Ricky and Haydn have been left without a landscaping team on The Block once again after their replacements quit.
“This new guy has done some research and said f*** it I’m out,” Ricky admits to the camera.
“We are once again the victim of this not paying the bills scenario. The odds of us finding a landscaper with a week’s notice, it’s not possible. At this stage, we’ll probably have to pick up the [wheel]barrows ourselves.”
Last week, their original team backed out after hearing of other contestants on The Block not paying their trades or local businesses on time, or at all.
It was a huge blow for the boys, who had for more than a month working with the landscaping team to plan their front and backyards.
“We lost our landscaper…he brought up the fact that The Block has a reputation for not paying our bills. That’s what’s going around the island,” a frustrated Ricky shared with Scotty and Shelley about the situation at the time.
Haydn added that he wasn’t hugely surprised that the situation had soured, noting that it had been “getting weird” with their landscapers, who began “talking about contracts, payment upfront, payment on the day” as rumours continued to circulate around Phillip Island.
That update came a week after Courtney and Grant were put on blast by their fellow contestants for giving The Block a bad reputation after not paying invoices for a shower screen door back in Week 1 for the main bathroom week.
This was then repeated with the main ensuite a few weeks later.
After hearing from his landscaping team that local trades were now hesitant to work on The Block over the fears of not being paid, loveable larrikin Ricky and his teammate Haydn set out to rectify the situation.
“Obviously being a local on a small island you’ve gotta trust that local intel,” a visibly irritated Ricky shared with the camera.
“If we can group together and make sure we are doing the right thing and paying the trades then perhaps we can help change that [bad] name,” Haydn added.
To achieve this, Ricky approached all five teams and invited them to a body corp the next morning to discuss his concerns.
But upon realising that were the ones being accused of wrongdoing, Grant and Courtney lashed out, refusing to attend.
In fact, the controversial couple went as far as to label Ricky a “snitch” and “a dog.”
“There’s definitely two sides to every story. We have paid other invoices [to Bettsy’s Glass] once the jobs were completed,” Courtney shared in a sit-down interview with producers.
“[In the third job] the shower screen glass wasn’t cut correctly to what was supplied,” she adds, revealing that they didn’t want to pay the invoice until the “mistake” was rectified.
But Foreman Dan shed new light on the situation, revealing that the onus actually fell on the couple for failing to supply proper measurements to the local business.
“The problem that’s happened is Grant has just given the overall dimension of the room, sent it to Bettsy’s, and just hoped for the best with no design or anything so that’s his fault. This is on him.”
While they did eventually pay their outstanding debts to Bettsy’s to keep the peace, it didn’t last long with Courtney storming off, fleeing to the beach to gather her thoughts.
Fast forward to the body corp the next day with everyone but Courtney and Grant in attendance, Ricky delivered an emphatic speech that he referred to as “a team chat.”
“We’re getting a name for not paying our trades. The word is getting around on the island that The Block isn’t paying their trades.”
While he didn’t point the finger at anyone in particular, it was obvious to everyone else that he was alluding to House 2.
