When Rob and Lucy Davies hired builder Steve Figg to construct their dream house extension, they had high hopes.
However, it turned into a nightmare that saw their home wrecked and the couple even thrown into police cells.
Instead of delivering the project, Figg, who already had £44,000 of their money, reported them to Essex Police for "harassing" him over the work.
The dad-of-two also told officers he wanted to kill the couple, but was not arrested.
The 35-year-old builder had been fed up with the couple, of Langdon Hills in Basildon, Essex, asking when he was coming back to finish the job.
They are not the only ones let down by Figg. Other people have told the BBC how he left not just their homes at risk of collapse, but their relationships, too.
One woman even described how Figg turned up at her home with a chainsaw and a sledgehammer and smashed her garden office up in a row over payment.
Figg, of Milton Road, Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, has now been ordered to pay the Davies £85,000 in compensation, having admitted 22 breaches of building regulations at their home.
The couple, and other people who hired Figg, have shared stories of the devastation he left in his wake.
"The only way I could describe how our house looked was like a bomb site," explains Rob Davies, 37.
"There was a huge, gaping hole in the garden where the kitchen was supposed to go and the back of the house was at risk of collapse."
This was the situation in October 2024, a year after Figg started work on the single-storey extension, which was meant to take 12 weeks.
Rats were able to run free and nest in the house due to large gaps in the exposed, unsupported wall, and the property had become impossible to keep warm.
"The only way we got through it was going day by day and saying 'It'll be OK,'" says Davies, who got in touch with the BBC via Your Voice.
"It was a complete nightmare. There were times where we thought we wouldn't get through it together. It tested our marriage hugely."
The couple spent £75,000 on the disastrous project in total, of which £28,000 was repairing the mess left by Figg and £3,000 in legal fees.
A final blow was dealt to them when, after two months of trying to contact him, Figg told the police he was being harassed by the couple and wanted to kill them.
The pair were arrested at their workplaces and spent 22 hours in cells at Grays police station, before later being released with an apology from officers.
It was only when Basildon Council's building control team began collecting evidence against Figg, who ran Figg Construction Ltd, that the full picture emerged.
Davies says: "Hate's a strong word, but I genuinely can't think of another sort of person who would do this. He's the lowest of the low.
"He masquerades as someone who can do all these things, but, when you get under the surface, he's incapable."
While Figg was only sentenced for what he did at the Davies household, the court heard he was being investigated for potential crimes against four other unnamed victims.
Gemma Hemmings says not long after she had given birth, she was confronted by Figg, who was armed with a chainsaw and a sledgehammer.
She could only watch as he destroyed her garden office in a dispute over payment.
Hemmings, 40, and her husband, Steve, 38, had paid Figg almost £100,000 to build the office and extend their house in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, in 2021.
But they angered him by withholding a final payment, instructing him to first complete his shoddy work to a higher standard.
"We watched while he destroyed everything with a big smile on his face. It was terrifying," Hemmings recalls.
"He was someone who'd been in our house and around our children. We'd let him into our family."
The couple had to stay away from their house with their newborn for 10 weeks while Figg continued to make excuses for the work dragging out over nine months.
Hemmings continues: "I look back and I don't know how Steve and I are still together. It destroyed our marriage.
"The pressure it put on our family life was incredible; it was just incredible and terrifying."
Despite their experience, Hemmings feels they are among the luckier of Figg's victims. Unlike others, their house had been left with windows, walls and a roof.
However, they remember Figg as an intimidating man who made them so paranoid they set up cameras in their home.
"If you'd asked me four years ago, I'd have probably said I wanted him dead," Hemmings says.
"But now I don't think about the man. He's getting everything he deserves for what he did to us and those people after us.
"I think he's one of the worst people I've ever met."
Nick Marns, an insurance broker from Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, does not consider himself lucky.
He paid Figg a "substantial" amount of money to double the size of his two-bed property in 2017, but it was instead gutted and left a shambles.
Marns was left homeless and needing counselling as a result.
"When building control came, he said it was the worst build he'd ever seen in his career," the 41-year-old says.
Pictures of the mess, which included 10 tonnes of rubble, speak for themselves. It was not until June 2018 that Marns could return to his home.
The stressful process put pressure on his relationship and led to him having a mental breakdown, he says.
Marns describes Figg as a "manipulative" man who would lie at any opportunity to cover himself.
"He's a weasel of a man because every time he's confronted, he becomes sick or says one of his family members has died," says Marns, who now lives in Dubai.
"It still turns my stomach with hatred because of what he did to our lives. He dismantled our lives."
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உலகம்9 years ago