One of the most frustrating things about contract work is getting customers to pay quickly and without a fuss. A Colorado contractor clearly felt the same and after not getting paid, destroyed a newly-finished bathroom with a sledgehammer.
Daily Mail UK reports Terry Gregory of Dream Home Remodels recently finished a $4,000 job renovating the tiles and walls of a client’s bathroom. A payment dispute erupted in which the homeowner, Amber Trucke, refused to pay him. Gregory then took a sledgehammer to the new tiling and shower wall installation. “We put weeks into this, thousands of dollars into this,” Gregory raged over the lack of final payment by Amber Trucke of Colorado Springs.
A neighbor witnessed the destruction, asking Gregory to stop. However, the contractor had no intention of doing so. “Let me tell you something,” he said to the neighbor, out of breath, before he and his wife and business partner Jordan Cazares leave the house. “No contractor in the state of Colorado will fix that when they found out I took it back because you refused to pay me. No one.”
Amber Trucke’s Side of the Story
Trucke claims she paid the pair $3,330 of an owed $7,555, according to invoices she posted to Facebook. Cazares sent Trucke a Facebook Pay request Friday morning for the remainder, saying she had 24 hours to pay the rest. Trucke asked to return from work so she could see the finished work and get receipts from the contractors. Cazares and Gregory refused to oblige, so Trucke didn’t want to pay. 23 hours passed without Trucke paying. This prompted the contractors to come to her home while she was at work to collect in a different manner.
“That’s it. 23 hours,” Trucke wrote on Facebook. [Because] I didn’t pay in 23 hours (there is NO statement from me in writing or otherwise to them that I wasn’t going to pay) they showed up like thugs and destroyed my property.”
Trucke released a Facebook conversation between her and the contractors. In the messages, she says she has no problems paying them, but for a $6,000 job, she wants to see receipts saying they ordered what they said they would.
According to her lengthy Facebook post, Trucke told Jordan she was disappointed. Nonetheless, she wanted to see the final product. She even said she felt bad because she knew they tiled all day to get the job done. After saying they finished Friday at 10:30 a.m., the contractors demanded immediate payment.
Trucke asked for proof Cazares ordered a shower door. She refused, got upset, and then showed up with Gregory to “repossess our materials and labor.” Trucke’s roommate allowed the couple in, which is when the destruction began.
Overall, it’s a troublesome situation that isn’t as cut and dry as it appears.
