Episode 15 Cowboy Trap

We're on a mission to rescue homeowners across the UK

from the misery left behind by cowboy builders.

I was brought up to trust people and you can't anymore.

He took me for everything I'd got.

With their shoddy workmanship or downright lies,

cowboy builders are unscrupulous villains who not only

destroy dreams, they wreck lives too.

It's been very stressful

and that has taken a toll on my health as well.

When you see this shoddy approach to finishing, then you think,

what else haven't they done?

And when you look around the rest of the job, everything,

they haven't done everything right.

We've got the Good Guys in our party to help turn these botched builds

into ideal homes.

-Oh, my goodness. What a beautiful job.

-What a difference.

-How different does your garden feel now?

-110%.

-Does it?

-Yeah.

It's just opened everything up now. It just looks so much better.

You know, even the smartest people forget basic common sense

when they have the builders in, which is why the next 45 minutes

is the cautionary tale that can help keep you out of the Cowboy Trap.

Today's Cowboy Trap is a stern lesson in trust,

or rather how when it comes to building work, trust no-one.

Both our stories are proof that if you take your builder at face

value and let them get on with it, you'll live to regret it later.

He started to get very nasty.

I said, "You know, I'm beginning to wish

"I'd never even had this job done."

He said, "I wished I'd never set eyes on you."

Cowboy builders prey on vulnerable people.

And that is how they get away with doing the shoddy work that they do.

Later, we tell the story of a homeowner who paid a friend's son

to build her patio with distressing consequences.

But first, a Cowboy Trap saga featuring a house in Romford,

a large town in Greater London.

Romford is famous for its market, the 1980s band, Five Star,

and its thriving nightlife.

But there can be little doubt that its main claim to fame

has a grittier feel... greyhound racing.

The greyhound stadium here is the last remaining

dog track in East London but even today,

there are still six race meetings here every week.

Now believe it or not, back in the 1930s,

they tried racing cheetahs here.

They shipped the animals in especially from Kenya,

but for some reason, cheetah racing never really took off.

I suppose it went to the dogs,

a bit like today's building project which ended up a right dog's dinner.

The unlucky victims live in this end terrace.

It's home to Margaret Sutton, her daughter, Tracy, their puppy,

Millie, and believe it or not, a host of chickens.

Tracy is Margaret's carer and they've always been close.

Tracy's support has been especially important over the past year

because Margaret has had to cope with the loss of her much

loved husband, Charlie.

Charlie was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2007

and he finally passed away on New Year's Eve 2012.

We did everything together. We were a very devoted couple.

We did everything together.

We made decisions together as it should be.

My dad was the best dad in the world. Sorry.

He would spend hours playing finger mouse with me as a child.

That's my first memory of my dad. He taught me to play cards and win.

Until you lose somebody,

you don't realise how much your family mean to you.

Six years ago, when Charlie was still in good health,

he and Margaret decided to invest some money on the house.

They needed a drive for Tracy's car and that's not all.

Charlie had long dreamt of having a decent garage.

The one they had was so small, it was completely unusable,

as more than one smashed wing mirror vouched for.

So, when Charlie's brother left them some money in his will,

it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity

to make that dream come true.

We've never had a lot of money, we never have been financially well off.

We've struggled.

When he did get a little bit of money,

it was left to him by his brother.

We then wanted to do something else to improve the house.

The Suttons set about finding a suitable builder.

Margaret's sister had hired someone to do some work and she was

happy with it, so that builder was their first port of call.

He came and gave us a quote because we went round

and looked at his work and were quite impressed with it.

The builder quoted £13,525.

That was to pay for the front drive, replace the side fence

and dismantle the old garage, building a new one in its place.

The Suttons didn't get any other references.

There was no written contract and no schedule of works.

The builder just said the job would take as long as it takes.

Oh, dear.

Take my advice, before giving your builder the green light,

always draw up a detailed contract.

It should include a payment schedule and state you'll only pay

if you're happy with the work at each stage.

And it has to have a fixed completion date

with a lump sum paid at that point

if the work's been finished to your 100% satisfaction.

Margaret and Charlie's builder and his team started work in December 2007.

They seemed a really friendly bunch

and the whole family were excited about Charlie's dream coming true.

But sadly, that excitement was short-lived.

Soon after the build started, the Suttons were dealt a terrible blow.

Charlie was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease

and as his condition began to worsen,

the build had to take second place.

The Suttons felt they had such a good relationship

with the builders, they could trust them and leave them to it.

How wrong they were.

The Suttons' garage and drive were finished in February 2008

and on the surface, it looked like all had gone well.

But first impressions can be deceptive.

We were pleased because they did the path, the front drive

and all looked really nice and it looked like they'd done a good job.

However, it didn't take long for problems to emerge.

The first problem we had was the front drive started sinking

under one of the cars.

We phoned him up to ask him to come back and he didn't come back.

He said he was going to come and he didn't.

And that wasn't all.

Margaret noticed mould growing on the ceiling

and there was notable frost on the walls too.

Charlie's health was deteriorating fast

so there was no way he could use the garage in that state.

Margaret phoned the builder.

"Don't worry," he said, "I'll get the boys and we'll come down and jet-wash it."

I said, "Jet-washing's not going to do any good." He went, "No, it will."

No, it didn't.

Then in March 2008, the garage roof started to leak like a sieve.

The Suttons tried to get the builder to come and have a look, but to no avail.

Every time we rung, we got a different excuse.

He was in hospital, that he'd be round the next day,

and he'd never turn up.

But this cowboy builder's no-shows

were just the tip of the iceberg when it came to his bad manners.

With Charlie so poorly, it was down to Margaret to track him down,

and when she did, she got short shrift.

Phoned him several times,

it got to the end that he was putting the phone down on me.

Margaret and Tracy did their best

to protect Charlie from all the bad news

because his health was deteriorating so rapidly.

Tragically, he'd never get to enjoy his dream garage,

because within weeks, he had to move into a nursing home.

As if the family didn't have enough to contend with,

Margaret had to find and pay someone else to fix the drive.

Then she asked the builder to check out the garage roof.

When he inspected the roofing felt, he couldn't believe his eyes.

He picked it up and he said, "This is like tissue paper, this isn't right."

And then he got under where he'd put battens around the roof,

and he said, "I'm going to take a piece of that off because I need to look underneath it.

When he took the batten off, he lifted it up and said,

"There's only one layer of felt on here.

He said, "He's only put one layer of green mineral felt under here

"and that's why you're getting all the problems. That's not right."

There should've been six layers of felt

and the roof supports weren't strong enough either. And that's not all.

One morning, Tracy spotted a massive crack in the garage wall.

I could see sunlight streaming through the crack

and I came in, in tears to Mum, whispering to her

that we had problems with a big crack in the garage.

For Margaret, it was the final straw.

I was brought up to trust people and you can't any more.

And he did, he took me for everything I'd got.

The Suttons were at their lowest ebb,

and then, the moment they'd been dreading.

Charlie passed away in winter 2012.

In the months that followed,

Margaret and Tracey decided to find a different use for the garage.

Even with all the problems,

they thought it could function as a hatchery for their chickens.

But it soon became apparent the chickens would need to be strong swimmers.

I went in the garage one morning and found, like, the Nile.

I had to bail it out and sweep it through

to the front of the garage to get the water to go out.

When I saw it, I couldn't believe it.

She said, "But, Mum, I've swept that out

"and it's coming in as fast as I sweep it out."

The water was gushing in through the cracks in the walls

within feet of electrical sockets. That's life-threatening!

This was the moment when the penny finally dropped for Margaret and Tracy.

The builders they'd trusted to do a good job for them

when they had so much on a plate were callous cowboys on the take.

Here's a tip.

If you can't be present when your build is happening,

ask a friend or relative to keep an eye on it for you.

Get them to take photos of the work in progress,

and give you regular updates.

If things do start going wrong, ask them to alert you straightaway.

And if it all possible,

try to avoid undertaking building work at times of family strife.

It's bound to affect your decision-making ability.

And the poor Sutton family couldn't have been in a more stressful situation,

with Charlie's health failing in front of them

and their building project falling apart at the same time.

All cowboy builders prey on vulnerable people.

And that's how they get away with doing the shoddy work that they do.

It was Charlie's money.

And I've wasted it.

What a desperately sad story.

And, you know, bodged building work is bad enough,

but you can't help feeling these builders cold-heartedly

took advantage of Charlie's illness by cutting corners

when the Suttons' eyes were off the ball.

But exactly how many corners did these guys cut?

Cowboys have a habit of hiding their bodges beneath the surface.

So, we asked independent building surveyor Simon Levy to investigate.

Simon's been through it with a fine-tooth comb

and is about to fill me in on what he found.

First item on the agenda, the frankly awful floor.

This looks like where Stig of the Dump would live.

One of the major problems with this garage construction

is that the floor to the garage has been set at the incorrect level.

As a result of that, water from the outside

has got over the threshold of the pedestrian door

and come straight in with mud and...everything else.

When you say, "everything else"...

-Chicken? Right.

-Yeah.

-Not eggs.

-No.

Something else they lay.

Lovely(!)

Fancy laying the garage floor at the same level as the ground outside!

It should be higher to prevent the interior from ending up like this.

And these photos taken by Tracy and Margaret

capture how their garage has become a indoor swimming pool

because of all the water getting in.

I know it's just a garage, but this is a garage that's failing.

Yes, it is. It's completely unusable as a garage, even as a storage space.

-Is not wind and water tight.

-It's disgusting, to be honest with you.

And that's putting it mildly!

Everywhere you look, it's bodge, bodge, bodge.

When is an airbrick not an airbrick?

When it's heavily deformed like that.

That is... They've either put it in wrong and broken it,

or it's got some load that's misshaped it.

-That looks like a lorry has driven over it.

-Doesn't it?

-Yeah.

I've heard of cowboy builders' materials falling off the back of a lorry,

but being driven over by a lorry, that's a new one!

Crikey, look at the base of the garage!

If the walls of Jericho had a base like this, a toot of a trumpet

would've been quite sufficient to bring it all down.

That's footing brickwork that's so poorly jointed and put together.

The space in between the bricks, so irregular

and the mortar pointing is non-existent between the vertical joints.

They've just been placed there, by the looks of it.

That's unbelievable really, if you look at this.

-It looks like it's been thrown together.

-Yes, that's right.

It's very poor quality construction.

Not kidding. And check out this damp proof membrane.

It looks like some of the render has bridged the gap.

That's going to cause damp penetration inside

and this roof doesn't look too healthy either.

That's the edge of the roof that's peeling away.

The felt roof is peeling away and it's only going to get worse.

The wind will get underneath it and tear the felt.

There are so many ways for water to get inside this garage,

I'm surprised Simon didn't need a snorkel when he inspected it!

There are two cracks inside the building, one on the end wall

and one on the side wall of the garage.

It's caused by the presence of too strong a mortar in between the joints,

and as a consequence, the concrete blockwork has fractured.

You're supposed to use a soft mortar

to allow for the natural shrinking of the concrete blockwork.

The cowboys clearly didn't know how to mix the mortar.

That's page one stuff! Well, I think I know what he's going to say,

but it's make-your-mind-up time for Simon.

How would you mark this out of ten?

It's a one or two really.

-One or two? That low?

-It's appallingly poor.

One or two out of ten?

I can see why Simon is unimpressed. Check out the evidence.

The garage is precariously propped up on bricks, there is

extreme water ingress, cracks in the walls, badly fitted damp

proofing, a suspect roof, a rubbish render and buckled air bricks.

In short, if there was any hope for Tracy's chickens,

it was time to hatch a plan.

Enter our Good Guys.

Here's head honcho, Gary Fenn, leading his posse into the fray.

So much needs doing,

the Suttons are chipping in to make their garage fit for purpose.

First job, a good clean out, so a proper membrane

and floor slab can be laid.

Then it is time for some serious hammering and chiselling

so those interior walls can be sorted once and for all.

And when those tools can't get to the root of the problem,

the big boys' toys come out.

Outside, it is time to get busy on the external wall, too.

Those cracks need sealing pronto.

Gary and his team have clearly made a great start,

but will their efforts give Margaret

and Tracy the dry-as-a-bone garage they so desperately want?

Only time will tell.

I'm in Romford, where a cowboy builder left Margaret

and Tracy Sutton with a soggy excuse for a garage.

Well, our Good Guys have now finished their work, so let's see

how the girls are getting on.

I do hope Margaret and Tracy's garage woes have been rectified.

If not, their chickens are going to need webbed feet.

-Good morning, ladies.

-Good morning, Jonnie.

-Are you Tracy?

I am, yes, nice to meet you.

-And your sister, Margaret(!)

-I'm Margaret, nice to meet you.

Lovely to meet you both. Lead the way, ladies, thank you very much.

While Margaret and Tracy put the kettle on,

I can't resist taking a look at the Good Guys' handiwork.

Right, the first thing you notice, well, it's still pretty mucky

outside, that's a job for another time, but you step out of that

muck up into the garage, which is the right thing to do.

The muck from outside isn't pouring in here,

do you remember before, it was all, well, it was almost slurry,

wasn't it, all pooling into the garage itself?

'And that was revolting.

'When you compare what it looked like as a result of the cowboy's

'bodge to how it looks now, I know which I prefer.

'Our Good Guys clearly know what they are doing,

'and they take pride in their work. A crucial combination.'

They have put a concrete floor down.

Now, what they have to do, is essentially,

order a load of concrete in, and then two guys will get a long

bit of timber with levelling along the side, and just tamp it down.

It's no small job but it is a job that any builder can do

if they're committed to doing a proper job.

As well as the raised floor,

the Good Guys have fixed another

source of the moisture ingress issues.

Remember the cracks? Well, the cracks are no more.

And, actually, you know what? You could skim that.

That's a good plastering job.

'Well, I wouldn't expect anything less.

'This place has gone from soggy as a swamp, to dry as a desert

'in one fell Good Guy swoop.'

Absolutely bone dry, so, the electrics will be safe, thankfully.

And it becomes more than just a garage then,

this is another storage facility - who knows what it could be

used for now, which is great.

But, to get access to it, obviously,

you've got to get through these doors.

There's a researcher.

'And what a lovely researcher she is, too.

'Well, our fellows have played a blinder.

'The ramp outside the garage is spot-on.

'The man responsible, Good Guy Gary,

'couldn't believe the disaster zone the cowboys had left behind.'

Everything about it is wrong, basically.

It's got one coat render,

it was built on a shallow strip foundation which caused

the cracking, and then he cast a slab within the blockwork,

so, logistically, it was done for speed, basically.

So they put the blockwork down and then

they put a slab in the blockwork? That's the wrong way round, surely?

Well, this type of construction warrants a raft foundation, so,

it means a foundation is tied in and poured in one into a reinforced slab.

So, the fundamentals were ignored, or they weren't even known,

but they just started knocking it out, by the sounds of it.

Absolutely.

Yes, with these guys, it was all about doing

the job as quickly as possible - as cheaply as possible.

Talk about betraying Margaret and Tracy's trust.

But our knights in shining armour came to the rescue

and sorted things properly.

Although their shining armour soon became nothing of the sort.

So, when you first came to this job, and you opened the door...

I bet you nearly ran back into your van, didn't you?

It was a mess.

It was a complete mess.

There was mud, smells, all sorts of things going on in there.

I bet the missus hosed you down when you got home from work, didn't she?

I mean, it wasn't great, was it?

I had to get my van cleaned twice.

I bet you did, yes.

But, I mean, all the stuff, let's call it stuff, shall we,

it was all coming from outside in, because the floor was at

-the wrong level, there was no threshold, was there?

-No.

Not putting a threshold in is either incompetence or calculated

corner-cutting to save cash.

I reckon it is the latter,

and he endangered Margaret and Tracy's lives in the process.

It looked to me like somebody has been taken advantage of, and

whilst we're talking about a garage that was failing, you know,

you've got leaks in the roof, moisture

and goodness knows what on the floor, and in between the electrics!

And it might not have just been the chickens that got electrocuted.

But now, thanks to Gary and his Good Guys,

this garage is as safe as houses.

Right, time for a heart-to-heart with Margaret

and Tracy about their cowboy builder.

I wanted to find out his side of the story and put it to them,

but he has proved rather elusive.

Now, we always give the cowboy builders their right to reply,

to offer their side of the story or their version of events, if you like.

But, in your case, he has ignored all of our attempts to contact him.

-He would do.

-You're not surprised by that at all?

-No.

He always told me, "Don't worry

"if anything goes wrong I will be there for you." Where is he now?

He may well be watching this. What would your message to him be?

How dare he rip off my parents?

I hate him, I really hate him.

For what he's done to me.

And until we'd got this solved,

we didn't think there was any end to the end of it.

It's no surprise that Margaret and Tracy were at rock bottom.

They felt betrayed

when they were at their lowest ebb, coping with Charlie's illness.

We trusted him, and we shouldn't, and I've learned that, because if anybody

comes in here now, I'm behind them on my crutches, I don't trust them.

And that is the long-term effect cowboys often have on their victims.

But the most overriding emotion for Margaret is guilt.

She feels she let Charlie down.

I had got the builder, I had done the paying,

and I felt it was my fault because I had spent his money.

-And to this day I still think I spent his money.

-It wasn't your fault.

I know it wasn't, but that's how it makes you feel.

You know what, you can tell it wasn't your fault

because you have seen how good builders act.

Yes, I have now, I have now.

I'm glad the Good Guys have got involved,

just to prove to you that there was one rogue individual that

ripped you off, and it was nobody else's fault but his.

-Callous acts of a man that doesn't care.

-Yes.

And from our Good Guys I wouldn't expect anything less.

Right, time for the bit I have been waiting for.

The grand tour with Tracy and Margaret.

First stop, the new ramp. Have you seen this yet?

No, this is beautiful.

-Oh, my goodness.

-Brilliant.

That is absolutely beautiful. I can't believe that.

I mean, it's a proper ramp, it's not like it was, it was awful.

Well, the ramp gets a big tick.

Let's hope the garage gets the thumbs up, too.

-Oh, my goodness. What a beautiful job!

-What a difference.

No cracks in the wall any more.

But, most importantly, this isn't an ice skating rink any more.

-Beautiful.

-Come on in, mind your head.

-Yes, I'm all right.

With Margaret so unsteady on her pins, the idea of her walking on

this slippery floor doesn't bear thinking about, does it?

Now, though, a much different story.

-Brilliant job.

-It is a good job, isn't it?

-Brilliant job.

What do you think Charlie would say when he saw this proper job now?

-Oh, he'd be pleased.

-Would he?

-Yeah.

-Yes, I bet he would.

Now the Good Guys have weaved their magic,

Margaret and Tracy think their garage could be

more than just a hatchery.

It's going to be a toolshed for the tools, the mower.

Somebody's coming at the weekend to put my shelves up

and put some stuff back in that got taken out.

-Right, OK.

-Then it'll be all straight.

Ladies, I'm so happy that you're happy.

So am I. Thank you so much.

The next time I'm driving past, I'll remember to collect my eggs.

-OK.

-All right?

-Call in.

-Lovely to meet you both.

-BOTH: And you too.

-Take care.

-Thank you so much.

-All the best. Bye-bye.

-Bye.

-Bye-bye.

The chickens are happy too.

Their chicks will be hatched in a nice warm garage

before you can say boo to a goose.

'Time for me to bid the chickens, Margaret and Tracy a fond farewell.'

Well, it just goes to show, doesn't it?

Even simple jobs done badly by cowboys, in particular,

can have a huge impact on people's lives.

Emotions here are still very much raw.

But thanks to our Good Guy builders

and after the splendid job they've done,

Margaret and Tracy can start planning for the future

and start thinking about doing something more positive

with that garage of theirs.

Margaret and Tracy found out the hard way

not to put their trust in a builder they barely knew.

Our next cowboy victim had better reason to trust her builder,

but still lived to regret it.

And it's also a salutary tale

that cowboys don't always go for big-money jobs -

they can strike on smaller projects too,

with equally upsetting results.

We are in Cheadle Hulme near Manchester, a town with a history.

It got a mention in the Domesday Book in 1086,

and there is evidence of settlement in the area

going back to the Bronze Age.

Wonder if they had cowboy builders back then?

Perhaps it's the second oldest profession.

Behind me is Stockport viaduct,

just a few minutes' drive from Cheadle Hulme.

At the time of its construction back in 1840,

it was the largest of its kind in the world.

What an impressive feat of engineering it is.

Unlike the focus on today's Cowboy Trap,

a tiny project that for one particular cowboy builder

proved...well, a bridge too far.

His unlucky victim lives in this 42-year-old semi.

It is home to Sue Harney,

a sales consultant for an insurance company.

Sue, who is divorced, has one grown-up son

and two young grandchildren.

The main loves in Sue's life are golf,

and - surprise, surprise - her grandkids.

They're too young to swing a club,

so Sue has to find a different way to spend time with them.

They do enjoy coming here.

They like to play in the garden, because they haven't got one at home.

They like to play football.

They like to do a little bit of gardening themselves.

It's really, really good fun.

Sue bought her semi-detached house some 25 years ago,

and she still loves it as much as she did

when she first clapped her eyes on it. Back then,

it represented a fresh start after the breakdown of her marriage.

There were good schools nearby for her young son Lewis,

and it was nice and close to the countryside,

but the thing Sue loved most about the house was its garden.

And she's spent much of her downtime in it ever since.

Recently, Sue decided to improve her garden

by adding a patio with a raised flowerbed in the middle.

What I really wanted out there was a nice, clean, bright patio area

for a safe playing environment for the children.

But also an area to just sit and relax.

One of Sue's friends had a son who was a builder,

and he said he could do her patio.

He quoted £520 for the job, and said it would take three days.

To me, it seemed natural to give a friend's son the work

than just get somebody in that I didn't know,

so it is probably the only occasion I haven't gone and got

any other quotes, because I trusted him as a friend.

That would prove to be a big mistake.

Take my advice.

And it didn't take long for Sue to have worries

about her builder's quote. It didn't include VAT,

so his tax arrangements were clearly suspect -

a classic sign of a cowboy.

And another thing - Sue expected to pay after the job was done,

but guess what?

On day one, a lorry driver turned up with the patio slabs

and Sue got something of a shock.

The builder asked me to pay the driver,

which I was very confused about, because my contract,

if you will, was with the builder,

and expected to pay for everything after the work was completed.

However, I was presented with a fait accompli,

cos I had to pay for it there and then.

The driver wouldn't leave until I had paid.

Not a great start, and things didn't get any better.

The builder started using the ornate flagstones

to build the walls of the raised flowerbed.

I found him cutting up my beautiful flags of sawn Indian sandstone

to try and reconstruct the wall

that I assumed was going to be built out of proper walling blocks,

and it was just horrendous.

It wasn't only using expensive flagstones to build a wall

that was an issue - the patio was littered with trip hazards,

because the flags hadn't been laid properly.

All Sue could do was hope her dream patio area would be OK

for her and her grandkids in the end.

And that end came round a bit quicker than she had expected -

two days into the build, in fact.

He said he'd finished, although it didn't look finished to me.

The whole area was covered with mortar.

He told me that was quite normal,

and that it would swill off in a couple of days,

and I was under strict instructions not to touch it at all,

because there had been problems with it drying.

So, Sue followed orders, waited two days

and then set about cleaning the mortar off her precious flagstones.

I got my hosepipe out,

soon to realise that it was actually all dried rock hard,

so the whole surface of the flagged area was just covered in mortar,

at which point my heart sank.

I had to go to work, and when I came back,

I spent two hours cleaning just one flag

to try and get this stuff off.

And when she finally did,

the flagstone underneath was in a dreadful state,

and so were most of the others.

Sue asked the builder to replace the damaged flags,

but he told he couldn't find the same type anywhere.

That was a blatant lie, as far as I was concerned,

because I'd checked with the supplier that they had them in stock,

and then he started to get very nasty.

I said, "Do you know, I'm beginning to wish

"I'd never even had this job done,"

and he said, "Well, I wish I'd never set eyes on you."

And it wasn't just his workmanship that concerned Sue.

So did his suspect bill and the mysterious missing VAT.

By now, it was only too apparent that Sue was dealing with

a bodge artist at best, and one whose tax arrangements were -

how should I put this? Unconventional.

The worst thing is she had had misgivings from the off,

but had ignored them because of who this guy was.

As our result of this cowboy being her friend's son,

it's not just Sue's relationship with him that's turned sour.

She's lost her friend too.

It seems to have created a massive void

in a long-standing friendship, and that shouldn't be the case.

That should not have happened.

It's been very stressful. It's taken a lot of my time and energy.

I've not been able to relax very much

and that has taken a toll on my health as well.

Not only that, this bodged patio has affected

Sue's quality time with her grandchildren too.

It is so hazardous, she won't allow the kids anywhere near it.

There's sharp edges, it's not even,

and they want to go outside and I'm not able to let them

go and play in this area that was really for them.

I really feel for Sue, but this is a firm lesson

about the dangers of involving friends or family

in what should be a purely business arrangement.

At the very least, she should have seen concrete evidence

of this guy's previous work and then perhaps she would have chosen

to leave things to the professionals.

Exactly how bad is this amateurish effort?

To find out, we asked independent building surveyor Euan Elliott

to inspect the work. He has given it a thorough going-over

and is about to fill me in on what he found.

First item on the agenda - those problems underfoot.

You step out onto the patio, it's got to be safe,

and this flag you're stepping out onto is uneven.

It's a mess. It's already breaking up,

and you don't feel confident stepping out the door.

It looks like whoever's done this has had another go at this,

cos look - you've got quite a light-looking mortar,

or whatever he's using here, and there's a lot more cement

in this, so this is a completely different mix.

He's tried to basically bodge over a hash job.

He's tried to level it out without taking the flag up

to get it properly level.

'And that really is a schoolboy error.

'Right, on to the raised planter.

'Guess what? Euan ain't happy.'

The coping flags on that have been hand cut,

and unfortunately, he didn't use a straight edge,

-so the cuts waver.

-Looking along the side here,

you get to see the inconsistency of cuts.

You'd hope that anybody taking on this job has got the right tools.

-Yes.

-No one has even bothered

to run a trowel across the edge of that.

That just looks dreadful.

All that's happened there is he's put a layer of mortar on

and just squeezed the coping flags on the top,

and the mortar's exuded and he's walked away.

This is when you start to say, "It hasn't been done right."

This is now slapdash and literally slap and dash off!

And here is another reason why he dashed off. In these photos,

there's clearly an issue with damp patches caused by his shoddy work.

The slabs have been laid in a way that water falls towards Sue's house

and her neighbour's, inevitably leading to damp problems for both.

Water's going to pond, it is going to cause damage

to the brickwork adjacent to there.

There is also a risk of breaching the damp proof course.

All it needs is a decent amount of frost on that,

the face of the brickwork is going to come off

and you're going to be forced to cut out the bricks

and replace them eventually.

So this small job is now making problems for the future elsewhere?

Oh, yes, yes.

And I suspect Sue's neighbour wouldn't be happy about that.

There could be heated conversations over the garden fence

in years to come. It's not a big patio,

but this guy somehow managed to squeeze in bodge after bodge.

When you see this shoddy approach to finishing,

you think, "What else haven't they done?"

And when you look around the rest of the job, everything,

they haven't done everything right.

You expect when you're paying for something,

you're going to get at least half a decent job,

and this isn't half a decent job.

OK then. You've been here and had a good look around.

What would you give this job out of 10?

It only gets 3/10. That's only for providing the flags!

-JONNIE LAUGHS

-Yes, the slabs are worth 3/10.

-And nothing else.

-Nothing else.

'3/10, and I'm not surprised Euan's unimpressed.

'Check out the evidence.

'Slabs not laid level, a poor perimeter,

'neither patio nor flowerbed square.

'The coping to the walls isn't correctly laid,

'and serious damp problems are emerging,

'with significant implications for Sue and her neighbours' homes.'

So far, so bad.

But you know the plot - time to bring in the Good Guys.

Head honcho Paul Hilton strides into action.

First things first - it's time to rip it up and start again.

I reckon there's a song in there somewhere.

They're going to save the flags they can,

but some are beyond salvation.

They go at it hammer and bolster.

Then it is out with a spade to demolish that flawed flowerbed.

Quality flags for the walls?

What was the cowboy thinking?

Hilton's heroes have made a solid start.

But can they get Sue's patio project back on track?

Only time will tell.

I'm in Cheadle Hulme in Greater Manchester,

where 56-year-old Sue Harney's plans of having a patio

where her grandchildren could play were kiboshed

when she was led up the garden path by a cowboy builder.

Well, our Good Guys have now finished their work,

so hopefully everything is coming up roses.

Let's go and find out.

Fingers crossed, Sue now has the perfect patio she wanted all along.

-Hi, Sue.

-Hi, Jonnie. How are you?

-I'm pretty good. How are you doing?

-Not bad, thank you. Want to come in?

-Yes, please. Thank you.

While Sue puts the kettle on,

I can't resist popping round the back

to take a look at the Good Guys' handiwork.

Well, I can see why Sue wanted a patio here.

This time of day, it gets loads of sun.

Now this originally was rocking all over the show.

There was already a trip hazard there.

All the mortar had come up, and the drain being there,

all the water should be going down there,

all the surface water, but instead, it was ponding around here,

and therefore, all the water would gather there

and it would become all grimy in the summer

and slippy in the winter.

You don't have that any more.

'No, you jolly well don't.

'When you consider what they were faced with,

'this is clearly a vast improvement.

'And there's been a change of design where the patio meets the lawn.'

This was where the raised beds were.

They've obviously decided to do something quite different here.

By the looks of it, our Good Guys have laid some more bricks there.

These must be a new addition. They look lovely.

But here's the thing - nice, straight edges.

Machined edges.

Yeah, it looks really, really good.

Sue decided on this design the second time round

rather than the raised planter,

and I think her decision was spot on. It looks great.

'The state of this part of the patio

'before our Good Guys came to the rescue beggared belief.

'Now, well, it is finished with aplomb.

'And they've also added a little bit extra

'at the back of the garden.'

It looks like someone has put a bit more of a patio area at the top,

which, when we look where the sun is, that's probably

where the sun hits in the evening. It looks great.

Yes, the Good Guys have pulled this patio round.

Head honcho Paul was stunned by what he saw

on day one of his rescue mission.

Everything about it was wrong, you know? The levels were wrong,

the lipping on the edge of the flags, you know.

Cement all over it. Just bad edging, bad workmanship.

It doesn't look like there's any part of the original patio

that's still there. What did you have to do?

We took it all up, and it was only laid on just a dry bed of sand,

so we actually laid them on a bed of sand and cement,

which makes it a lot more stable with the freeze and thaw cycles.

Paul couldn't believe the cowboy made such a mess

of the water drainage.

-The drain was actually higher than the patio.

-Was it?!

So the water couldn't get into it.

So was just going to be an ice skating rink in the winter?

It was, yeah.

'And a serious safety risk for Sue and her grandkids.

'Time for a chat with Sue about her cowboy builder.

'I wanted to find out his side of the story,

'and I can't wait to hear her responses to his version of events.'

Now, Sue, we always give the cowboy builders a right to reply,

to offer their side of the story, if you like.

He says that when he finished the job,

he asked you if you were happy, and you told him you were.

-No.

-No?

-He didn't ask me.

-Not true?

-Not true.

And he knows I wasn't happy, because I phoned him to tell him.

He says he's been in the business for 18 years

and you're the first complaint he's ever had.

I find that very hard to believe, really,

looking at the standard of workmanship.

'I find it hard to believe too.

'If he's never had a complaint before,

'his previous customers must have very low expectations.

'But Sue expected a quality job, and now,

'thanks to our Good Guys, that's exactly what she's got.

'But it's such a shame Sue's original choice of builder

'didn't just cost her money, it also cost her a friendship.'

What's happened to the relationship with his mother, your friend?

I've never heard from her.

She's never given me the opportunity to even put my side of the story,

so I can only assume that the reason I've not heard from her

is that she's just going off whatever he's told her.

-Or she's embarrassed?

-She could be embarrassed, yeah.

Have you tried contacting her?

I tried contacting her straightaway afterwards,

and had no response, so I've not bothered since.

'That's the kind of thing that happens when you hire

'friends and relatives, or relatives of friends

'to do your building work.

'In my opinion, avoid at all costs.

'On to happier matters.

'Let's hear what Sue thinks to her transformed patio.'

Tell you what, it's bright out here, isn't it? So what do you think?

-It's good, isn't it?

-Absolutely perfect.

So all in all, how different does your garden feel now?

110%.

-Does it?

-Yes.

You basically wanted this built for you for a safe playing area

-for the grandchildren. It wasn't.

-No.

-You'd be happy with them playing out here now?

-Oh, definitely.

-Definitely.

-Well, it must be chalk and cheese for you.

-You step out now onto a paving slab that doesn't rock.

-Yes, it's level.

-It's not wet through.

-Why no raised bed, then?

It just didn't work.

He tried to construct it from the flags, which is not going to work.

It should've been walling blocks.

So as this product isn't available in that,

we've just gone back to the original design,

but obviously with new flags to match.

'And it looks great, but perhaps more importantly,

'Sue can now sleep safe in the knowledge

'that damp isn't creeping into her home from the patio.'

-That's where all the moisture was going.

-Yes.

You must have been worried as well,

because it was starting to ingress into this brickwork.

Exactly, and causing damp problems, which is slippy underfoot.

'So slippy that in winter time, Torvill and Dean

'would have struggled to keep their balance on it.

'But now, it's much safer for Sue and her grandchildren.

'It's really gratifying to leave her

'in a better state of mind than the cowboy left her in.'

This was just depressing me.

It looked an absolute mess.

It's just opened everything up now.

It just looks so much better.

'And on that happy note, it's time for me to leave Sue

'to enjoy her new patio.'

I'm sure Sue thought she was doing the right thing,

getting a trusted family friend involved

in what is really a fairly straightforward job.

Trouble is, I think that trust was...

at best, misplaced.

But thanks to our Good Guy builders,

she's now got a patio that really sets the garden off,

and she can be safe in the knowledge that now her grandchildren

can come and visit and play there at any time of the year.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd