Episode 22 Cowboy Trap

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

from the misery left behind by cowboy builders.

It's bad to do that to anybody.

But to do that to a disabled child

when the conservatory is for the purpose of enriching the life of a disabled child,

it's just disgusting.

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

Whether they're blatant amateurs or simply crooks,

cowboy builders not only ruin homes,

they wreck lives, too.

It's so easy for people to do an awful job and just disappear.

And it's just a nightmare.

We've got the good guys in our party

to help turn these botched builds into ideal homes.

There were tiles missing before. These are replacement tiles.

That shows that it wasn't just a conservatory job that needed to be done,

it was a roofing job as well.

It looks fantastic.

The whole family love it, don't they?

And enjoy it. And this is how it should have been all that time ago.

This is exactly how we intended it to be two years ago.

You know, even the smartest people forget basic common sense when they have the builders in.

Which is why the next 45 minutes is a cautionary tale that can help keep you out of the cowboy trap.

On today's Cowboy Trap, a family wanted a conservatory with disabled access.

But all they got was a damp-ridden disaster.

We get next to no use out of it

because it's damp, it's draughty.

It's very, very cold.

And we revisit a young couple we rescued three years ago

to see how they're doing now.

The house is a work in progress. We've got one more bedroom we'd like to work on

and we're thinking about redoing a bedroom that's already finished.

And then we'd like to work on the garden.

Our first Cowboy Trap location is in a small village in the countryside

on the outskirts of Wrexham.

The area was renowned for its leather industry in the 18th century.

Wrexham was full of skinners and tanners

and comb and button makers using cattle horns as raw materials.

And that's not the only thing Wrexham has in common with the Wild West.

In the 19th century, about a quarter of a million people

emigrated from Wales to the United States.

As a result, the history of the American Wild West

features a fair few cowboys of Welsh descent.

The most famous of these was the notorious outlaw Jesse James,

whose great-grandfather was a Baptist minister from Wales.

These days, you'd only find gun-slinging cattle rustlers

with a fondness for stage coach robbery in the movies.

But as for the Welsh tradition of cowboys,

unfortunately that's one thing that refuses to go west.

This cowboy's unlucky victims live in a three-bedroomed bungalow.

It's home to Jordana and Michael Farrow and their sons Oscar and Callum.

Callum was born prematurely and has cerebral palsy.

Oh, and we mustn't forget the family dog, Dodger.

Michael is a soldier in the British army

and Jordana is a full-time mum.

They've been married for five years.

Michael and Jordana were at school together

and have always been friends.

But in their early 20s,

it started to become a bit more than that

during one of Michael's breaks during a tour of duty.

He went back off

and I was left thinking, "Hmm.

"I really miss him quite a lot."

Probably more than in a friends kind of way.

So, being a complete wimp, I wrote to him to tell him this.

Anyway, he phoned me and said he felt the same way.

And before long, Michael and Jordana were getting married,

settling down and starting a family.

The next stage, finding a house for the kids to grow up in.

A task further complicated by Callum's condition.

Michael was on a six-month tour of Iraq,

so house-hunting duties fell to Jordana.

As is so often the case when you're looking for a new home,

she visited a fair few houses that did nothing for her.

But when she found the right one, she knew right away.

It was perfectly placed in a tiny village in the valleys.

What's more, being a bungalow,

it was ideally suited for Callum's needs.

The conservatory at the back was old, but it would do for the time being.

The Farrows moved in and looked forward to making their new house into a home.

Like all army wives, Jordana has to multi-task when Michael is on tour of duty.

It's a life she's chosen, but it is tough.

I get to play Mummy,

and then I also get to play all the roles that he's meant to play when he's here.

So hanging picture frames and fixing stuff. It's usually quite stressful.

And to add to that stress,

young Callum's health issues make life tough for the whole family.

The cerebral palsy affects him quite a lot. He's wheelchair bound

and can't do anything himself.

You've got to be as strong and positive as you can be for Callum.

He tries his hardest. He's a happy boy still.

He loves to do everything, but he struggles a lot.

It is difficult to deal with.

Because everybody wants the perfect baby.

They want them to be happy and healthy.

But that's just not always how it turns out.

Because that isn't the way it turned out for Callum,

Adjustments needed to be made to the family home.

Top of the wish list was a new conservatory with disabled access.

When we moved here, there was already a conservatory there.

There was an old bespoke wooden one.

But it had past its time and had started to rot and that.

It only had a single doorway on the side without disabled access.

Because of his condition, and he spends a lot of his time in a wheelchair or bits of equipment,

you don't get to the point where you feel you'd like to take him outside

or do something, and the conservatory,

even on a miserable day,

at least in the conservatory you can feel a bit like you're bringing the outside inside.

With Michael serving abroad,

it was down to Jordana to find a builder who specialised in conservatories.

She tracked one down, and went to look at a conservatory already built for a neighbour.

Jordana was impressed with what she saw,

and felt a real connection with the builder because he also had a child with special needs.

The company verbally quoted £10,355 to build the new conservatory

with payment not due until completion.

Jordana agreed, but then it all went quiet.

The written quote they were promised didn't arrive.

The weeks went by, and then suddenly two subcontractors turned up out of the blue.

Nobody rang me to tell me they'd be starting.

Two guys just wandered round the side of the house.

And started taking the old conservatory down.

When they had, they asked Jordana for £1,300.

I'm sorry? You want cash?

And it was his understanding that I would pay him cash

when they were finished.

But the builder hadn't told me that was what was going to happen.

But it did happen,

and Jordana paid up.

Without the written quote to fall back on,

she didn't have much choice in the matter.

Even at this very early stage,

alarm bells should have been ringing loud and clear.

That mislaid quote, the prolonged delay before work finally started.

The builders turning up without any warning.

The confusion over who was paying the subcontractors.

This was already a mess,

and the job had barely got underway.

And, of course, it turned out this builder had started as he meant to go on.

When builders came to construct the new conservatory,

it didn't take long for problems to emerge.

The roof didn't look right, for a start.

Even I could see that it wasn't going to fit.

It was a good, you know, a good...

..like that short.

They're both standing there, scratching their heads,

looking at a bit of paper they're holding onto,

looking at the big gap in the frame.

I'm thinking, "This isn't going well."

With Michael away, it was down to Jordana to call the owner of the company and complain.

He immediately shifted the blame.

It wasn't his fault. The manufacturers have produced the frame wrong

and I'm getting on the phone to them right now and demand they manufacture a new one.

These things are made to measure, blah, blah, blah.

Jordana expected a long wait

while the manufacturers crafted a new bespoke roof for her conservatory.

But guess what? It didn't happen that way.

Magically, my builder turned up two days later with a brand-new frame.

Which we now know wasn't our frame,

it was bits of other people's frames

that they'd just kind of muddled together and welded together.

This was clearly a bodge job from start to finish.

They'd even put screws in the drainpipe.

The builders then announced they'd finished and walked off.

A few days later, the owner of the company came round for his money.

Now, the original agreement was there would be no payment unless the Farrows were happy with the job.

But this guy didn't seem too concerned about customer satisfaction.

He knew that I'd be on my own with the baby and asked for the money.

And stupidly I gave it to him because I was intimidated.

So the builder got his cash.

But it didn't take long for Jordana to regret giving in to him.

As soon as it rained, she realised she'd made a terrible mistake.

It didn't start dripping, it just went "whoosh!"

It was like raining inside.

It just poured from one of the fascias.

Jordana repeatedly tried to phone the builder

but he never got back to her.

Eventually, she discovered he'd dissolved his company

and as for the 10-year guarantee they'd been given on the conservatory,

it turned out to be about as useful as a microwave oven on a surf board.

With the company dissolved and the guarantee worthless,

the Farrows had nowhere to turn.

From that day to this,

the conservatory has proved to be one continuous source of stress.

Our roof doesn't fit. They haven't measured it properly.

It's not a continuous piece of framing.

It leaks because it doesn't fit

and it leaks because it's full of holes.

There are problems when you look up, and problems when you look down, too.

The floor's not level. They were meant to take the old tile floor up,

use self-leveller and then put floor back down.

They perhaps used one bag of self-leveller

and so the floor is fairly uneven.

Because of that, Callum can't use his wheelchair on it.

And the doors aren't fitted properly, either.

You can see daylight through the doors.

It not only makes it draughty,

but considering I'm here on my own, it's a security risk

because you could easily stick something through that and rip the door open.

So, roof bad, floor bad, doors bad.

What else is there in a conservatory?

Oh, yes. Windows. Surely they got those right?

Well, what do you think?

It takes a real force to shut, especially the outside one.

It's a poor finish. There's bits missing.

Daylight through the side of them and the bottom underneath.

They've used cheap and cheerful sealant on joins. That's all cracked and perishing.

And as for the supposedly wheelchair-friendly ramp,

it's totally unfit for purpose.

It's very steep. It looks like it belongs in a skate park,

not for a disabled child.

How these guys consider themselves capable of building a conservatory

with disabled access is beyond me.

We get next to no use out of it

because it's damp, it's draughty, it's very, very cold.

I can't leave Callum in that kind of environment. He's got health problems and a bad chest.

Jordana is convinced the builder knew he was going to file for bankruptcy

when he agreed to take on the project.

We must have literally been one of the last jobs they took on.

I'm thinking, "How dare you do that to us?"

Especially when... It's bad to do that to anybody,

but to do that to a disabled child,

when the conservatory is for the purpose of enriching the life of a disabled child,

how dare you do that? It's just disgusting.

Such a shame, this one.

Jordana has no beef about Michael being away from home for such long periods.

She says herself it's the life she's chosen.

But she clearly could have done with his support while she went through this ordeal

as I've little doubt her so-called builder took advantage.

But how much of an advantage?

Often cowboys leave behind work that looks OK on the surface

but when you look closer, it's clear that corners have been cut.

So we asked independent building expert Euan Elliot to inspect the work.

He's been through it with a fine-tooth comb.

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

They didn't know what they were doing. Water's going to go straight in there.

First item on the agenda, that old favourite, water ingress.

It joins onto the building, but not very well.

There's a bit of flash band put in there

which is something you use just as a temporary measure

rather than a permanent feature.

You need to put something there with lead or something like that,

just to make sure that no water can come in in the future.

But you can see on the photos that it's all failed already.

And the gutters have been put up really badly.

The distance between the face of the building and the gutter

has been reduced there down to virtually nothing.

So water will stand there.

And there's only one downpipe on the whole of this roof.

It's not big enough to take all of the water.

Right. On to a ramp that's so steep, I'm surprised Evel Knievel isn't jumping off it.

There is a very, very strong chance

if somebody comes out of there, they could slip over the side

and the wheelchair could overturn.

It's a dangerous ramp.

So this now, we're talking about something that's not only shoddy,

-but it's also thoughtless.

-Oh, yes.

It would be far easier to get it right from the start.

Euan's mood didn't improve when he spotted the badly-fitted doors

and gap-ridden windows.

So, what's next on his long list of faults?

The floor isn't level. It's uneven.

With a wheelchair, you want a level floor.

There is a chance of it scraping along the floor

and it's not good for the wheelchair.

Euan, you've had a good amount of time looking at this conservatory.

How would you grade it out of ten? What mark would you give it?

It's only a four.

Hmm. I can see why Euan's unimpressed.

Check out the evidence.

Inadequate guttering, ineffective sealing,

insufficient downpipes, draughty windows

badly-fitted doors, abysmal roof, unlevel floor

and a disabled access ramp that's, well, nothing of the sort.

All this, and the Farrows handed over more than £9,000.

Time to call in the good guys.

Here's head honcho Paul Hilton,

leading his posse into the fray.

Let's hope that despite the snowy conditions, they can do the business.

The Farrows desperately need a conservatory that's dry, secure and wheelchair friendly.

First things first. Sorting out that dreadful roof.

It needs replacing entirely.

Then it's on to the doors and windows.

The uneven floor needs fixing, too.

And that wheelchair ramp just has to be improved.

It's as clear as day they've made a great start.

But can Hilton's Heroes revive Jordana and Michael's dream

of a conservatory for their kids to enjoy?

Only time will tell.

I'm in rural Wales, in the small village of Pentre,

where Michael and Jordana Farrow had their hearts set on a new conservatory

but were left with a top to bottom bodge by their cowboy builder.

Well, our good guys have now finished their work

so hopefully, this family have been left with a long overdue ray of sunshine.

Despite the weather!

I'm really crossing my fingers that our fellas' work has made life easier for Jordana,

who has so much on her plate.

-Hello!

-Hello!

-Hi, I'm Jonnie. Nice to meet you. How are you?

Mike. Nice to meet you.

-I forgot my suntan oil! Is it always like this up here?

-Pretty much!

-Can I come in?

-Course you can.

-Thank you.

Freezing!

'As soon as I cross the threshold, I can't resist a quick peek.

'The transformation from what the cowboy left behind

'to what our good guys conjured up is striking.

'This conservatory has gone from woeful...to wonderful!

'Right. Time for a heart-to-heart with Jordana and Michael

'about what it was like being caught in the cowboy trap.'

Unfortunately, Michael, you weren't around. You're in the army

-and you were working away.

-I was at work, so the day-to-day stuff, I wasn't here to know about.

I was getting phone calls every evening about what had happened,

but there was nothing I could do.

It's stressful being here on my own with two small kids anyway.

Especially when one of them's got additional needs,

but having to deal with these people as well,

I was quite stressed out about the whole thing.

I just sat there and cried.

Who can blame Jordana, looking at the state of this fiasco?

After you'd paid £10,000,

after you'd put up with four months of these jokers

coming in and out of your house,

and then it failed, you had buckets catching leaking water everywhere,

how did that make you both feel?

-Angry!

-Angry.

We'd spent all our money and basically had the same conservatory we had before.

-It was useless and leaking.

-Yeah.

It's so easy for people to do an awful job and just disappear.

It's just a nightmare.

'Nightmare indeed.

'But have they been able to put it behind them, now the good guys have got involved?'

You're clearly battlers. You deal with things, don't you? Both very strong.

How do you feel about the whole process now?

It just makes you feel such a fool.

You just feel like a complete and utter idiot

that you've been taken for a ride.

Especially when you think, you're so pleased with yourself,

cos you think you've done it all right.

You've got the different quotes. You've been to see work.

And then they just take you for a ride anyway.

'Yep, that's the modus operandi of many a cowboy.

'Right. Time for me to take a closer look at the good guys' handiwork

'and compare it to what the bad guys left behind.'

Well, the buckets are no more.

In fact, the only plastic in here are the toys the boys want to play with.

It just goes to show this is how it should have been.

But it means they're getting to enjoy this room at long last.

Yep. Who could enjoy a damp, draughty conservatory?

It's incredible the cowboys had the temerity to leave it in this state.

Looking better now, though!

But is the moisture issue totally sorted?

The proof of the pudding is in the corners.

Bone dry.

Now, this is where the huge problem was.

There was a big valley. It was laking here, if you like.

There were tiles missing before.

These are replacement tiles which shows it wasn't just a conservatory job that needed to be done.

It was a roofing job as well

because one meets the other.

Now, it looks fantastic. It looks like it should have done in the first place, let's face it.

And it's not only the roof work that was amateurish.

There were bodges everywhere you looked.

But now, it's clearly been done by professionals.

The floor looks fine. It's nice and level.

And these doors. You could see there were gaps all through them.

Now, the only thing you see through are the windows within the doors, which is perfect.

Perfect indeed.

Right. Let's check out the disabled access ramp outside.

Before, the gradient was simply too steep.

It's much gentler now.

By basically doubling the length of it,

they've managed to drag that gradient out, which is just what needed to happen.

And finally, on to the flashing on the roof,

which before wasn't very flashy at all, was it?

Now, though, it's spot on.

Someone knows how to do flashing.

Brilliant. It's not cheap material anyway.

But look, you can see. There's no way in for that water.

It was just botched here before.

The water can run along there, through the valley,

through the flashing and then into the system of guttering.

Brilliant.

Well, I've got to say the good guys have played a blinder.

Head honcho Paul is talking me through the challenges he faced turning this project around.

So, Paul, it looks great now. But it must have looked a right sight when you turned up.

Yes, the roof was in a sorry state.

It was manufactured short.

It was manufactured the wrong way round,

which then they attempted on site probably to correct it,

to make it right-handed instead of left-handed.

There were five or six different pieces, all joined together.

So when it's short, there's nothing you can do. You have to start again.

You have to start again.

But these guys clearly weren't interested in doing that.

They just wanted to be in and out as quickly as possible.

And, taking into account another of Paul's discoveries,

it's surprising this didn't become an indoor swimming pool!

The main house roof hadn't been properly dressed into the box gutter

which meant we had to go and get felt and eave support trays.

So it turned into a roofing job, as well!

-Well, it was...

-It was a grower!

It was. It just got bigger and bigger as we went along.

'But after they uncovered the problems,

'they sorted them. That's the way our good guys roll.

'Before I inspect the new conservatory with the Farrows,

'I want to hear their thoughts on the cowboy's version of events.'

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

To at least hear their side of the story.

-Right.

-Now, as regards to yours,

and on the subject of the roof,

he said that there were never any problems with it.

He's just an idiot.

I'm sorry. He's just an idiot.

-How can he say that?

-When we reminded him about the leak,

he said "It was never in his contract

"to fix the glass fibre valley gutter around the conservatory."

Which is the main source of the leak.

-Well.

-That was part of the leak. But that was part of the old conservatory.

So his contract was to take away the conservatory and fit a new one.

Yeah.

'I've heard everything now.

'It wasn't in the contract to create a non-leaking conservatory!

'Classic!'

With regard to the floor.

-Right.

-He said you two had wanted to do it yourselves.

He said that your dad, Jordana,

was "a bit of a pain all the way through the build."

-Was he?

-And "He'd insisted on laying the floor himself

"which is why it wasn't done properly."

OK.

So, originally,

part of the job was to put the floor in.

But because they were completely incompetent, it got to the point where we said

"No, thank you. We don't want you to lay a new floor

"because you're idiots."

Or words to that effect.

So, no.

They didn't put the floor that's in there down.

-No.

-No, I got a professional to do that.

Not my dad. And he's done the best job that he can with what he had to work with.

-On top of the uneven...

-My dad did not put the floor down.

-No.

-I've got the invoices to prove it.

'So the Farrows floorer laid it on a sub-standard base.

'That was never going to work.'

After these questions, he then referred us to his solicitor,

saying that he didn't want to have any further communication with us over the matter.

And that the company in question has been dissolved.

As long as he's got your money, he doesn't really give a stuff.

What would you do differently?

Save up for longer and have somebody better to do the job, I think.

A few more references. Someone like a friend or family. That would be best.

Someone we knew had done something.

-At least then you'll see...

-You know that the work...

You can trust the people who are showing you the work that's...

I think that's it, you know.

It's not going to someone who's going to give a reference

that's been provided by the person who wants the reference.

It's finding someone independent.

'Yep, that's a crucial tactic when it comes to cowboy avoidance.

'Right, time to find out whether our good guys' hard work

'has changed the Farrows' family life for the better.'

Now, then. I want to see how easy it is for everybody to get around.

Now, Oscar... He knows where he's going!

And Callum comes in here quite easily as well, doesn't he?

Yes.

'So, objective one achieved.

'Objective two, that this provides a useful extra room

'has also been achieved.'

Well, it certainly is an extension to the home, isn't it?

It's not an add-on any more.

-It was cold before.

-No, it's been fantastic.

Since the day the good guys had finished,

we've had the doors open, so the temperature's been perfect. It's been a playroom.

How long ago did Paul finish, the good guy?

-Oh, about a week.

-Yeah.

-About a week or so.

-He's been here every day since.

-It's been fantastic.

-See you, Paul. Wham!

Literally.

'That's what I like to hear. No hanging about.

'Young Oscar clearly loves it in here.'

It means the world to see you all using this space.

Because you just couldn't before.

It was almost like sticking two fingers up to you, this room before.

-Yes.

-Because it was here, you spent all the money on it,

but "We don't want to go in there. It's horrible."

You walked past it, or sat on the sofa in there, looking at it.

It made you angry every time you looked through the closed doors.

It was just an eyesore.

So it's so much better. It's made a massive difference.

'One of the great things about this revitalised room

'is that it makes life less stressful for Jordana in many ways.'

It really works as part of your home, now.

You've got your kitchen there. You can look out from the kitchen.

You can lock these doors and know Oscar isn't going to run off.

He's safe. If I'm in there, I can lean over and see him. It's fantastic.

And he's as happy as can be.

'What about young Callum?

'Has this revitalised room proved a success for him?'

I think for the last two years that it's been here and we haven't been able to use it,

it may as well just not have existed for him.

And of course now,

it's like having a brand-new room as far as he's concerned.

Cos he's never really used it.

So it's been fantastic.

But also he can get some stimulation from this room as well.

Stimulation from the outside world.

There's so much to see, isn't there?

He loves looking outside, watching the bird table and the birds.

In here now, he can do it. Actually look out the windows.

'Well, isn't that lovely?

'As the seasons change, Callum will have pole position

'to watch nature transform.'

The whole family love it, don't they?

And they're enjoying it.

And this is how it should have been all that time ago.

This is exactly how we intended it to be two years ago.

It's perfect. Exactly what we wanted from the room in the first place.

You said it. For you to use that word in a room that caused you so much stress means everything.

-It's perfect.

-Yep.

'And on that wonderful note,

'it's time for me to leave the Farrows to enjoy the conservatory

'which at long last has transformed their home.'

That's a happy family, isn't it?

When you see them in that conservatory,

for most of us, we call it the space where the outside meets the inside of our home.

But for the Farrows, it had to be so much more than that

especially when you bear in mind Callum's needs.

But now he has this space that he can go to. It's an integral part of the home.

It's somewhere, no matter what the weather is,

he can be stimulated by the great outdoors.

And after all that time, after all that stress,

they've finally got that.

It's hard to imagine a more deserving family.

For our next Cowboy Trap saga,

we revisit a young couple in Essex

we first met three years ago.

As with the Farrows, this story revolves around a cowboy builder

who talked a good game but didn't deliver what he'd promised.

His unlucky victims were Caroline Palmer and Sean Marten.

Caroline and Sean were first-time buyers

and they were delighted when they found a house

that they thought was right up their street.

We were looking for a property with lots of character.

And this one just sort of jumped out at us.

Their offer was accepted, but the house needed some work doing to keep the building society happy.

Part of our mortgage obligation was to replace the windows

because they were poor quality.

And there was no ventilation in the front room.

Because of the style of the house,

we wanted to have sash windows to the front.

And then mock sash windows to the rear.

Caroline was a design consultant and Sean a town planner,

so finding exactly the right kind of windows to suit their period property

was top priority for them.

The couple did some research and invited a number of companies around to quote.

Unfortunately, they were exactly the kind of double glazing salesmen

that have got the trade a bad name.

One company in particular made us feel quite uncomfortable

in our own home.

It was the way he spoke to us. He was very rude,

and to be honest,

by the time he left, we decided that we didn't want anybody else to come into our home.

So Sean decided to use the internet to find a company who could supply and fit their windows.

After a lot of research,

he and Caroline thought they'd hit gold.

The reason we decided to go with this particular company

was because they said that you cut out the middle man.

And through doing that, we would then be getting a better quality of window

for the same price that we were quoted with other companies.

Caroline and Sean were quoted £3,175 to supply and install a set of top-notch windows.

As well as the period downstairs windows,

that figure included a high-quality sash window in their upstairs bedroom

and safety standard windows in the bathroom, too.

For the young couple, this was an offer too attractive to resist,

even though they were asked to hand over a whopping 25% deposit

before work even started.

When it did, this is one of those stories where things started to go wrong on day one.

I noticed that the two rear windows upstairs

were not the style that we had actually thought we were going to get.

So I brought it up with them

and it was eventually agreed that it was their fault.

The company said they'd get new windows made

and come back and replace them.

But when they did, the situation went from bad to worse.

When I came home, I'd never seen anything like it, the damage that he'd caused.

And the poor workmanship that he'd carried out on the property.

I immediately rang my brother and said, "Kev, can you come round,

"and have a look", because he's a building surveyor.

He came round and he was shocked about the appalling work he'd carried out.

And then when I spoke to the fitter,

he said to me, "Oh, I've finished, Mr Marten."

I said, "You haven't finished. You've left it in an appalling state."

They had caused damage to the brickwork

so therefore, instead of filling it in with, say, sand and cement,

they had used the silicone that you would seal the windows with.

So we've now in some areas got chunks about that size of silicone.

Sean showed the company photographic evidence of the botched job,

but they demanded full payment before they would rectify any mistakes.

He said, "Before any further work is done,

"I want you to pay everything that's remaining on the fitting

"bar the two windows upstairs that we weren't happy with."

So we did, because we didn't think he'd actually come back unless we paid him.

It wasn't only the quality of the work that was an issue.

It was the actual window units themselves.

Sean and Caroline had been told they'd bought a top quality brand,

but it soon became clear they'd been palmed off with cheap and nasty copies

that didn't even meet building regulations.

And as for the contractors, well, they were just as much of a sham.

They led us to believe they were FENSA registered.

They'd shown the logo on their website

which obviously gave us faith in the company we were looking at online.

But nobody in the company is FENSA registered.

And guess what? None of Caroline and Sean's windows were up to FENSA standards.

The bathroom window wasn't toughened safety glass

and the upstairs windows were dangerous because there was no means of escape in the event of fire.

Oh, and not one window was energy efficient.

In other words, they were a total waste of money.

We were living with Sean's parents for about nine months to save up for this house.

A big chunk of that money was saved in that period for these windows.

And now we don't have any more money.

Sean was so upset about how badly they'd been treated,

he set up his own website to warn others about the perils of dodgy glaziers.

He appeared on local news, too.

We weren't getting our money back and I thought, "I can't let him get away with this."

I wanted to make sure that this didn't happen to anybody else.

It was bad enough it had happened to us.

But it had happened to them and we were determined to do something about it.

Enter our good guys!

And not any old good guys.

The company who Caroline and Sean thought were supplying their top quality windows in the first place.

The bona fide window wizards

set about their work with gusto.

Before long, our fellas had done the business.

Beautiful double-glazed windows downstairs.

That's more like it.

Sash windows in the bedroom that will open in the event of fire,

and toughened safety standard windows in the bathroom, too.

When you compared what they were faced with

to what they delivered,

you couldn't fail to be impressed.

Nice one.

And with warranty certification all in place,

Sean and Caroline were very much back on track.

But would they use this Cowboy Trap rescue

as a springboard to go on and create their dream home?

Only time would tell.

It's been almost three years since we last saw Caroline and Sean.

We gather there's been some changes around here. Let's go and meet them.

Word on the street is they've recently tied the knot,

so now they're Mr and Mrs Marten.

-Hello.

-Hi!

-Sean?

-Hi.

-I'm Jonnie. You must be Caroline.

-Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you both. First off,

I was expecting to see something you might have done inside the house.

-But you've been busy outside.

-Yeah.

-Who designed this?

-We did a mood board for the landscaper.

-Mood boards!

-Ooh!

-So we put that together for him to show him what we wanted materials-wise.

And how we wanted the finished look.

'And it looks great. A mood board, eh?

'The only mood that was happening when the bad guys were in town was a bad mood!

'A very bad mood.

'When we go inside, it doesn't take long to feel one of the benefits

'of our good guys sorting the windows.'

It's very hot in here.

-Nice new double glazing, that's half of it!

-Yeah.

-That's one of the offending windows.

-Yes.

-No more problems with them? All fine?

-No, lovely.

Perfect.

'Caroline and Sean like these windows so much,

'they had another one put in the back.'

The same guys that refitted those windows.

We didn't contact anybody else. We had them straight round

and no problems.

'And what a fine window it is.

'And it's not only window installation that our good guy is proving useful for.'

We're also using him for recommendations.

He's given us recommendations for us to do other work in the house

which is really good, cos we trust him.

We trust him to give us other tradesmen that we can also trust.

'And it looks like it's going both ways.

'Caroline and Sean are recommending our good guys to their friends and family

'who are very pleased with their work.

'It looks like there'll be lots more to do at Caroline and Sean's house, too.'

The house is a work in progress.

We've got one more bedroom that we'd like to work on

and we're thinking about redoing a bedroom that's already finished.

And we'd like to work on the garden.

'Caroline and Sean have big plans for the first space visitors see.'

This is what we want to do through the hallway.

-As you see, we've got paint samples on the wall.

-Yep.

These are the colours we're thinking of. We want to put in a dado rail up the wall.

And a nice new front door. We'll be contacting the guys that did the windows, the fitters.

Oh. So our good guys you're going to use again, then.

-Yes, to do the front door.

-That says everything about them, doesn't it?

Wicked.

'You can see Caroline and Sean's vision coming together piece by piece.'

You're really settling in to this house, aren't you?

You're putting down roots here, long term roots, aren't you?

-Yes.

-That's what we wanted when we first moved in to the house.

This is now what we wanted to do back then.

-Now that we're married...

-Congratulations, by the way!

-Thank you very much.

-..now we can actually do it.

-Fantastic.

'Caroline and Sean certainly aren't resting on their laurels.

'What I want to hear is what they learnt from their cowboy builder experience

'and how it felt being ripped off in the first place.

How bad did it get? This is your first big thing you were doing together.

Your first big investment, your first home.

-Yes.

-How did it make you feel

when you came home to a house with shabby windows that you hadn't even chosen.

It wasn't just the shabby windows, it was freezing in the house

because the windows didn't fit.

You had massive gaps round the windows so our heating bills went up

because we tried to make it a comfortable living environment.

So that was sickening, to be honest.

Because it was the first big spend on our house,

because we'd made such a big mistake,

it was that fear, "Where do we go from here?

"What if we make the same mistake again?

"How do we know who we can trust?"

A lot of those things go round in your head.

'Looking at the state of this,

'I'm not surprised Caroline and Sean were in such turmoil.

'But now, though, it's clear things are on the up.'

We're in a much more positive place

because we feel that with people we can trust,

-we don't have to worry with anything else we want to have done to the house.

-I bet.

It turns out our knights in shining armour arrived just in time

to allow Caroline and Sean to focus on their wedding

rather than their windows.

It meant that we could look forward to the planning of our big day

without having to worry about all the stress of how were we going to deal with badly-fitted windows.

Dangerous, in some cases,

they were as well.

What were we supposed to do with that?

So it meant we could wipe the slate clean, forget about that and concentrate on a nice happy thought.

'And looking at those photos, what a wonderful day it was.

'So, final question. What lessons have Caroline and Sean learned

'from their unfortunate cowboy builder experience?'

What would you do differently?

If you need new windows now for your home, how would you go about it?

I would probably look for a local tradesman,

rather than using the internet.

Either through talking to family, friends, a recommendation.

Or the Yellow Pages. But make sure I get lots of quotes.

-Also talk to any clients that they've...

-Exactly it.

You can get quotes, but until you've got a happy customer

that you can approach independently.

Not somebody that says, "You can speak to Mrs Jones that I did work for."

You don't know who Mrs Jones is.

If you can speak to someone independently,

a few people, if possible,

who've had work done by the tradesperson,

if they give glowing references, it's a green light, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-So, all's well that ends well?

-Yes.

-Yeah!

-Yeah!

'That's one happy couple.

'And on that note, it's time for me to leave Caroline and Sean

'to enjoy their rapidly evolving home.'

As you can see, Caroline and Sean are clearly a couple of happily-married newly-weds.

But now they've got a house that reflects that.

Sure, they learnt the hard way,

but they also seem to have a tradesman that they not only trust,

they're happy to recommend him to their family and friends.

Which is how it should be, isn't it?

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd