HOUSTON – Disputes between contractors and homeowners are fairly common, but recent trouble in a west Houston neighborhood seems to go beyond the usual back-and-forth.
"He was holding my garbage cans hostage," handyman, Doug Ott, said.
Ott's son was caught Monday morning on the homeowner's surveillance camera dumping out a garbage can's contents on the homeowner's driveway.
Ott contends, while the job of retrieving the garbage cans could have been done more gracefully, the homeowner has run out of money, and will not pay for the job to be completed, so he wants his garbage cans back.
"I don't feel like that gives him right to dump trash all over my driveway as some sort of vindictive revenge," homeowner Eric Anderson said.
Anderson called the police after reviewing the footage.
Anderson told Channel 2 that a deputy constable told him that since the garbage cans belong to Ott, he is within his rights to retrieve them.
Anderson's next step was to post the video to YouTube.
The homeowner claims that Ott kept increasing the cost of his home remodeling bill, and Anderson refused to pay the last $5,000 installment until the job was done.
Anderson had a previous contractor who skipped out on the job after performing shoddy work.
"He was lumping me in with that guy," Ott said.