Roofers repaired a 78-year-old widower’s roof for free after he was scammed out of thousands by another tradesman.
Mike Watkinson needed a few of his roof tiles replaced just weeks after his wife of 57 years died following a long battle with liver cancer.
When the first set of roofers arrived, they aggressively quoted him £250, or about $310 for the work.
He said he felt “pressured” into accepting, and before he knew it, the bill rose to 8-times that amount.
Watkinson paid the workers who pocketed the cash and left his home in Oldham unfinished and with a huge hole in the roof.
When Denny Melia, another tradesman, found out last week he rushed over with his team and offered to do the work for free, not too dissimilar to a story that GNN reported on last spring in Pittsburgh, where deceitful contractors left a retired couple with a collapsing pile of dirt instead of a new garden wall.
“I was outraged hearing Mike’s story,” said Melia, the owner of Jigsaw Roofing in Merseyside. “I couldn’t believe people would take advantage of a man in that stage of life.”
“The job was only about 25% done when we got to his house,” he told the Southwest News Service. “And the other workers had said they’d finish it for another £1,200, but I told Mike that if they showed up again, he should call the police.”
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£250 would have been a fair price for what the first roofer was asking, Melia said, but they just kept raising the quote and pressuring him, saying there were other issues.
Making up for his dismal industry colleagues, Melia took care of the project for free.
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