Builders fix 94-year-old woman’s fence for free after she’s ripped off by ‘cowboys’

A group of builders have won praise online after they corrected the work some ‘cowboys’ did for a pensioner for free. 

Chris Sawdon’s neighbour, a 94-year-old woman, was ripped off with some shoddy building work, but the response has seen people’s ‘faith in humanity restored’. 

Betty, who lives in Sherburn-In-Elmet, Yorkshire, had builders in to install a fence, but within three days this had blown down as they had barely put the posts in the ground. 

When her neighbour Chris called out on the local Facebook community page he was overwhelmed with the response and a local company, Denby Building Contractors, responded – offering to fix the work for free.

He wrote in his Facebook post: “A fantastic local company DENBY Building Contractors responded to the post and came round today to put the shoddy work right.

“They dug the holes to right depth, set posts properly and fitted all of the fence panels and even turned over the border and cleared away rubbish left by the other contractors. They did all this for FREE and would not take a penny even when my neighbour offered them some money.

“I cannot thank Steve and the guys at DENBY Building Contractors enough and highly recommend them to anybody needing any building or structural garden work doing.”

The post has seen huge support for the company, with many people asking for their number to have work done, while others said ‘what a great bunch of lads’ and ‘well done to Denby building contractors so proud of you guys’. 

The Guardian reported that during lockdown the numbers of people volunteering soared – locally, one street in Denton held bingo games every three weeks at the start of lockdown to help combat loneliness. 

Well done lads, what an amazing gesture!