A Durbanville mother says she’s living in a nightmare after paying a building contractor close to R200 000 for renovations, only to end up with a broken home.
An upset Esmeralda Visagie, 52, says she’d taken out a loan on her pension for the work on her kitchen and living room.
She had to bring in another contractor to finish her kitchen in August and now has no money left for her lounge.
She says she came across Mo Isaacs on Gumtree in January, and hired him to extend her lounge.
Esmeralda explains: “He asked me what about the kitchen and he got me to sign up to do the kitchen. He said they will be done by the end of March.
“He ripped out my whole kitchen, there was not even a cupboard standing. By August we were still washing the dishes in my toilet.
“We had a little plastic table in my kitchen and a two-plate burner which we were surviving on.”
She says the job amounted to R211 000, but she had to pay 75% upfront and paid R145 000 for the kitchen and living room renovations and an additional R47 000 for extras.
However, she had to bring in another contractor in August to complete the kitchen after Isaacs failed to show up.
Now her lounge is raw and ripped up from top to bottom.
The frustrated vrou adds: "We have a leaking roof, the electrical work is incomplete because all my lights are working on one switch.
“When I put one light on, four lights go on, which is another cost I need to carry because I am wasting electricity.
“Until he got the 75% deposit he was here everyday, then he started coming twice a week, then once every second week.
“He hasn’t been here for nearly a month. I think he has abandoned this job.
“He needs to complete this mess he created but he is full of excuses. The rest of my house looks like an unfinished broken-down palace and I have no money.”
Esmeralda says she wants Isaacs to pay back the money for the lounge, or come finish the job.
According to Isaacs, he did finish the job.
He says: “She asked me to give her a small refund which I did out of courtesy and everything else was finished accordingly, we did our side.
“We just need to finish her ceiling, but I got the flu. I can’t work when I am not feeling well.”
He says he deposited R7275 in her bank account on Monday evening and Esmerelda confirmed she received it.
But she says: “This money was mine to begin with as it was for additional items as quoted by him for the kitchen, so he has not done me any favours by paying it.”
marsha.dean@inl.co.za