So you’ve read all four parts of the “Contractor or Conman?” series and learnt how to deal with sly contractors in your future home renovation projects. Unfortunately, you’ve read it all a little too late and have already fallen prey to some unscrupulous scum. So what do you do now?

Contractors will say pretty much anything to get that a signed piece of that chequebook in your pocket. But as soon as your eyes get all dreamy, you’re letting your guard down; and that can have disastrous results. So wake up and take notice of what’s going on around you.

Time is money, and when it comes to renovating your home, the more of your time your contractor wastes, the more money you’ll be doling out to him.Time has you wrapped around the contractor’s finger. After all, he’ll have nothing to lose if the project ends uncompleted. He has plenty more clients to direct his temporal, unsustainable attention to.

All home renovation projects start out bright and chirpy; you’re bursting with plans and ideas and the contractor you’ve engaged is nodding, smiling and telling you every plan you have for your home can be done.
But hold your horses and don’t get too carried away.

You’ve installed fittings that were promised to be of the finest quality and cost a bomb to match, but after some time, you realize that these materials aren’t really worth the price you paid. Chances are that you’ve fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the book; something we like to call Material Fraud.

Local contractors often hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Beds.sg exposes some of the dirtiest, darkest secrets of Singapore’s building and engineering construction industry in this three-part series so you’ll be well informed and prepared for any tricks a contractor has up his sleeves.