Episode 3 Cowboy Trap

Cowboy builders cost us more than £1 billion every year.

I would say it was easily the worst experience of my life so far.

But I'm on a mission to turn the tables on those bad guys and put things right.

It looks so different. It feels like brand new.

We're about to see how bad some jobs can get.

The foxes were coming in and out of the house.

Using it as a litter tray.

But if you stick with me, I'll point out all the pitfalls and show you

how you can avoid falling into the Cowboy Trap.

We're in Islington, a buzzing area of North London renowned for its bright lights, bars and bistros.

Perfect location for young solicitor Vicky Downes to buy her first property.

Perfect, until her builders walked off the job, after turning her home into a house of horrors.

I had no roof on my extension and it hadn't been plastered.

The floor hadn't gone down.

It was dire.

And in Giffnock, Glasgow, where plans for a dining kitchen extension

left the Clarke family cooking in the dark and put them in danger.

The lights weren't earthed. If the kids had touched them, they would have been electrocuted.

I've been in and around the building industry for over 20 years.

I've seen it all, and I'd like to think I can spot the bad guys, and

it's also my chance to pass on the benefits of my experience to you.

We'll help you to avoid those dodgy bodgers out there.

Meet Vicky Downes, a successful property solicitor who recently

bought the ground and basement of this mid-terraced house in Islington.

It's Vicky's first home and she was looking forward

to refurbishing the property so it was just the way she wanted it. But her builders had other plans.

The company were employed to convert the property from a one and a half bedroom, one bathroom property

to a two bed, two bathroom property, by putting on an extension and various internal rearrangements.

The work should have cost £40,000 and lasted roughly ten weeks but so far the job's gone on for

eight months and the cost has soared from £40 to £53,000, including the hire of new builders to finish

or repair the worst of the bodged workmanship Vicky was left with.

It was unliveable in, basically.

I had no boiler, so no heating and hot water and it was the first week in February.

Um, I was having to shower at work cos I had no wash facilities.

I'm not the kind of person who gets easily stressed or upset,

but I would say it was easily the worst experience of my life so far.

So Vicky was left with a wrecked flat, no heating, no hot water,

no roof on the extension and broken floorboards everywhere.

All this chaos has so far cost Vicky £53,000 and the job's still not finished.

Vicky's home and her hopes were left in tatters thanks to cowboy builders.

But I know some guys who can't wait to lend a helping hand.

I want to find out how this savvy young woman fell victim to a cowboy builder in the first place.

Time to look at the evidence first hand.

Hi, Vicky, I'm Clive.

-Hi, Clive.

-How you doing?

-I'm good.

-I hear you've had the cowboys in town.

-I certainly have.

It looks like you've had some, er, remedial works done.

It looks very nice at this stage.

'Before Vicky gives me a tour of her property, she shows me

'some pictures she took around the time her builder walked off site.'

So this area here is that area there?

That's right.

Vicky shows me around, pointing out just how much things have moved on since the builders left.

This half of the house was quite badly affected.

The floor wasn't level, there were holes in the ceiling, none

of the lights were here, no light sockets or switches or plug sockets.

I had pretty much no floorboards upstairs, so I was jumping from joist to joist.

There were live wires hanging out.

Ah, what's going on through here?

Well, this is the one room that I haven't yet done pretty much anything to since the builders left.

-You intend that to be your wet room?

-That's right.

Very fancy. Very nice. But not in the state it's in at the moment.

Definitely not.

I can't believe this mess.

The wet room's a shambles.

I mean, who was in charge of this?

When the builder first came to look around, he brought a site manager

with him to do the job, who I was quite impressed with.

He didn't actually start on the job.

It was a Polish guy who started doing the job.

He then changed to a younger gentleman who was lovely, but didn't really have any experience.

Then the original site manager came in for maybe two or three days

and finally, when things went wrong, another site manager was brought to look around.

So I think there were four in total.

Four site managers?

And they say three's a crowd.

How is any work going to get done properly with no individual in charge?

If you ask me, it's a classic case of too many cooks.

Always know who's the boss

cos it's their job to keep your work on schedule.

If you can't be on site to check progress personally,

give the job to someone you trust.

Friend or family.

If you've hired a project or site manager,

make sure you talk to them regularly.

What is the main thing you'd like us to do for you?

Well, there's one room in the house that hasn't been touched at all, my wet room.

That room is effectively in the state the builders left it.

Well, if that's what you want, that is what my team and I will provide for you.

Vicky's cowboy builder left her and her home in a shocking state, and seeing the way she's been treated,

it really does my head in, but our boys are here to the rescue.

So let's get cracking.

Vicky was left with a house that was open to the elements, all because

her builder wanted more money than they'd originally agreed on.

But because she stuck to her guns, he walked off site.

-Coming up, we'll see what affect this all had on Vicky.

-It was too cold.

There was a draught coming in, I had nowhere to wash and I was so stressed that I was starting to get ill.

And will Vicky dare confront the man who left her living like this?

Cowboy builders beware - your days are numbered.

Our second story today focuses on the Clarke family from Giffnock, a smart suburb of Glasgow.

With four growing children, parents Elaine and Julian

needed to add more family space to their four bedroomed home.

When plans for a dream extension turned sour, the family spirit sagged,

along with the roof.

They were charged for shocking electrical work and completely

floored over their grotty tiling, all of which left them wanting cash back for their splash back.

I feel it's just criminal what has been done.

The electrics were so bad they were actually condemned.

Last winter the Clarkes were left cooking in the dark

in a kitchen so cold, they needed overcoats to prepare dinner.

The original plan was to demolish an old outhouse, shown here

on the left, and replace it with a much larger kitchen and utility area.

We were just going to take the roof off and put a new roof on and then we thought, well,

if we're going to do that, we thought we should just knock it down and start again.

But as the Clarkes' build progressed, it wasn't only the extension going up.

The costs started rising too, until finally their whole budget was blown.

The Clarkes' original builders quoted £25,000 for the extension,

but the job's been plagued with problems.

A collapsing roof, dangerous electrics and poor finishing

on everything from the slate floor to the woodwork, tiling and insulation.

Shoddy workmanship, and the costs of getting new builders in

for emergency repairs, have left the Clarkes with a bill for over £69,000!

And there's still work to do.

We've got just the guys to do it.

Our team of dedicated builders are already on their way.

The Clarkes have had enough problems.

For about five months we had considerable disruption,

and a year later we're back into the same situation again.

It's freezing cold because there's no insulation.

We've got to cook with a coat on, there's dust everywhere.

It's not the living space that we paid for.

The problem with the Clarkes' roof was a major fault.

The roof line had developed a curve, or deflection, and required urgent attention.

The problem we noticed was the roof was curving down the way, like it was sagging.

The original builders wouldn't help, so the Clarkes had to turn elsewhere for answers.

At that stage we decided we can't take any chances, so we asked for a structural engineer's report.

Holes were cut in the roof and once that was done, we realised the supports weren't there.

The recommendation was to put steel beams in.

The wooden structure or the kit of the roof was woefully inadequate

to actually support the weight of the roof.

It's all the hidden stuff you can't really see.

-Yeah. Yeah.

-The moment they walk away, it looks good

but they know it's not gonna look good for too much longer.

-Yeah.

-But as long as they get paid, it doesn't matter.

-That's right.

If the Clarkes hadn't been so vigilant, this story could have had a very different outcome.

Without the proper supports in place, that roof could have collapsed at any time.

Unbelievable.

We were told that the roof was not safe and we were told that the roof

eventually would have slid into the garden, and if there'd been snow, it would not have held the weight.

The problem? The main roof support should have been constructed from a single strong piece of timber.

In fact, it was made from short sections of wood nailed together.

It simply wasn't safe, which put the kibosh on plans

for a big party celebrating daughter Ros' 18th birthday.

She was 18 on the 23rd of December and originally planned to have

a party on the 19th, but we had to delay it cos there was no way that we were going to be ready in time.

It was quite annoying cos I like to have my birthday before my birthday,

not after, cos it doesn't feel birthday-ish.

The roof wasn't just a problem for the birthday girl, it was actually illegal.

Big work like this needs signing off by building inspectors

from the local council but it hadn't happened.

I can't believe this. It's a complete nightmare scenario.

Building regulations are there for a reason - to make a building safe.

If you're having building work done and you want to stay legal, here's how.

Remember it's down to you to call in the building inspector,

so phone your local council and book an appointment.

And make sure you're there when an inspector calls.

With all the money that been spent, the Clarke family should have been living in the lap of luxury,

with a stylish new kitchen extension and all the mod cons to go with it, but because the work has been

so badly finished, they've been left tens of thousands of pounds out of pocket.

Maybe we can do something to help banish the memories of what's gone wrong.

Tell me exactly what you'd like us to do.

We've got an expert team of builders ready to come in.

I think to start off would be to clean up the slate floor.

We need to change the colour scheme cos we've got more wood in the room now.

-Any colour scheme in mind?

-I think something fairly neutral.

There's a host of jobs, from replacing the skirting boards

and repairing the splash backs where the tiles have dropped off, plus that smart oak roof needs treating

with a coating of wax to give it the quality finish it deserves.

Our boys will have their hands full with that little lot.

Time for them to crack on and we'll check back later.

Back in Islington, property solicitor Vicky Downes is in a tangle with cowboy builders.

Her two-bedroomed flat is in a mess.

So far she's spent more than £53,000 on trying to make this

mid-terraced property habitable and she's now heavily in debt.

The quote was for about £40,500.

I think that to date it's probably cost me in the region of 15 to £20,000 more than that.

Vicky's dodgy builders walked off the job following disagreements about money.

Earlier, we invited independent building surveyor Gordon Kirby to take a look at what's happened.

The major one is the shower room that needs to be finished.

At the back, we have external doors that need to be finished.

We need water bars at the bottom and I noticed that the flank wall is bare block work.

So we're gonna have a damp problem.

You've seen the photographs Vicky had taken on her laptop.

-Mm.

-If you were to give it a score out of ten, what would you give it for the builder's work?

-I'd give it four.

-Four out of ten.

Harsh but fair.

It's hard to defend a disaster like this and as you'd expect,

with Vicky being a solicitor, she's a stickler for the finer detail.

But this legal eagle still got caught out by a cowboy builder.

What I'd like to know is just how?

Everything I think that people tell you that you should do, I thought

I'd done to make sure that the works went well, but it still went wrong.

As our guys continue work on the wet room, I asked Vicky

at what point she began to suspect she'd hired cowboy builders.

Probably about three or four weeks into the contract.

I had a request from the builder to pay money into a different bank account

to the account that the previous funds had been paid into.

I trusted him and I paid the money into the other account.

Things started to go really badly wrong.

I went away for a long weekend and I got back and no work had been done at all

for the five days I'd been away, even though they knew

they were getting towards the end date in the contract.

After a day and a half frantically trying to get hold of the builder, I managed to get hold of him.

He basically said, the long and the short of it is that we're running out of money on the job

and I'm not gonna be able to complete it unless you provide me with extra funds.

I said to him, I'm sorry, but this is a contract price.

It's a set price. I won't be giving you any more money

and he said, well, I've no choice but to walk off the job.

Vicky persuaded the builder to stay but on a new deal.

In future, she'd pay for extra materials or labour instead of handing over extra money to him.

The builder agreed.

Then just a week later, changed his mind.

He said he needed £500 to buy the flashing for

the roof, to complete the roof, and to pay the roofer so that he could come in and finish the roof.

And that he'd be there that weekend to finish it, and would drop the flashings off that day.

I agreed. He took me down to my bank in Islington.

I gave him the cash. He went off.

I phoned him a few hours later to ask when he was delivering the flashing, and he said, I'm not going to,

I'm walking off the job, and that was a few hours after he'd taken cash from me.

I had no roof on my extension, or an unfinished roof, so it wasn't watertight.

The windows weren't attached.

I had no heating and hot water because the boiler wasn't attached.

I had a half-finished bathroom, the patio doors weren't attached

and foxes were coming in and out downstairs

and effectively using downstairs as their litter tray.

It was pretty awful.

Vicky had prepared well for her job.

She's a property lawyer but once work had started, there were signs of the trouble ahead.

So how can you avoid falling into the same trap?

Always be careful about making payments to a builder's personal

bank account, particularly if he has a business partner.

Set up a payment schedule based on work done and stick to it.

Advance payments should only be made if something unexpected crops up.

If your builder threatens to walk off the job

if you don't pay in advance,

try to negotiate but never give in to threats.

So Vicky's flat was left a complete mess and her builder walked off the job taking her money.

How is Vicky holding up?

I'm not the sort of person who gets stressed or upset

particularly easily but the smallest thing was making me burst into tears.

I was so stressed I wasn't sleeping properly, I wasn't eating properly.

I just couldn't comprehend that someone could treat someone like that.

Are you now over the worst of it, do you feel?

Emotionally, I'm over the worst.

If you'd seen me this time last year, it was a different story.

Financially, it's obviously still having an impact on me.

I've got big loans that I'm having to pay off on a monthly basis.

But I'm definitely through the worst now.

Vicky may be over the worst, but work on her home is still incomplete.

Our guys are working flat out to change all that.

Remember, if you're thinking of having a wet room installed,

it's really important to use the right materials.

Now wet rooms are very much in vogue at the moment, but before you do anything, make sure you prepare,

because it's crucial that you put the proper boarding on first.

This is wet board. Now what they used to do a few years ago,

and even up until recently, was use plasterboard with a silver foil backing.

Now although the water won't penetrate out of the silver foil

and maybe onto the structure of the wall,

it does make the actual plaster board itself start to disintegrate.

Look at that. That's a real mess, and, of course, your tiles will start to fall off.

But let your watchword be preparation if you want your wet room to look good for years to come.

Exactly how do you fit wet boards to a room like this?

I asked Chris, one of our builders.

The adhesive used for the tiles

has to be two-part flexible adhesive, which allows for any movement and allows for constant water.

-You use that sort of stuff in swimming pools.

-The right ventilation as well.

-Yes.

-Great job so far. I'll catch up with you later on.

-Great. OK.

-Cheers, Chris.

Vicky's builder problems were hard enough to cope with but at the same time she faced a new family crisis.

Two weeks after Vicky's builder did a runner with her money, her mother was diagnosed with MS.

And add to that she had to move in with a friend while her house was being made safe.

No wonder she had trouble coping.

Her dad, Calvin, has been alongside her all the way on this emotional rollercoaster.

She was in a state.

I mean, I noticed that her hands were trembling,

she'd burst into tears at the drop of a hat, she'd lost weight.

You know, to see your daughter having to face those circumstances on her own...

is not easy.

And the uncertainty going forward as well is difficult because we just didn't know how we were gonna manage.

We were all looking to see where we could find money, where we could

close off insurances that we had and all sorts of things in order just to get us through this difficult point.

From Victoria's point of view, she just couldn't see any way out of it.

Fortunately, Victoria's grandparents stepped in.

The family pulled together and they gave her some money to tide her over, to get the workmen in to get these

key resources, or key facilities in place.

Vicky's lucky she had a family to rally around with a loan from her grandparents.

Even so, she's still £13,000 in debt, thanks to her runaway cowboy builder.

I wanna hear what this guy's got to say for himself - for Vicky's sake too.

If you had the opportunity to speak to him now,

would you be prepared to do that or would you prefer me to do it?

I think I'd rather you spoke to him, just because I've tried so many times and nothing ever works.

I'm gonna make that call now.

OK, it's saying an incorrect number.

The chances are that that number's gone, so the only other option

is to call his home number and just see whether he's in.

'We tried calling four numbers in total. Guess what?'

All four of them are dead.

OK, now this is a typical example.

Home number dead, mobile number dead, and what's happened is,

because he's got so many people probably chasing him like yourself, that's the first thing they do.

They start to change their telephone numbers.

It doesn't matter how inconvenient it is to them,

the most important thing is they don't want to be traced.

Later, the builder did email us with a response, claiming Vicky had exaggerated her discomfort.

He reckons there were only three project managers, not four,

and that builders walked off the job for good reason.

Then goes on to lecture us about the legality of the contract Vicky drew up.

A bit rich, really, given that SHE'S the lawyer.

Oh, and he still didn't give us a working contact number.

This coward left Vicky's house open to the elements when she refused

to pay him more money than they'd originally agreed.

£13,000 in debt and more than a year wasted on getting her house back together again.

I'm on a mission to root out the bad apples of the building industry

and this guy is certainly on my short list.

You know what you did, we know what you did, and pretty soon Trading Standards will know it, too.

Coming up, we'll see what Vicky thinks of all our hard work.

I'm really excited to actually be able to use it.

Back in Glasgow, Julian and Elaine Clarke have spent almost every penny they have on a kitchen extension.

Spiralling costs on the original build

and emergency repairs by new builders,

who are here fixing the roof, have pushed their total spend to just over £69,000.

Repairs to that roof simply couldn't wait.

The central support should have been a single strong piece of timber.

The Clarke's original builders made one up by nailing short pieces of wood together.

For them to put lots of bits of wood across an apex of a roof,

I feel it's just criminal what's been done.

Now I wish I could say this was the most dangerous thing

about this build, but inside the extension, things went from bad to worse.

Once new builders were hired to fix the roof, another nightmare scenario came to light.

I was told by the remedial electrician that there was one wire with seven spurs off it.

Now I've got four kids and if five or six things had been put on

in the house, eventually these wires would have melted through.

There's only meant to be one or two spurs off any wire.

And also, they put fibreglass against the wires,

so a chemical reaction would have happened.

If we hadn't exposed the roof space like that, we wouldn't have known.

The lights weren't earthed.

If they kids had touched them, they would have been electrocuted.

I don't know how someone could have done that and how

someone is going round other people's houses

and probably wiring their houses the way ours is.

But we're here to help.

Our guys are still hard at work trying to put things right.

So how was this build allowed to go so badly wrong,

and just when did the Clarkes realise there was a problem?

I came back from work early one day and found a roofer

taking good slate off the original roof of the sunroom next door.

And this was Norwegian slate.

-It's Norwegian slate.

-Norwegian slate, which is great slate.

It's the best stuff you can get.

-And he was taking it off.

-Yeah.

-And it was only fitted when, five years earlier?

Five years before. I said, what's happening?

He said, well the builders ordered Spanish slate

and the Norwegian rock's the best you can get but it won't work together.

So all that top notch Norwegian slate has just been dumped in

the back garden but I can find a good use for just one piece of it.

Here's a tip for you.

If you're having a roof done and you may be replacing the tiles,

you must ask the roofer if those joists need reinforcing

due to the weight, just like the Clarke's.

This was the tile that was coming off

and this was the tile that was going on. Look what happens.

As you can see, the tile that was going on the roof was far heavier, so therefore checks must be made

to make sure that the purlings and all of the joists can handle that amount of extra load-bear.

To avoid giving your roof that sagging feeling,

when changing tiles, get an expert to check the roof timbers

and see if they're strong enough.

Some modern roof tiles can be heavier than the originals.

Time to catch up with our builders and see how they're getting on inside.

-Morning, Dean. How are we getting on?

-Morning, Clive, not bad.

-Seems like a hive of activity.

-Right, it is.

We've got the tower scaffold, but at the moment you're doing your tiling.

It's all ready now down to how long it's gonna take to cut the tiles. That's soaking up the time.

Yeah. We've spent about four hours trying to get acid on the slate floor just to bring it up nice and clean.

-OK.

-We've got some painting to do.

We've also spent about four hours filling in the holes.

Fantastic, cos that's time-consuming to do that.

Hopefully we've got skirting going down as well.

So I won't hold you up any longer.

-Well done, son.

-OK. Thanks.

It's nice to see things are moving on. See you later.

The Clarke's story gets very tricky.

When things started to go wrong, they took it up with the man they believed was their project manager.

He replied to our first letter in November and in that letter,

what he did was he, I thought, or we thought,

tried to distance himself from his project management role and began to refer to himself as an agent.

And we've got lots of evidence that he was a project manager,

but he seems in the last letter to become an agent.

Therefore, not being so responsible.

So who was in charge?

The Clarkes thought they knew, but when problems began, suddenly

no-one would own up to being project manager and take responsibility.

If you're hiring builders, make sure the contracts name the key people

and their jobs, whether they're project managers,

agents or whatever, and spell out that any change in the role

has to be agreed in writing with you first, the paying customer.

The Clarkes are still looking for answers from the man they thought was in charge.

But what will happen if they phone him to ask the big questions?

How do you feel about giving him a call and finding out exactly his point.

Is he prepared to stand up and be counted and say, do you know what,

I am responsible for this debacle that's gone on at this property?

-Would you be prepared to give him a call?

-Yeah, I'd be happy to.

OK, well let's do it without further ado.

-OK.

-I think we need to find out for everybody's sake and, er, hopefully he'll answer his phone.

-OK.

'The number you have called is not recognised.'

It looks like the mobile number's been changed and is no longer available, so...

That doesn't surprise me. I'm sure it doesn't surprise you.

He's distancing himself.

That's usually a trait that happens with these people.

The builder called us to say that the bad workmanship wasn't his fault.

He'd just followed orders given by his project manager.

The project manager then called us to say he wasn't the project manager, just a consultant agent

and that he was fed up with this particular builder whom he'd used for five different jobs

and three of them had gone wrong.

You'd think he'd have learnt his lesson after the first bad job.

You know who you are, we know who you are, and pretty soon Trading Standards will know, too.

So, two years and £69,000 later, the Clarkes are still looking for a happy ending.

They've never been satisfied with the poor finish on their lovely slate floor.

The grouting wasn't cleaned off properly before

the tiles were sealed. Where's the pride in that?

Our boys have applied a cleanser to remove the layer of muck

before resealing it with a shiny new surface.

The oak panelling on the ceiling looks good, but it will look even better

with a protective coating of wax to give it a fantastic finish.

And finally, a revamped colour scheme will complement the warm wood tones

and make this luxury kitchen picture-perfect.

Come on, time is running out.

How are you getting on so far?

Yeah, very, very good. I'm scrubbing my hardest.

You're just getting that surface grout off?

Just getting the last of the grout off.

Just cleaning the tiles out which comes off quite easily as you can see.

OK, just tidying that up and tidying all around the sink area.

-Keep up the good work.

-Cheers, mate, will do.

-Not long left.

-No.

-See you later.

-OK, mate.

Coming up, what have the Clarkes learned from this nightmare?

We have definitely made mistakes.

Do your homework on the builder.

And finally, we give this long suffering family a reason to celebrate.

In Islington, North London,

property solicitor Vicky Downes' builder nightmare is almost at an end.

So far, she's spent £53,000 on her two bedroomed flat trying to make it a dream first-time home.

But her original builders walked off the job, leaving the place in a real mess.

Our guys are now hard at it trying to fix a string of problems

in Vicky's stylish wet room

and finish the work on her home at last.

There are ongoing impacts as a result of the building work

that I have to deal with on a day-to-day basis

in terms of paying bills and paying back loans.

Vicky wishes she'd checked out her builders for County Court Judgements.

Well, I did a reasonable amount of research, but I think there's always more that you can do.

Obviously, I should have checked the Insolvency web page and found out

that they had CCJs against the company, which is something I didn't realise.

In terms of the payments, I made stage payments on work

that supposedly had been done, but not knowing enough about various aspects of the building trade,

I believed that work had been done that hadn't been completed.

So maybe involving someone like an architect or someone who had more knowledge

to be able to advise me whether that work had been done.

When goods and materials had been ordered,

I should have asked for receipts to ensure that they'd been paid for.

Yeah, I think just research is probably the key.

Despite being a property solicitor,

even Vicky fell foul of cowboy builders.

If you're getting building work done,

try to learn from her hard-won experience.

Check out your builder on the Insolvency Service website.

Look for County Court Judgements against him or his company.

If you don't have the expertise to know whether

a stage of building work has been completed properly,

bring in someone who does.

An architect, a surveyor,

or an experienced family member or friend.

And when paying your builder for materials,

insist on seeing the receipts

to ensure you get what you've paid for.

Our boys are packing up now, their job almost done.

In the wet room, we've mended the plumbing and reinstalled the heating system.

The fittings are now in place and connected

and there are just some final finishing touches to do.

-Chris, looks like we're on the home strait.

-All done and dusted now.

Just the silicone in and the finishing off, dusting and the tiling.

-All right, mate, well you carry on. Well done.

-Cheers. Thank you.

Vicky was so excited about owning her first property.

Excitement that soon turned to dread when her builder made a run for it with her money.

She's very close now to getting the home she's always wanted

and I'm looking forward to bringing some more excitement into Vicky's life.

What were you hoping for us to do?

Um, ideally, finish my wet room.

It's the one room that hadn't been touched at all, so it was a complete mess.

You're not wrong. It was a mess.

Time to put an end to all this with a grand opening.

On a scale of one to ten, how excited are you?

11.

HE LAUGHS

Me too. Right, let's just take this down.

Ta-da!

Wow.

That's fantastic.

That's really amazing. I can't believe the guys got this done in three days.

I wish it was mine, actually.

You can't have it!

Do you like singing in the shower?

-Sometimes.

-Cos I love this.

# Oh, Vicky, you're so fine

# You're so fine, you blow my mind. Hey, Vicky. #

I'm loving that.

Finally, a wet room to enjoy.

The stylish chrome steel radiator was moved from the doorway -

great if you want to hit your head on it -

to a safe new position on the back wall.

We sorted the plumbing, connecting and re-fixing much of the pipe work.

Then we installed the wash basin on its smart granite plinth.

The loo is now installed. Always handy.

And that shower, a key component of any wet room, has been hooked up

to the hot and cold water supply, boxed in and beautifully finished.

Even the floor in this wet room is now a luxury item.

It's not just somewhere to stand.

Beneath these new tiles, we've put in under-floor heating

to make sure Vicky's toes stay nice and warm.

And then there's some under-floor lighting, too.

We finished the boarding out of every wall and floor to ensure it's waterproof,

then finished off with quality tiles.

All fixed with the best waterproof adhesive.

And a wet room wouldn't be a wet room unless we got it...well, wet.

Looks like it's time for us to make a discreet exit and leave Vicky to it.

When you put your trust in someone to do something with your home,

which is an important place, it's the place where you put your heart and soul into,

and if someone comes along and abuses your trust like that, it's not right.

I am looking forward, in that the work's almost completed now.

I'm out of the worst of it.

That's fantastic and I can look forward to being able to do new things like getting my garden done.

Across the country, cowboy builders are leaving people high and dry.

But with a little help from us, hopefully Vicky can put her nightmare year behind her.

And now that she's wiser, she should never fall into the Cowboy Trap ever again.

In Glasgow, the Clarke's family kitchen sink drama is nearly over.

It's cost them a fortune and meant a cancelled 18th birthday party

for daughter Ros, all because of the building chaos.

Now everyone's trying to look to the future.

I'm not going to let it eat me up because I can't survive like that

and be bitter, but I do want other people

not to be in this situation that we've ended up in.

I've brought my team in to give this poor family the final finish

to the kitchen they've been longing for.

One piece of shoddy workmanship that definitely needed attention was the skirting boards.

When you're spending thousands on a build like this,

you expect the best, not what the Clarkes got.

This new extension is added on to a period property.

Now, what Julian wanted was a continuation of all the period trim as well.

It's difficult to come across skirting board these days, unless you try really hard

to source it, but our team here have come up with

a cracking idea using Meranti timber and a wonderful bit of trim.

Look what they've managed to do here to create that skirting board.

I think it's a cracker.

And to prove this is a floor-to-ceiling kind of show,

on high, the final wax is going on to that luxurious oak,

bringing the grain out nicely.

The slate tiles on the floor have been stripped back, cleaned properly

and the splashback is being completely reinstalled.

The new colour scheme is taking shape. Soon it'll be time to show off our handiwork.

The journey's been long for the Clarke family

and they've had a lot of hard lessons to learn along the way.

So just what would Julian and Elaine do differently next time?

We have definitely made mistakes.

Don't pay anyone anything until the service has been provided

or the work's been done.

We should have checked his background out far more than we did.

Do your homework on the builder,

find out how long they've been trading.

I'll almost certainly guarantee you'll have another tradesperson

in this property. But, you know, don't be afraid to offend them.

Make sure perfect preparation prevents poor performance.

It's just a rule that I have and I think that if you adopt that rule,

in the future, this will never happen again.

It's fair to say that this whole sorry sagging roof saga has cost the Clarkes dearly.

Let down by their original builders, who left them with an unstable roof,

terrible electrics and a string of faults, the Clarkes were forced

to hire new builders for emergency work on the major structural problems.

Even before we arrived, this extension had cost a small fortune - £69,000.

The extension was designed to make life easier.

They've had very little cause for celebration.

That is, until now.

Time for me to take the Clarkes on a kitchen tour.

Before we go in and take a look inside that kitchen,

just remind us exactly what it was like before.

The roof wasn't built properly. It was curved, it was dangerous.

The electrics were condemned,

the plaster board was cracking and going all over the place.

-The floor wasn't too good.

-It needs to feel like a new kitchen after all we've been through.

It needs to feel like a working kitchen.

Hopefully we've managed to do that for you.

-Are you ready to take a look?

-Yes, definitely.

-Let's go.

-All right.

Let's take a look now. Hope you're ready, Elaine.

-Oh, it's...totally different.

-It's amazing.

Er, just, compared to when I first came in.

-First impressions?

-It's lovely.

It's really nice and it looks so different. It feels like brand new.

It's lovely.

The walls have been finished in neutral tones to complement the natural wood

and the wood grain on the ceiling's oak panels has been lifted

thanks to an application of nourishing wax.

The splashback is back and looking better than ever.

This rather cold and uninviting kitchen has been transformed

into a warm haven for the whole family.

The effect is fantastic.

The shine has been restored to the slate floor and the skirting board is brand new.

But most importantly, we've managed to draw a line under this saga

of cash and chaos for the Clarkes -

all of it caused by cowboy builders. And with lessons learned,

never again will they be the victims of shoddy workmanship.

It's a different living space, really.

It's just really what we wanted.

And I hope you can go on from here and put it all behind you,

because you've got a fantastic property.

-Yeah.

-Now I'm off to get Ros, so if you...

If you don't mind, I'm gonna go and fetch her out of her...

Rozzie! Rozzie. Come on, your kitchen needs you.

Come on, hold my hand.

Let me show you. Hold my hand, come on.

Don't be afraid, I'm not a monster.

I know I look like one. We've got a special surprise in store for you,

because your birthday was messed up because of this builder.

On behalf of all of our team and myself, here at the Cowboy Trap,

happy birthday, Rozzie. Blow out the candles.

Here's to a job well done. To the new kitchen extension.

Thankfully we have our happy ending. And remember,

not all builders are cowboys

and there are ways and means of finding the right team for the job.

I'm gonna go back to the party right now

and I'll see you next time on the Cowboy Trap.

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