Melbourne mum left with half a house after botched home renovations: Extension Factory

A furious homeowner left with ‘half a house’ after the renovations from hell has lashed out at the building company she claims are responsible, after being left living in a suburban ‘waterfall’ with a tarp for a roof.

Jill Harris signed a contract almost two years ago to add a second storey to her small Upper Ferntree Gully home, in Melbourne’s east.

But a series of failures led to the project being repeatedly pushed back and Ms Harris has been left with a ‘homemade swimming pool’ instead of a house, with water leaking on her when it rains.

Surveyors have now ordered tradies to down tools all together, claiming the ‘owner and builders’ aren’t complying with building legislation.

The stalemate has left Ms Harris and her son live in the tarpaulin maze that is constantly dripping and full of mouldy fixtures and falling apart.

Ms Harris and her son have been left with a mess of tarps, leaking roofs and mould after a delayed renovation

‘I call this the tent, I live in the tent, because is no roof over my room or my son’s room,’ she told A Current Affair on Tuesday.

Ms Harris said the only way she can hit back at the company is by decorating the mess of a home as a life-sized bad review.

Signs stuck to her fence call the house a ‘health hazard’ and say it is ‘ruining lives’.

The company’s owner, while accepting some fault, has insisted part of the blame is on Ms Harris and her brother, a former worker at the company, for not agreeing to relocate during the renovation.

He said ‘it’s not the sort of job you would leave somebody occupying the premises’.

The extension currently remains at a standstill with a surveyor ordering construction be halted.

The extension currently remains at a standstill with a surveyor ordering construction be halted because ‘owner(s) and their builders non-compliances with the building legislation’

They claim this is due to the ‘owner(s) and their builders non-compliances with the building legislation’. 

Ms Harris has been left in the dark about when, or if, her home will ever be finished.

‘Just give me my home back, what I had even. At least I had a life then,’ she said.

The chaos started early in the build, when tradies were forced to demolish of all their work and start again after a series of errors.

‘(It) just went completely wrong from there. They built it 160 millimetres out of square, which we didn’t find out till 12 months later,’ Ms Harris said.