While it’s often more advisable to have a professional handle heavy duty home renovations than to try and tackle them yourself, it’s also true that we take a big gamble on the work we’re going to get when we do that.
And it’s not as if this is a risk-free proposition for them either. Indeed, it’s hard to think of a more frustrating experience in the world than spending so much time and effort (not to much mention money) on something only to be stiffed by the person who was supposed to make it worth your while.
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But at the same time, it’s understandable that people who will end up paying thousands of dollars for what might not even be safe results would want to protect their investment.
Those competing considerations seem to be at the heart of a video capturing one contractor’s big blow-up.
In recent weeks, Colorado Springs resident Amber Trucke hired Dream Home Remodels of Colorado to fix her back door, repair two ceiling fans, and rebuild her shower.
As she told KRDO, however, she wasn’t impressed with the work that contractors Terry James Gregory and Jordan Cazares had done on the door and shower.
As Trucke put it, “I wanted to be wowed and I wasn’t wowed.”
So while she had already paid $3,330 of the $7,555 total, she decided to withhold the rest until she could be sure the plumbing worked once they were finished.
But in a tense video that has since found its way to Reddit, the contractors clearly saw this arrangement as an excuse for Trucke not to pay.
So by the time Trucke began recording , Gregory was already in the process of destroying the work he had done with a sledgehammer.
He can be heard saying that he put weeks and thousands of dollars into the job before Trucke tells him to stop. To this, he replies, “Is somebody going to pay me?”
From there, Trucke, Cazares and Gregory can be heard arguing over whether he’s destroying Trucke’s property or their own as he keeps pounding into the brickwork.
While Trucke said he was destroying her bathroom, Gregory said that he has receipts for everything he’s knocking down and that he’s “more than happy” to deal with the police over it.
As Trucke put it to KRDO, “Watching it just brings tears to my eyes. It makes me sick, it makes me scared. This is more than just trashing my bathroom, my sense of safety is gone.”
However, Gregory obviously feels he’s the one in the right, saying, “No contractor in the state of Colorado will fix that when they found out that I took it back because she refused to pay me. No one.”
In her own statement to KRDO, Cazares said that Trucke expressed no displeasure with the job they did until they asked for payment several weeks into the project.
She also claimed that Trucke hadn’t paid for several other projects they undertook, including the aforementioned fans and door, as well as a vanity, mirror, light fixture, fixing the “rotten framing” in Trucke’s walls, and plumbing work.
In response, Trucke maintained that she did pay for those jobs and is now taking Dream Home Remodels of Colorado to small claims court.
Video of the incident can be seen here .
h/t: KRDO
