It's a long story, but basically we were/are having loads of work done on the house. First job - new boiler.
So we have a quote from a plumber who's been in the trade for 23 years. We accept quote. Work starts one Monday morning whilst I was at work, Mrs was at home with our 18 month old son.
Bear with me here -
One of plumbers lifts a couple of floorboards downstairs. Mrs still in house at this point so she sees him do it - fair enough, no problem.
Floorboard goes back down again. Okaaaaaaaay.
Plumber goes and talks to other 2 plumbers on site.
Old boiler ripped out, cylinder ripped out, fair bit of pipework ripped out and taken away. Mrs goes out to an appointment.
Mrs comes back 45 mins later to find boss of plumbing company on site. Says he can't fit the boiler as agreed cos we only have a single pipe system. We now need a twin pipe system and all new rads which will cost double. Apparently.
So we have no gas, no heating, no hot water. And a toddler in the house.
Mrs phones me at work but I'm busy as fook and tell her to fook 'em off for the day and we'll discuss it that night.
Mrs tells 'em and goes off to another appointment, leaving them a key thinking they were just making things safe before they fooked off.
Mrs comes home a few hours later and all but 2 rads have been ripped out and taken away.
I figured that after the first plumber had floorboards up and saw it was a single pipe system he decided to rip out the boiler etc deliberately leaving Mrs stranded and with no choice but to proceed at higher price. This, to me, is an obvious con. Any plumber, or anyone who is a bit handy around the home can tell the diff between a single or double pipe system.
So I go off to work again the next day and Mrs phones them up telling them not to bother coming back cos she wanted to seek advice from another plumber.
An hour later both bosses come to our house banging the doors and windows, shouting at Mrs and generally threatening her. My son was terrified and crying and Mrs was scared. She phoned cops and they came really quickly but idiots had fooked off by then (got incident number etc). This happened 3 times throughout the day. I couldn’t get home cos I was working 40 miles away with no means of getting home – which is probably a good job tbh.
Anyway, the day after, they came round to take back THEIR rads etc, but never returned ours. I tore into them for how they treated Mrs and little lad. Then they said they were going to sue us for £4600 to which I gave the standard reply and kicked them out.
So today we were in court and they somehow – don’t ask me how – but somehow they won, even though we counter-sued for £500 to cover our rads, but the judge only awarded them
£1700 plus interest since April,
plus lost earnings for today for 3 blokes (witnesses, allegedly),
plus costs,
plus parking (£1.30),
plus travel expenses (80 fecking pence)
at this point I got a ticking off from the judge for asking him if he wanted me to buy em a fcukin sandwich as well:devil:
So there you are – the British judiciary system in all its bent glory.
Sorry about the length of the post but I feel a bit better now. lol
