DIY Heavan

Lou was looking at yet another opportunity to get rich easily. He overheard Mr Caine telling his father-in-law that he wished to do some house extensions work. As usual, Lou wanted to impress them and told them that he could take on the project. His wife Ivy pestered her father to convince Mr Caine to let Lou handle the job.

Both husband and wife were greedy and incredibly conceited, believing that they could handle this project easily, and make some money from the house owner, contractors, waste recycling and management company.

Lou called up an acquaintance, Ian, and told him about the house extensions job; adding that he expected a certain commission for his recommendation. Ian gave him a quotation, which Lou asked for further discounts. Finally a figure was decided upon, and Lou presented the proposal to Mr Caine, with a thirty percent increase for himself.

Ian had asked if Lou wanted him to handle the whole project from the extensions work to waste management. Greedy Lou wanted to earn from these services as well; so he told Ian that he would take care of them himself. He sourced for the cheapest waste management company and since he hoped to make more money out of waste recycling; he worked with another contractor on this.

The job took longer than expected; Mr Caine was very unhappy with the slow progress. Having been given such cut-rate fees, Ian was not assigning his full resources; giving priority to other jobs on hand. Furthermore, the rubbish skip was too small; Lou had asked for the cheapest skip hire in town without checking the sizes. There was no proper communication or coordination with the waste disposal company and waste recycling services, thus creating confusion and a mess which no one wanted to be accountable for.

In the end, the job was at a standstill. The rubbish piled up over the small skip and Ian refused to carry on without an additional skip. The whole fiasco was exposed when Mr Caine chanced upon Ian one day and asked him about the progress. After Ian's explanations, Mr Caine decided to deal with Ian directly, asking him to handle everything from the extensions work to the waste management, thus cutting Lou out of the picture.

As expected, Lou and Ivy were hardly embarrassed; they blamed Mr Caine and Ian instead. When asked about the project, Lou would say that ‘’Mr Caine was too fussy and miserly, and Ian was really a sneaky guy. I would rather not do business with the two of them."