Wow, I suck at tile work and I could do a far better job than he did.
Maybe he should start with legos and work his way up to the harder stuff.
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It was a neighbour, not the homeowner, taking the video. Not that that changes anything.
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Holy cats! That looks like the sort of tile work I saw all the time in the former soviet union!
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I’m glad you got out in time-- I have it on good authority that over there, poorly installed tile smashes you. What a country.
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That’s really bad craftsmanship. I tiled our bathroom with a backsplash and it was my first time ever tiling. It was easier than I expected. Here’s a pic. I think that contractor in the video had never tiled before.
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A more appropriate headline might be “Contractor destroys evidence of substandard tile job - calls it “repossession””
The the work was utterly incompetent, including setting chipped tiles and failure to use proper tiles for edges. The grout wasn’t even dry on the job and the homeowner wasn’t allowed to test the plumbing before the contractor demanded final payment immediately via Facebook Pay, before a final inspection or a punch list to correct errors. The shower door wasn’t even delivered or installed.
The contractor showed up with a sledge hammer and a sawzall and tricked the owner’s roommate to let him and his partner in while the owner was at work.
The contractor is a violent thug and deserves no sympathy whatsoever. What he and his partner deserve is criminal and civil prosecution. The owner wasn’t even late in payment. This occurred 23 hours after he demanded payment in full for work that wasn’t finished.
His legal recourse for if the client actually defaulted on payment (which they hadn’t) would have been to place a lien on the house, but since he didn’t bother to get permits for the work or do it right there’s a good chance he would have lost in court. I think he darn well knew that before deciding on destroying the bathroom instead.
This is one of the “before” images of the work:
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Even if the homeowner had been 100% in the wrong here, contractors are not allowed to take the law into their own hands here. Just like your landlord can’t change the locks on you if you don’t pay your rent, contractors cannot destroy the work they did for nonpayment. Not only is this contractor a jerk, he has now committed a crime.
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Someone should call Sledge Hammer to sort this out.
Or should that be Sledgehammer?
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Yep - he sure ain’t getting paid any more now!
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And he and his partner try to excuse their actions:
" Communication broke further after that and resulted in our company repossessing a tile shower."
That’s not a thing. From what other contractors say in the comments on this story, once the materials are permanently fixed to the house they are part of the house and belong to the homeowner - and this is why contractors have the somewhat extraordinary privilege of taking out a lien on a home to recover unpaid bills, something this thug didn’t even bother with (and couldn’t since payment wasn’t actually past due, the job not being finished or signed off on) The tiles can’t be “repossessed” via sledge hammer.
That attempt at corporate speak might work for an actual big corporation with craploads of money and lawyers, but it isn’t going to work for that pair of scammers.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out he doesn’t even have a contractor’s license.
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Excellent point!
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Not at all. This is what contractor liens are for.
Beyond that, I don’t want to speculate too much on what the backstory here is. Either party (or both) could have been in the wrong leading up to this, but smashing up someone else’s property with a sledgehammer 100% puts you onto the wrong side. Also I predict this will end badly for the contractor.
If it were up to me he would lose his license, but for sure nobody with a brain should hire him ever.
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That was going to be my next question- was this clown even licensed?
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Yeah, predatory contractors benefit from market self-selection; it’s like how ‘Nigerian prince’ emails are intentionally poorly written to ensure that whoever is responding really has no idea what’s going on. If the homeowner is willing to contract with someone whose partner/tiler is their girlfriend, not check for their license, and found them on Facebook, they probably don’t know what to look for in a contractor and can fall prey to someone who claims to be experienced.
A big part of ‘bottom feeding’ is the ability to quickly change your name and phone number and move on, too. Start a new biz with a name as close to a reputable business as you can, advertise in a couple places in a specific area outside of your neighborhood to get a couple local jobs, move on to another area using a new name, rinse, repeat. Never hire someone who only has a facebook page and personal references that you actually know, folks!
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This video will be the highlight of the evidence presented when the homeowner sues this “contractor.” Punitive damages will be at least triple the cost of a new bathroom.
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If this is typical work by this ‘contractor’, chances are good they have neither insurance to cover incidents like this, nor any assets to speak of. I tiled my own kitchen counters, and while it wasn’t ‘professional’ grade, it was done as a mosaic with sea glass and tile and looked much better than this clown’s work.
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Really not a fan of the new video player that just goes forever. “There is no disengagement”
Are there some tiles I can smash somewhere?
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Looks great. Dig the mirror, too, also.
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When he’s finished, he tells the owner that no contractor will fix the destroyed bathroom when they find out he wasn’t paid for his work.
Doesn’t explain how Trump managed to stiff so many contractors, one after another.
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