“This Is What Happens When You Don’t Pay”: Builders Film Themselves Destroying Woman’s Driveway
Builders retaliated against a homeowner by smashing up her completed driveway after claiming dissatisfaction and payment disputes.
Homeowner Viola in Logan, Queensland, Australia, who wanted her driveway paved, had the work finished before it got demolished by the constructors right after.
Viola got into a tiring argument with her home’s builders after she had expressed her discontent with the standard of the work, making her withhold payment for the full total they had originally agreed on.
The laborers subsequently sought revenge by taking their working tools back to Viola’s new driveway before completely destroying it.
Builders retaliated against a homeowner by smashing up her completed driveway after a payment dispute
Image credits: 7NEWS Australia
Image credits: 7NEWS Australia
Speaking to 7News, Viola insisted the builders “did what they wanted, not what I wanted,” Unilad reported.
Tradesman Jesse Crowe told his own version of the event to 7News, arguing against Viola’s accounts, saying he was pushed to act after she had refused to pay him in full for the job.
Jesse and Viola had initially negotiated a 6,000 AUD (4,012 USD) bill for the job, which involved creating a new surface for the large driveway attached to the side of the home, as per Unilad.
Tradesman Jesse Crowe said that he was pushed to act after Viola, the homeowner, refused to pay him in full for the job
Image credits: 7NEWS Australia
Image credits: 7NEWS Australia
But once the driveway was completed, Viola only paid 2,500 AUD ($1,670), allegedly refusing to disburse the remaining 3,500 AUD ($2,340) when she got into a row with Jesse about the quality of the job and the supposed rubbish removal, Unilad reported.
Viola recalled: “[They told me] you pay now or we will smash the concrete.” The disappointed homeowner was then asked whether she would have paid the workers once the job was completed, to which she replied: “Of course, but they refused to finish the job.”
The distraught homeowner further claimed: “They did what they wanted, not what I wanted.”
Jesse and his team filmed themselves smashing up Viola’s driveway
Image credits: 7NEWS Australia
Jesse and his team reportedly filmed themselves smashing up the driveway. Despite the incident occurring last year, the video was shared on social media in the first few days of 2024.
In the video, Jesse was seen speaking to the camera and saying: “This is what happens when you don’t want to pay for work carried out at your place.”
The clip further showed Jesse and his colleagues destroying the driveway with a pickaxe and other tools.
Image credits: 7NEWS Australia
The person recording could be heard commenting that it would now cost Viola more money to have the driveway dug up, taken away, and poured again.
Viola has reportedly said she and her family will repair the now-dried concrete drive themselves, while Jesse has insisted he didn’t enjoy destroying his work but was tired of getting “ripped off.”
Jesse told 7News that he had worked in the trade for a “long time” and had been “doing the right thing by people” before asking: “They don’t want to pay, at the end of the day, what are you going to do?”
The small and exasperated business owner additionally stated: “I take pride in my work, and I love concrete, I love doing it.”
The incident is reported to have taken a toll on Viola’s mental and physical health, as she revealed she “collapsed in the shopping centre” two days after the destruction of her concrete driveway and had to be hospitalised as a result of the stress she felt.
Viola says she witnessed the workers picking up their axes and destroying the freshly built driveway, claiming they also hammered on her door to “scare” her.
The Aussie woman has still not repaired her driveway a year after the incident, according to Unilad.
In the video, Jesse was seen speaking to the camera and saying: “This is what happens when you don’t want to pay for work carried out at your place”
Image credits: 7NEWS Australia
In September 2023, another mishap akin to Viola and Jesse’s dispute took place, which saw a builder in Lithuania destroying a beautifully done terrace after a client didn’t pay for it for over three weeks.
A client had bought a terrace for $4,300, but a couple of weeks after the work was done, he was short over $1,000 and wouldn’t offer any solutions to the workers.
You can watch 7News’ report of the incident below:
A similar incident happened back in 2016, also in Australia, when angry construction workers retaliated against their boss, tearing through the newly built framework of a soon-to-be home with a chainsaw because they allegedly weren’t paid.
Footage of the payback was uploaded to Facebook. The video opened with a clip of a chainsaw and read “Builders who don’t wanna pay invoices” before switching to construction workers on a work site slicing through wooden struts like a knife through butter, the DailyMail reported.
Some readers argued that Jesse’s work wasn’t “compliant to Australian standards”
Whoever is defending the construction company in the comments, is an absolute tool. The job was not compliant with any minimum industry standard and would have failed quickly. No steel mesh to prevent sagging and cracking, no expansion joints to account for thermal expansion, too light cement mix, no sealant. Awful edge quality meaning it was not cast with proper formworks. The lady deserves her money back, and the workers can keep on demolishing the bad job to fix the damage they did, and then redo it properly. This is not a quality job you have to pay for, this is a job you sue to have removed. At 6000 AUD, for what's shown in the photos it's not cheap either, that price would be enough to lay over 100 sqm of concrete 15 cm thick, with mesh and everything, at least three times the surface shown.
Well, the good news is that these guys are outed and probably won't get much, if any work after this. They really shot themselves in the foot with that move. I want people to get paid for the job they do too, but this guy was ripping her off to begin with. He should have just taken her to court but chose to act like a thug instead. That's what people do when they know they can't win a lawsuit.
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Pretty sure Australia has a legal system by which these sorts of things can get solved, yet the contractor failed to take this route and the customer apparently hasn't sought remedy in the courts either. There was a similar case in the US of a contractor destroying a bathroom he had worked on after there was a disagreement about his workmanship and he ended up serving a brief jail sentence and three years probation when he could have settled it like an adult in civil court. The sad thing was that the customer didn't say they wouldn't pay, but that they wanted a few hours to get home and examine the work first. The contractor refused to wait.
Whoever is defending the construction company in the comments, is an absolute tool. The job was not compliant with any minimum industry standard and would have failed quickly. No steel mesh to prevent sagging and cracking, no expansion joints to account for thermal expansion, too light cement mix, no sealant. Awful edge quality meaning it was not cast with proper formworks. The lady deserves her money back, and the workers can keep on demolishing the bad job to fix the damage they did, and then redo it properly. This is not a quality job you have to pay for, this is a job you sue to have removed. At 6000 AUD, for what's shown in the photos it's not cheap either, that price would be enough to lay over 100 sqm of concrete 15 cm thick, with mesh and everything, at least three times the surface shown.
Well, the good news is that these guys are outed and probably won't get much, if any work after this. They really shot themselves in the foot with that move. I want people to get paid for the job they do too, but this guy was ripping her off to begin with. He should have just taken her to court but chose to act like a thug instead. That's what people do when they know they can't win a lawsuit.
Load More Replies... Pretty sure Australia has a legal system by which these sorts of things can get solved, yet the contractor failed to take this route and the customer apparently hasn't sought remedy in the courts either. There was a similar case in the US of a contractor destroying a bathroom he had worked on after there was a disagreement about his workmanship and he ended up serving a brief jail sentence and three years probation when he could have settled it like an adult in civil court. The sad thing was that the customer didn't say they wouldn't pay, but that they wanted a few hours to get home and examine the work first. The contractor refused to wait.
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