A married couple in Warrington, Cheshire, returned home on Saturday to find their house covered in scaffolding they had not ordered, after three men were recorded by a Ring doorbell removing equipment from a flatbed truck and erecting the structure.
Doorbell footage shows one of the men pressing the couple's camera and, when prompted by the device to leave a message, responding: "Hello, Chinese takeaway." The homeowners, payroll company director Mike Keeling, 56, and his wife Leanne Smith, 45, said they had not commissioned any work and were left baffled by the installation.
Keeling said he initially thought work on a neighbouring property had begun and only realised the scaffolding was on his own house when he turned into his road. "I was a little bit gobsmacked at that point, thinking 'hang on a minute, I didn't order this,'" he said. He canvassed neighbours, contacted local scaffolding firms and knocked on doors in nearby streets but had not identified the men or their employer.
The men recorded in the footage were not wearing identifiable company uniforms and the vehicle they used bore no logo, Keeling said. He and his wife were approached by other firms offering to remove the structure in exchange for keeping the scaffolding parts as payment, but Keeling said he felt uneasy about accepting or disposing of property that did not belong to them.
Keeling said the boards and poles are worth hundreds of pounds and that the temporary staging has caused practical inconveniences, including preventing Smith from charging her electric Mini at home. "When we charge it at home, we can charge it completely for about £3 or £4," he said. "At the charging point, to do it three-quarters full it was £17. It's a financial cost to us. But, that's less of an issue. It's more the fact I've got a house covered in scaffolding, which is not ideal."
The couple said they feared security issues from having scaffolding in place and were unsure how long to leave it as they awaited information on the installers. Keeling said he hoped publicity might prompt roofers or other tradespeople who expected staging to appear elsewhere to realise it had been put up at the wrong address and arrange its removal.
Police forces and consumer bodies have previously warned about rogue scaffolders who erect staging without clear identification, sometimes seeking payment to remove it or leaving work incomplete. In 2023, Hertfordshire Police warned that traders in St Albans set up scaffolding, performed no additional work and then demanded payment to dismantle the fixtures. Media reports in earlier years described similar cases in Yorkshire and in north London, where scaffolding was found on homes after installers were given incorrect addresses or after rogue operators exploited vulnerable residents.
Keeling said he and his wife have no reason to believe they were targeted for a scam but were treating the matter seriously. "Quite a few people had seen this work being done, but the guys who'd done it had absolutely nothing on them to identify who they were," he said. He said other scaffolding firms that offered to remove the equipment without charge wanted to keep the poles as payment, an arrangement he felt he could not accept given the parts were not his property.
The couple have not reported the matter as a confirmed fraud and said they continued to seek information from neighbours and local tradespeople. Keeling said they were considering practical uses for the staging in the short term, such as checking gutters before winter, while they wait to learn who supplied it and whether it can be lawfully removed.
The incident has attracted attention as an unusual local news item, echoing previous reports of mistaken or opportunistic installations of scaffolding around the UK that left homeowners facing unexpected costs and security concerns.