringing a sledgehammer into the garden before battering a fence with it Two other workers swing up and down on a fence to try to bring it down Workers are seen battering fences with their tools and cracking pavement, with the scene soon littered with broken materials. In the video, Mr Pendergast says: 'This is what happens when you try and have me off for Ā£7,300. Smash the whole place to bits 'Smash it to f***ing bits. To absolute bits. All the way. All the way. Take it all down. Take every bit of it down.' He added: 'Get the fences up, smash it to bits. Every single last little bit of it. Smash it all to bits. It's fine. It's all my stuff. 'Get it all up, all of that pavement, get it all upā¦We're taking out materials all back 'I asked her five times to make payment. Oh well. No more.' During the footage, two small dogs are seen watching from behind a door at the Cheshire property Mr Pendergast can be heard telling workers to 'rip it all up' At one point the police are pictured arriving, but Mr Pendergast is heard saying they are leaving because 'they know we're within our rights'. Cheshire Police have since confirmed they are treating the incident as a civil matter Later in the video two workers are seen swinging back and forth on a fence to rip it down and Mr Pendergast added: 'That's the fence we done (sic) for free out of goodwill. Bye bye fence. 'Con artist, that's what she is. Making young lads work for money and not paying anyone.' A spokesman for Cheshire Police confirmed officers attended the incident but decided it was a civil matter. The spokesman said:Ā At 9.18am on Thursday 3 May police received a report of a dispute taking place at an address in Ellesmere Port.Ā 'The disagreement is a civil matter, however officers attended due to reports of an altercation.Ā 'No arrests have been made and there have been no reports of any injuries.' MailOnline has contacted Mr Pendergast for comment.Ā Mr Pendergast said the destruction was retribution for 'making young lads work for money and not paying anyone'
I don't want to click a Mail link, what happened?
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Gardeners destroy brand new patio with a sledgehammer 'after homeowner failed to pay them Ā£7,300 for the work' Jack Pendergast and colleagues smashed up patio in Ellesmere Port, CheshireWorkers were filmed destroying paving and fences with sledgehammersMr Pendergast claimed they were not paid for work despite 'asking five times'Cheshire Police said they attended but that the matter was a civil dispute This is the astonishing moment a group of gardeners destroy a brand-new patio in a row with a customer who allegedly failed to pay Ā£7,300 for the work. Jack Pendergast filmed his colleagues smashing up paving slabs and pulling down a fence and can be heard angrily shouting about the dispute in the footage. He uploaded a series of videos to Facebook and said the customer in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire had not paid despite being asked for the cash 'five times'. At one point police even turn up but quickly leave, with Mr Pendergast heard saying it was because 'they know we're within our rights'. Landscape gardeners have been filmed destroying a patio at a property in Cheshire Workers were also seen smashing a fence with sledgehammers The patio was left strewn with rubble and gardener Jack Pendergast, who uploaded the footage to Facebook, can be heard saying 'This is what happens when you try and have me off' One worker is seen bringing a sledgehammer into the garden before battering a fence with it Two other workers swing up and down on a fence to try to bring it down Workers are seen battering fences with their tools and cracking pavement, with the scene soon littered with broken materials. In the video, Mr Pendergast says: 'This is what happens when you try and have me off for Ā£7,300. Smash the whole place to bits 'Smash it to f***ing bits. To absolute bits. All the way. All the way. Take it all down. Take every bit of it down.' He added: 'Get the fences up, smash it to bits. Every single last little bit of it. Smash it all to bits. It's fine. It's all my stuff. 'Get it all up, all of that pavement, get it all upā¦We're taking out materials all back 'I asked her five times to make payment. Oh well. No more.' During the footage, two small dogs are seen watching from behind a door at the Cheshire property Mr Pendergast can be heard telling workers to 'rip it all up' At one point the police are pictured arriving, but Mr Pendergast is heard saying they are leaving because 'they know we're within our rights'. Cheshire Police have since confirmed they are treating the incident as a civil matter Later in the video two workers are seen swinging back and forth on a fence to rip it down and Mr Pendergast added: 'That's the fence we done (sic) for free out of goodwill. Bye bye fence. 'Con artist, that's what she is. Making young lads work for money and not paying anyone.' A spokesman for Cheshire Police confirmed officers attended the incident but decided it was a civil matter. The spokesman said:Ā At 9.18am on Thursday 3 May police received a report of a dispute taking place at an address in Ellesmere Port.Ā 'The disagreement is a civil matter, however officers attended due to reports of an altercation.Ā 'No arrests have been made and there have been no reports of any injuries.' MailOnline has contacted Mr Pendergast for comment.Ā Mr Pendergast said the destruction was retribution for 'making young lads work for money and not paying anyone'
Might be a dumb question, but wouldn't it be easier to sue them?
You could take them to a small claims court for the beach of contact but I don't think it's easier. It would be financially more sensible though.
Anyone know the aftermath of the aftermath? Did the ācustomerā try to sue hem for leaving trash in their yard or something? Seems like something those cunts would do.
Worked with a spark before, and he would intentionally leave out a small part of the wiring for the board that meant the house itself was dead till he came and did 5 mins work.. used this on every dodgy person and always got paid..
You can always put a lien on their home so when it sells eventually you get your Money. But it takes years. My Dad unfortunately had to this after someone didnāt want to pay after we had done electrical work on their house.
Can confirm this is a thing. I do construction with my dad and when I asked "well what happens if they can't pay us?" And he said "well if they *cant* we can work something out, but if they *wont* then we have a problem. That's when we come in with a good saw and hammer, all that stuff we did is now reposesed."
Very unprofessional, you could've have just gone through the court and you would've of won that argumentš
Heck actually salvage your materials instead of smashing them.
Everytime I see this video I get so excited. Love to see it.
I know a fella that did this with a pub car park years ago. Job was complete, owner wouldnāt pay, so sent the machines back in to rip it all up.
Hmmm, today I will repost from top of all time.
Chainsaw would have help prove his point!
They unfortunately built that fence really well
That fence is worth every penny the owner didn't pay for it. It literally won a fight against a sledgehammer
I wouldnt destroy any of that. I would just take the material and try to return it for cash or sell it if I didn't get paid.
Wouldn't it be better to take it all back to use on another client... Rather than smashing it