Episode 16 Cowboy Trap

We're travelling the length and breadth of Britain on a mission

to rescue homeowners from the curse of the cowboy builder.

It feels as though he's taken away my future.

Whenever I try to think about a way around it the hope has gone.

It's impossible to overestimate the damage these guys do,

whether they're blatant amateurs or simply crooks,

cowboy builders not only mess up homes, but ruin lives, too.

I'm disgusted that he can come into someone's life

and take their money and have no remorse.

He's left the work in a state of complete disarray,

incomplete with various breaches of building regulations and everything.

We've rounded up the good guys to help turn these

helpless homeowners into merry mortgagees.

Look at it. There's plasterwork done, there's electrics done.

I can see sockets in the right place here.

You're standing in a kitchen in your own home.

It's...it's amazing.

Unbelievable and amazing to be...

in it and to be able to turn on a tap.

You know, absolutely anyone can call themselves a builder

which is why it's crucial to know how to spot a wrong 'un

and why the next 45 minutes could help keep you

out of the cowboy trap.

In today's Cowboy Trap, a building project that went

so badly wrong the unlucky homeowner was left with an unsafe

derelict dwelling and had to move out.

I've been to a couple of B&Bs, stayed with a friend.

I was haemorrhaging money.

And three years after we rescued them, we catch up with some cowboy

builder victims in Somerset to see how they're doing now.

The good guys, when they put your doors in,

-that was like the starting pistol, really?

-Yeah.

-It was.

-Well you certainly won the race. This place looks amazing.

Our first Cowboy Trap saga revolves around a home

in the London district of Clapham,

or Cla'm, as my posher friends call it.

Its main claim to fame is its picturesque 220-acre common

overlooked by magnificent Georgian and Victorian mansions.

And it was in Clapham that William Wilberforce

campaigned for slavery to become illegal in the 18th century.

And that's not Clapham's only link to the legal profession.

Now, the man on the Clapham omnibus is, of course,

the imaginary reasonable person used by the English courts

to decide whether a defendant has acted in a reasonable way.

But, when it comes to crimes against building,

I can assure you that you don't need 12 good men and true

to conclude that today's cowboy builder is guilty as charged.

His unlucky victim lives in this mid-terrace one-bedroom flat.

It's home to Alicia Goodridge,

who's an account manager for the Royal British Legion.

Alicia regards herself as extremely family-oriented

and misses her parents in the Caribbean terribly.

As long as I can remember, it was my parents' dream

and plan to go back to Barbados to live once they retired.

I try to get to see them as and when I can,

but unfortunately it's not possible as often as I'd like.

Two years ago, Alicia sold her house in Battersea

where she'd lived for five years.

She decided to downsize so she could raise some money to send back home

to her parents in Barbados.

It was a painful decision, so when she found a cute

garden flat in Clapham in need of renovation, she was on cloud nine.

It needed some work, sure, but Alicia could see its potential.

Very excited to finally own the property

and even more excited at the thought that, eventually,

when the time was right, I would be able to start putting

my own stamp on it and making it mine.

The flat needed modernising and, after two years of patient saving,

Alicia decided to take the plunge and update her home.

Her plans included removing chimney breasts from the living room

and the bedroom to create more space.

She also wanted to remove an internal wall

between the bathroom and the toilet at the rear of the property,

which would have the added benefit of making the kitchen larger.

And, finally, the electrics and plumbing

were in desperate need of an update.

It needed some work to be done

but it was something which, from the time that

I moved in, I was aware that that needed to happen and so it was just

a matter of being patient, I guess, until the time was right.

In January 2012, Alicia contacted a builder she found on the internet.

He came round and was really friendly.

Alicia was convinced he was the right guy.

I felt that he did understand the brief that I put forward to him.

He came up with a few things. I felt quite comforted.

He was open to discussing things with me.

The builder quoted £25,000.

This covered rewiring the fuse board, repairing the ceilings

and fitting a new kitchen and bathroom.

It also included removing two chimney breasts,

installing a new fireplace and modernising the plumbing.

But that figure was much too high for Alicia

and, after some compromises, the quote came down to £14,000,

plus £5,000 for a structural surveyor,

making a new grand total of £19,000.

We'd worked together and taken off some parts, such as the sandstone

tiling in the bathroom and the kitchen and that kind of thing.

Things that I felt, I don't necessarily need those now.

If I do them at all, I can do them later on.

That figure was still a bit too steep for Alicia,

so she decided to save money by not going ahead with the survey.

But this was a major project involving structural work

to the flat, so that was a big mistake.

Take a tip from me -

chimneys are part of the structure of your house

and removing them is a very serious business.

You'll need a structural engineer involved

and the approval of local authority building control.

And, if you do anything to a party wall -

that's one you share with your neighbours -

you'll need their consent in writing.

Ignore all this and you're taking a real gamble.

Despite cutting corners, Alicia was still struggling to raise the cash.

So she asked the builder to delay the project

until she could save more money.

But he said it was now or never.

And he also insisted on £7,000 in cash up front.

Hmm, I don't like the sound of that.

You know, there are loads of warning signs here already.

An unaffordable quote negotiated down by nearly 10 grand =

well, that's something we come across

time and time again on Cowboy Trap.

Listen, a good job costs a fair price,

and if a builder's desperate to start, ask yourself why.

And then we've got a huge chunk of money up front,

and you know what I think about that.

But worse still, in cash.

This one's got disaster written all over it.

Take my advice, if your builder wants a huge wodge of money

up front, run for the hills.

And if he wants it paying in cash

keep going until you reach the mountains.

Reputable builders have accounts with suppliers

and don't ask to be paid in advance.

Cowboys don't and often do.

You've been warned.

Not surprisingly, Alicia wasn't happy

about being pressured into a decision,

but she wanted the work doing so her mum could come over and stay,

so she got two bank loans and gave the builder the green light.

The project started in April 2012,

and it wasn't long before more financial demands

landed in Alicia's lap.

A few weeks into the job the builder contacted me

to advise that he would need more funds.

So he needed more funds to get some more of the materials together.

By "more funds" he meant a whopping £5,000,

and before long he demanded another 5,000 on top of that.

In the space of a month, Alicia had forked out a whopping £17,000.

Alicia was handing over all this money

but the weird thing was it looked like nothing was really happening.

When she raised her fears with the builder

he told her not to worry, his clients often said that

but then when it all came together they were delighted.

Now obviously desperate to get the job done

and not knowing where else to turn, Alicia ignored her misgivings.

Do you know what? Jumping ahead a bit, when she finally got

some other builders around to look at the mess she'd been left in,

they reckoned only three days' worth of work

had been done to the property.

Three days!

For now, though, Alicia felt obliged to go along with her builder,

although it wasn't easy.

I became more... Certainly becoming more distressed.

I became angry, just desperate to try and get things to change.

Alicia was right to want things to change.

The little work that had been done was...

Well, how can I put this?

Rubbish.

The doorway was dreadful,

the electrical work was execrable,

the plumbing was pitiful,

and the flooring was...well, flawed.

There are some areas which, to an untrained eye,

you can look and think, "That doesn't look right."

The work was causing so much disruption

Alicia had to move out until it was finished.

And it wasn't just Alicia that moved out -

so did all her consumer durables, into the garden.

Poor Alicia started to doubt whether her dream project

would ever be completed.

Whenever she returned to the flat, the builder was rarely on site.

When she raised her concerns, the builder would always trot out

the same reassuring patter.

It looks like nothing's happening for ages,

and then all of a sudden it all comes together

and everything will start looking...

Will start looking the way that you want it to look.

Eight weeks into the project, and with the job far from finished,

the builder then dropped a bombshell.

He told Alicia he had to leave because he'd run out of money.

He admitted he'd under-quoted for the project and handed over

a document blaming escalating skip costs and wage bills.

Alicia wasn't convinced.

He'd either perhaps estimated things foolishly

or maybe got the funds and used part of the funds

for other projects, I don't know.

But he just seemed quite desperate to try

and put some reason down on paper, but it just wasn't feasible.

And that was it. The builder downed tools and left.

But Alicia's problems were only just starting.

The supporting beams across her kitchen ceiling just didn't

look right, and her upstairs neighbour said his floor

had dropped an inch in a month.

Do we think these facts are related?

Yes, we do.

I certainly didn't appreciate before it was going on

how distressing it was going to be

until I was really in the middle of it,

coming to those points where I realised

this can't be sustained any longer.

But, for Alicia, it went from bad to worse.

The builder never suggested she consult local authority

building control about the work on the chimney breast

adjoining her neighbour's property.

Without their sign-off, Alicia would never be able to sell the flat.

And the builder's work was so bad, the flat was structurally unsound

and Alicia couldn't move back in.

And, last but not least, the property was totally unsecured,

so she couldn't even keep any belongings there. Nightmare.

It might be useful to save me some costs

if I could at least store some things here whilst I'm waiting for things

to be resolved, but with the fact that it's not secure,

that's unfortunately not an option.

Because of the builder's botched work, Alicia's flat has no kitchen,

bathroom, electricity or heating

and there's a great big hole in her bedroom.

She's just been quoted £25,000 to put it all right.

There's no way Alicia can afford that,

and she can't afford to take the builder to court, either.

Even if I thought cut my losses and that's it,

just get rid of it, sell it and try and start again, I couldn't.

Everything that I've done and worked for for the past six or so years,

from the very first property I ever bought, would be gone completely.

Not surprisingly, the whole episode

has had an emotional impact on Alicia.

It feels as though he's taken away my future.

He's...put a darkened screen,

just put it in place where I was looking ahead

to what was going to happen,

that something's just been put there

and all I can see is that dark screen.

Wherever I try to think about a way around it, the hope has gone.

Now, we're used to horror stories on Cowboy Trap,

but this really is a nightmare of epic portions.

Remember, this was a perfectly liveable dwelling

before the cowboys came to town.

When they left? Well, it was a building site,

gutted and, worse still, structurally unsafe.

But how unsafe? And what exactly needs to be done to get Alicia

back in the comfort of her own home?

To find out, we asked independent building surveyor Simon Levy

to inspect the work.

He's been through it with a fine tooth comb

and he's about to fill me in on what he found.

When it comes to the timber floor in the bedroom,

he doesn't mince his words.

-That flooring is collapsing.

-Yeah?

You stand on it, it bounces up and down.

There is a structural defect in that floor that requires correction

and immediate, immediate attention.

The main issue is that the floor's structural joists are insecure,

they're decayed and a repair is desperately needed there.

And the dodgy flooring isn't the only problem.

The chimney breast has been removed.

Now, I can't tell whether or not there's any

support in for that or not, it needs to be checked.

Well, if there hasn't been any support put in, that means

you've got the entire chimney stack from first floor upwards

-with no support, that could come down.

-That's right.

So it's dangerous, very, very dangerous.

It's dangerous and it's in breach of the Party Wall Act, as well.

-So it needs some further investigation, at the very least.

-That's correct.

-Right, OK.

It would also be good to investigate how this cowboy could charge

Alicia a penny for this unfinished fiasco.

The bedroom is a total mess. Look at those doors!

And the timbers in the bedroom ceiling are in a state, too.

Those joists have been nailed into position.

The nails could work themselves loose

and the whole lot could come crashing down.

The joists should be bolted, not nailed.

-This looks like some real bodge it and scarper job here.

-That's right.

The structure here was insecure and it needs strengthening.

Once proper strengthening's been put in place,

then that'll need to be, what, insulated then plastered?

-It needs sound insulation, because that's a flat above.

-Yeah.

Then it needs to have a double layer of plaster

for the purpose of fire protection and, again,

to comply with the building regulations.

Into the kitchen. It looks like something off the Mary Celeste.

Now what's going on above this window here?

Is that lintel sufficient there?

It's been badly installed. It needs remedial work.

The brickwork on the side of the window

requires proper making good and repair.

There's a lot of general building work that needs to be done

to get the place straight and safe.

This couldn't even be considered a dwelling.

Squatters wouldn't want to go in there.

It just needs a huge amount of work to bring it up to a basic standard

that will be acceptable.

Talking of which, the electrics are far from acceptable.

This consumer unit, these old fuses,

I mean, they're off the Titanic, aren't they?

That's non-compliant with current standards and that would need to be

replaced, and that just demonstrates the work's incomplete.

What a mess. Well, I think I know the answer already,

but I want to hear Simon's final verdict on this building bodge.

How would you mark this builder out of ten?

-Zero.

-Zero?

-There's no question about it.

He's left the work in a state of complete disarray,

incomplete, insecure...

..with various breaches of building regulations and everything.

They'd throw the book at him.

Well, ideally, it would be a very big book about building,

because this guy clearly hasn't got a clue.

Alicia paid him £17,000 and all she got was pathetic pipe work,

badly patched up ceiling trimmers,

an unfinished window,

a prehistoric fuse box,

a garden that looks like a war zone

and a suspicious lack of steel joists.

All that's bad enough but what about that chimney breast

the cowboy removed from the bedroom?

Bodge that and you could bring the house down, literally.

Time to bring in the good guys.

And here's the head honcho -

striding along like John Wayne in his pomp,

our main good guy, Bill Fountain.

You could call him a fountain of knowledge.

He'll need to be - an unsupported chimney stack can be lethal

and will need fixing properly, and pronto.

So much needs doing just to get this place safe,

secure and habitable, Alicia is chipping in.

No hanging about, Bill's band of brothers swing into action.

First up, making the site secure.

Then setting the scene for the all-important beam work.

Next, it's time to ready the bathroom for its brand new loo.

It's a solid start, but can they get Alicia's dreams back on track?

Only time will tell.

I'm in London where Alicia Goodridge was hoping to renovate her

garden flat here in Clapham, but,

in one of the worst array of bodges we've ever seen on Cowboy Trap,

her builder left her home completely uninhabitable.

A massive job for our good guys, so let's see how they got on.

'I have no idea what to expect.

'This place was practically derelict before.

'I wonder what it's like now.'

-Hi there.

-Hello, how are you?

-I'm well, thank you.

You're not wearing a hard hat, that's got to be good news.

-I'm not, no, things have changed.

-Good, let's have a look.

'Not kidding. "Things have changed" is an understatement.

'The good guys have done such an amazing job

'Alicia's been able to move back in.

'Remember what her bedroom looked like before?

'Now check it out.'

That really is stunning.

And the kitchen has gone from this...

to this.

It's absolutely unrecognisable.

Here's the bathroom before...

and here it is after.

Alicia was clearly so thrilled by the good guys' efforts,

she's done some extra work herself.

Now, before I take a close look at the good guys' handiwork

and meet the man behind it, I want to hear how Alicia got

caught in the cowboy trap in the first race.

How long had the job been going on until you started to have

-real reservations?

-Maybe a couple of months in.

-The job was supposed to be taking what, five weeks?

-Five weeks, yeah.

And after a couple of months you started thinking,

-"Hold on a minute." Was money changing hands?

-Yes.

He would come back and say it was for specific things

so it would be, "We've had to do more removals,"

or "We've had to... With the work that was done in the bedroom,

"that's used up, we need some more for that,"

and all along I was made promises.

When did you realise you were being conned?

I was a bit suspicious about the work that had been done,

so whilst he was still officially on the job I'd had

other tradespeople come over and have a look.

What were their thoughts?

I had to scrape jaws off the floor

for each one who came in the front door.

-So you'd lost all faith in the guy?

-Completely.

So how did it finish?

He wasn't going to come back on site after that point

because he'd said, "I'll only come back if I get more funds."

He was acknowledging, "I've used up all the money

"but to do anything more you need to give me some more."

Alicia had already handed over £17,000 for what was little more

than a demolition job, and she was forking out money

because she couldn't live in her own home.

I shared a single room

with my boyfriend for a while.

I've been to a couple of B&Bs, a couple of rental places.

So you're renting places or B&Bs.

How much money where you spending each week?

I was haemorrhaging money to be honest.

If that was me I'd be pretty angry now.

If my partner and I are talking about the whole situation

we don't say his name much any more.

It's just, the emotions you get from the name...

It's...it's not good.

Not good? Well that isn't the phrase I'd use,

but full marks to Alicia for being so polite.

I'm gobsmacked how much this place has changed.

Time to take a closer look.

So, the bedroom with the requisite bed

in place that's clearly slept in.

I mean, it's such a relief to see that Alicia's moved in here now.

Now, cast your minds back.

There was a huge hole in that floor which needed making good.

The doors didn't work,

but, perhaps most importantly, the timbers above...

Well, they needed sorting out, they needed bolting,

and then they needed double plaster boarding for fire regs,

and then plastering, not forgetting the sound insulation.

Another person lives above here and it's all been done.

And reinforced steel joists have been put in place

to support the chimney stack upstairs.

Right, next room.

Ha! A kitchen!

It's... Well...

I can't believe they got this far, actually.

There was so much to be done.

There was no window there.

Well, I recognise this.

These, this washing machine and the fridge,

they were just garden furniture,

but now they've been, thankfully, brought inside.

I can't believe the builder left them outside there in the weather,

but there's plaster work done, there's electrics done.

I can see sockets in the right place here.

Now, every lady likes a nice bathroom,

and Alicia is no exception.

I think she prefers this to what it looked like before. Don't you?

-HE LAUGHS

-Quite some bathroom! Look at that!

Wow! I mean...

This is lovely, isn't it? A really nice suite.

Now, I think Alicia had this, or owned this suite,

but the fact that this is now done is amazing.

I mean, again, there was no electrics

or no electrics you could use in here.

You've got the fan in here and everything like that.

Now, I can see, this window was here,

but the one in the kitchen actually matches that,

so they've done really well there.

And the tiling looks perfect.

This is...

This is a real triumph.

Yep, our team certainly grasped victory from the jaws of defeat.

It doesn't just all look great.

They've also dealt with that worrisome security issue.

Well...

That's different, isn't it?

If you remember, that was just a board of wood

and even that wasn't fitted very well, but now,

let's not forget this is a lady living in London.

It's nice to have lockable doors, isn't it?

It just looks so different!

I think that was just brickwork. Badly pointed brickwork, mind,

but fully rendered, tidy,

and out here, well...

It wasn't a building site, was it? It was a bomb site.

This looks a lot clearer.

There must have been a wagon-load of rubbish here.

So, not only has Alicia got a home that she can live in,

she's actually got the makings of a garden.

The good guys played an absolute blinder.

'Head honcho Bill has popped back to give me

'the inside track on the challenges he faced.'

The one advantage was you could start from scratch pretty much.

Yeah, that is it, everything that was done had to come out.

-We had to strip out any cabling, any wiring, um...

-Did you?

We've done a total rewire of the flat.

At the end of the day, you just have to get stuck in and get it done.

Well, get stuck in you did!

-You fitted the entire bathroom, didn't you?

-Yeah, the bathroom.

-A cracking job.

-Yeah.

-You rendered all this.

-Yeah.

You made good the floors. What about the ceiling?

-Basically, we had to bolt them all together.

-So you bolt them?

-Yeah.

-Because they were just nailed before.

-That's right, yeah.

So we bolted them through.

Obviously, everything's been inspected by the building inspector.

-Yeah.

-So everything's been passed off there.

You've done an absolutely sterling job and, well,

you've given someone their home back.

-I know Alicia's over the moon.

-Well, you know, um...

Well, you're a modest...

I'm not going to ask you to blow your own trumpet,

that's my job, but I tell you what, looking round there,

it looks absolutely fantastic. Great stuff.

Well, I'm very pleased you've said that. Thank you.

Well, there's no doubt Bill's boys clearly did a great job.

Now, before I do the grand tour with Alicia,

I'm going to talk to her about her cowboy builder.

I wanted to hear his side of the story so I could put it to Alicia,

but that's proved easier said than done.

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

to at least give their side of the story,

but on this occasion they've failed to respond in any kind.

-That doesn't surprise me.

-Doesn't it?

I, um... The letters that I sent through,

I sent them as recorded delivery, um, and I had no response to them.

So I think it was a case of,

perhaps if I bury my head in the sand, if I...

If I ignore this for long enough, then it will go away.

So if you had the opportunity now to speak to him, what would you say?

There's probably a lot that I would not say on camera.

Does that mean you're angry still?

I am disgusted that he can come into someone's life

and take their money

and then leave that person in that situation

and have no remorse or comeback from it. That...

I am...

I'm disappointed, I'm upset, I'm angry.

This will not go away for me.

'Alicia remains understandably bitter

'about the state her home was left in.

'But have the good guys restored her faith

'in the building fraternity?

'It's time to find out.'

So this is, you know,

-this is evidence that you have actually moved in?

-Yes. Yes.

Which is hard to believe

-when you consider what these ceilings were like.

-I know. I know.

There was a lot of work that had to be done up to this,

on this wall where the chimney breast was removed

but not supported correctly.

So, er, the builder's team did a fantastic job sorting that out

and supporting it and having the council come in

and do all the checks that they needed to.

I think this room, more than any other room, when you realise that,

you know, the job that the cowboy builder had done

was so poor that he expected you to get a good night's sleep

-underneath that floor...

-Yeah.

-..it beggars belief, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

'Alicia can sleep soundly

'now she has full sign-off from local building control.

'Structurally safe and looking fantastic, too.

'I mean, check out this cool kitchen.'

You're standing in the kitchen in your own home.

Oh, it's amazing, unbelievable and amazing to be in it

and to be able to turn on a tap

and the simple things that you do when you're at home.

I notice some garden ornaments have been brought inside!

THEY LAUGH

This big beast, yeah. Yeah. It's, um...

The washing machine, the tumble dryer, the fridge freezer,

-that were all left in the garden for all those months.

-Left for dead.

Left for dead. And they gave me a bit of a fright at first.

-I think they were upset for being left out there so long.

-Yeah!

But they started working, so that's all good.

'It's also good that Alicia's home is now secure,

'and it's great that she has a bathroom with walls.'

-You'd be sitting on what was the loo there...

-Mm-hm.

..and you could previously put your order in for dinner, couldn't you?

-You could!

-There was no wall there!

-That's right.

Can you sum up how you feel now you've got all this?

It's...just every part of...

I didn't think I would, or could, enjoy my home as much as I do.

Just taking a breath and looking around and seeing it as it is,

and I sometimes find myself...

I'll just walk around and look at things and look at it

-and think, "I can't believe I'm actually in here."

-Brilliant.

'After what she's been through, Alicia deserves her lovely home.

'It's time for me to leave her to enjoy it with her boyfriend, Peter.

'He's Hungarian, so maybe a spot of goulash tonight, then?

'Better that than the recipe for disaster

'her cowboy builders left her with, eh?'

Well, our mission this time was quite different, because there was

so much work to be done after the cowboy builders upped and left.

And, let's face it, anything they had done to this property

needed ripping out and starting again anyway.

So, our goal this time

was to make safe and secure this place for Alicia.

But our good guy builders worked so hard and so well,

she's already moved back in

and she's now faced with the much more satisfying task

of providing her very own personal finishing touches. Brilliant.

Our next Cowboy Trap saga revolves around a family

we first met three years ago.

Just like with Alicia, a cowboy builder was happy to extract

tens of thousands of pounds from unwitting homeowners,

then scarper, leaving an unsafe building bodge behind.

His unlucky victims were Dave Haramis, his partner, Yvonne,

and her twin sister, Annette.

In 2009, they bought a property together in Yeovil, Somerset.

Annette uses a wheelchair,

so they wanted to improve disabled access to their new home.

The plan was to build a two-storey wheelchair-friendly extension.

It was to have a lounge and kitchen on the ground floor

and bedroom and shower room for Yvonne and Dave on the first floor.

Yvonne, Dave and Annette had high hopes for their new extension.

All they needed was a builder capable

of delivering such a major undertaking.

So they did what we always advise

and got three quotes from three local tradesmen. Good!

But then, they ended up giving the job to a bloke Dave knew from work.

Bad!

The builder we eventually went with, he came into work and I just

happened to mention that we were having some building work done

and he said, "Well, how about me?"

You know, "Have you thought of me doing it for you?"

Yvonne, Dave and Annette should've run a mile, but they didn't.

Instead, they got the bloke in to give a quote.

He looked at the plans and said he could do it all for £47,500.

Yvonne, Dave and Annette gave him the green light

and work started on October 1st, 2009.

But if didn't take long for the family to start to worry.

Work was proceeding at a snail's pace.

The kitchen just didn't seem to be making any progress.

Doors were being removed, but there was no sign of them being replaced

and what little work was being done was a bit like

what he had lumped in the garden - garbage.

The roof on the extension was risible.

And the French doors had a massive gap at the top. Sloppy!

This job was dragging on and on,

but whenever Dave and Yvonne asked their builder what was happening

and if everything was on schedule,

he said there was no problem, everything was fine.

In fact, the couple had absolutely no idea

how much trouble they were in until the builder walked off the job.

Yvonne, Dave and Annette had gone away for a week's holiday.

When they returned home, they got an unpleasant surprise.

Didn't get back here until Monday lunchtime,

only to walk in and find that they'd taken all their tools

and our first reaction was, "They've gone."

Their first reaction was spot on.

And the project was far from finished.

The electrics weren't connected, the plumbing wasn't completed

and the windows had been hurriedly screwed into place.

Bodge, bodge, bodge!

And they paid the builder £47,500!

Oh, dear!

They'd only done part of the roof,

so we had lots of leaks all over the place.

Holes in the roof, no hot water, no heating.

Felt sick.

-Yeah.

-Worried.

-Felt sick, worried. "What are we going to do now?"

What they did was call the building inspector,

who'd they got to know rather well.

He had been over 16 times...

..because he felt that he needed to keep an eye on them.

Um, he also informed us a few things that we didn't know about.

One of them was about the footings, which they'd charged us extra for,

um, which they shouldn't have.

Yvonne, Dave and Annette had forked out over £50,000

on a monumental bungled build.

We did have a phone call from the builder on the Tuesday morning,

after he'd left on the Monday,

um, saying that he was really stressed out,

he'd ran out of money and didn't know what to do.

He told me he was going to have a week off

and then he would come back over and see us.

HE was stressed out?! What about his unlucky victims?

When he eventually came back,

the cowboy said he'd finish the job if they paid him another £11,000!

Blooming cheek! Not surprisingly, he got short shrift.

But that was no consolation to his poor victims,

who were left in a state of turmoil.

What a mess!

Yvonne and Dave were forced to live in just one bedroom

and Annette was unable to move around her home.

The whole experience had a devastating impact on everyone.

Annette's son, Matthew, was shocked

by how badly his mum had been affected by the whole experience.

She just can't get on with her life, basically, until this is done.

I mean, she's obviously worried,

the same as Yvonne and David are, as well.

I mean, they've obviously been living in it

all the way through the project.

I mean, just coming down and seeing the looks on their faces

and, you know, I don't know how they managed to keep going, really.

Not kidding. This was a catalogue of disasters from top to bottom.

There was no way we could right all the wrongs here.

Getting this house finished was going to be a long road.

But the question was could we do enough

to give Annette access to her home and make it safe and secure?

Our good guys entered the fray led by head honcho Chris Watts.

Chris's crack team installed

the correct-sized French doors in the living room

and, unlike the cowboy's bodged job, they fitted perfectly.

Then it was on to the paving and patio.

Super level and wheelchair friendly. Nice.

Improving Annette's mobility was priority number one

in this Cowboy Trap rescue mission and they pulled it off with aplomb.

Oh, he's brought the garden into the kitchen. It's absolutely lovely!

Look at how the place had been transformed.

By the time our good guys had finished,

things were very much back on track for Dave, Yvonne and Annette.

But would all this spur them on to finish their quest

for a dream home after we'd left? Only time would tell.

It's been almost three years

since we last saw Dave, Yvonne and Annette.

We helped them out of the cowboy trap, but of course,

they had huge plans for their home. Let's see how they got on.

'Hopefully, our good guys inspired them to complete their dream home.'

-Hi, Dave.

-Hello, Jonnie, come on in.

-Thank you very much.

-Where's the ladies? Out the back?

-The girls are out the back.

-How did you guess? On a day like today.

-Yeah!

'This area has certainly come on great guns.'

-It was just a right old mess before, wasn't it?

-Yes.

-You couldn't come out here.

-It was a building site.

-Yeah.

-It was literally a building site.

-It was a building site.

They blocked the front door up, so I had no access at all.

'Because our good guys made it wheelchair friendly,

'Annette's got much more independence.

'And since we were last here Dave and Yvonne

'have transformed the outside of their home with a smart render.'

-What I love about this so much is you can be home on your own.

-Yeah.

-You're not waiting for your sister or Dave to come home, are you?

-No.

-You're just doing your own thing, as you should be.

-Yeah.

Yeah, if she wants to come out in the garden, she can.

If she wants to stay in the kitchen and cook, she can.

'Right, time for a close look at what's been done inside.'

It was after you guys came

-and put these doors in...

-Yeah.

..that we could get on and do it.

The good guys, when they put your doors in,

-that was like the starting pistol, wasn't it?

-It was.

-Yeah.

And you certainly won the race. This place looks amazing!

'Yup! A race victory Mo Farah would be proud of!

'When we arrived, the kitchen looked like this.

'Our good guys did a sterling job outside,

'but there was still much to do inside,

'and Yvonne, Dave and Annette haven't hung around.'

It's very well-designed. I mean, looking around it,

I can see how it's suitable for all of you. You've got access...

For you, Annette, getting around, it looks pretty easy.

-Yes.

-No real changes of levels, the doorways are nice and wide.

The main thing is the flooring for me,

because if it was carpet or rugs...

-Yeah.

-I mean, it's a no-no, really.

-Of course.

-Really hard.

So these tiles and wooden flooring is great.

'Right, into the lounge.

'Before, it looked like this.

'Now check it out.'

So one thing I'm seeing is you must have used tradesmen again?

-We have.

-Builders and what have you.

Yeah, we've had to learn to trust them again and, er,

we've had them in to do different things, like the fireplace,

-for example, which we couldn't do ourselves.

-No.

And we've been lucky enough to get

friends and family to come and help us, as well.

Perfect. I mean, having seen our good builders here,

did that help you turn the corner and start trusting people?

-Oh, yeah, definitely, but we had to, didn't we?

-Yeah.

To make it work for us and get life back on track, basically.

'And back on track it certainly is! No wonder everyone's so happy.

'Remember, before our good guys got involved,

'the house and patio looked like this

'and, after our good guys came to the rescue, we left them like this.

'And since then the family's continued the transformation.

'Check out the lovely lounge...

'the cool kitchen...

'and the pristine patio.

'Fantastic!'

'But what did Yvonne, Dave and Annette learn

'from their unlucky cowboy builder experience? Time to find out.'

What would you do different now?

We'd ask questions about, um, about them

-to other people that they'd done work for.

-Done work for, right.

We'd also ask if we could go and have a look at their work.

Um, we would check on the internet

-with these sites that you can check for...

-I think the first bit.

You go and look at their work

-and you speak to the people they have worked for.

-Yeah.

-You cannot get a better recommendation than that.

-Yeah.

'Well, at least they've now learned their lesson.

'Better late than never.'

What do you regret doing the most?

-Starting it.

-Really?

Well, on occasion we did, because it did get us all down

and, you know, we got depressed and we worried about money.

Do you think you were maybe a bit trusting of this,

-this "friend" of yours?

-Yeah.

-Yes.

-Definitely, too trusting.

-Yeah.

'It's always a risk getting a friend in to do work for you.

'If it goes wrong, you've got a bodged build

'and a fractured friendship.'

What are your feelings towards this cowboy?

-Not very good ones.

-No.

-No, I'm afraid.

What are your feelings, Yvonne?

Very disappointed in him that, you know, he could...

-Do what he's done to us.

-Yeah,

take on a job that, obviously, was more than he could cope with.

Didn't tell us earlier.

-You could have done something about it.

-Yeah.

Well, if we'd spoken more about it, we could've.

'Yvonne, Dave and Annette made some other mistakes,

'which you can also learn from. Here's some tips.'

Be suspicious of any unusually low quotes.

If the price you're given seems too good to be true, it usually is.

And, if you do know your builder personally, still get at least

three corroborated references and have a cast-iron contract in place.

Insist on a schedule of staged payments. Only pay the final sum

when everything is completed to your satisfaction.

How have our guys, the good guys from Cowboy Trap,

-helped you move on? Have they?

-Yeah.

-100%.

-Yeah, definitely.

-Yeah.

They gave us security, for one thing,

-because we weren't secure before the doors were put in.

-Yeah.

And I think they gave us the boost to say,

"Right, we have got it all in now, let's get on and rip

"the kitchen out and get it finished, and let's go on and do the patio."

You've turned the corner and, you know,

you're trusting the right people.

You know, the people you've had in here

clearly know what they're doing.

-Yeah.

-Good for you.

'Good for them indeed.

'Time for me to bid this lovely family

'and their smashing home farewell.'

Well, it's been great to catch up with Annette, Yvonne and Dave.

Before Cowboy Trap got involved, this place...

Well, it was literally a building site, not really fit to live in,

but in these three, just under three short years,

they've done so much to this place.

And they've turned it not only into a home,

but I think now, finally, they've achieved their original objective

and that was to get independence for all three.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd