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Builder Causes £425,000 In Damage To New Flats 'After Not Being Paid'

Builder Causes £425,000 In Damage To New Flats 'After Not Being Paid'

The video was posted on Reddit, where it has received 3,300 upvotes

Jess Hardiman

Jess Hardiman

A building contractor in Germany tore down balconies from a newly-built apartment block after allegedly not being paid, an act that was reportedly committed out of 'frustration'. Watch the footage below:

The video was posted on Reddit, where it has received 3,300 upvotes - with a caption reading: "Someone didn't [pay] their workers."

It shows an excavation machine hacking away at the balconies of a new block of apartments, sending debris crashing to the ground.

According to the Metro, the incident took place in Blumberg, a German city in the Black Forest, on Wednesday evening (28 July).

The outlet also reports that police said the destruction caused was estimated to be €500,000 (£425,000/$594,000) worth of damage.

Reddit

A spokesperson for the local force said the 47-year-old driver gave 'unjustly withheld payments' as the reason behind the unexpected demolition work, saying they had acted out of 'frustration'.

The Metro also cited local media reports as saying the man is believed to have obtained the excavator specifically to tear the balconies down.

Media outlets also reported that he only stopped because the hydraulic hose broke, but had already managed to damage the building's garages - where there were said to be several gas bottles.

According to PressPortal.de, police cordoned off a large part of the area as they could not initially rule out damage to the gas canisters.

Thankfully, there were no people in the building at the time, although the drama attracted around 50 onlookers - with witnesses saying the man simply got into his car and drove away after the destruction.

Shortly afterwards, the driver - said to be a sub-contractor of the developer - turned himself in to police.

He reportedly claims he is owned €5 million (£4.3m/$5.9m) in outstanding payments.

Reddit

Commenting on Reddit, many people thought the scenes looked like a lot of 'fun', while others said the driver may end up regretting what he did.

"It just looks like so much fun," one said.

Another person added: "I don't understand what's wrong with people. Like this probably feels great in the moment. But you probably won't get paid now, you will probably be paying them back, probably jail time involved and you've shown you go crazy on the job, employers don't want that around.

"There are legal ways to get paid. Doing this isn't gonna make the payment come faster to you."

Sharing a similar experience, a third wrote: "Lol I do this all the time but I'm a video maker and sometimes my clients don't pay me so I wait a few days after they post their video on YouTube and I simply issue a copyright strike.

"The funny part about it is I'm a sub-contractor and when the actual clients finds out the middleman editor didn't pay the cameraman and their video got removed because of it I find I usually get paid that same day [sic]."

Featured Image Credit: Reddit

Topics: Viral, World News, News, Germany, Reddit