This is exactly what I was trying to save my grandmother’s house from. I’ve been reluctantly sitting on these videos since I recorded them. Now I’m posting them so the whole world and the rest of the family can see what total disrespect my con artist cousin had for our grandmother.
I had lived with my grandmother since 2010. As you know, after she died in 2022, I desperately tried to raise $2,000,000 so that I could buy the house myself and keep her legacy alive. I was hoping to make enough money through book sales, but my novel would not be released until July 13 2026.
The house admittedly needed some repairs to the plumbing, kitchen, granny flat, skylight, and the brick barbeque in the backyard. Its chimney had needed rebuilding since the pandemic. But the house was otherwise still a livable home. Then in 2025, the outdoor laundry caught fire.
Some months later, one of my cousins beat me to buying the property. He got it for significantly less than market value after giving the executor a whole song and dance about wanting to, quote, “restore the house to its former glory” and “make Nana proud” so he could live in it with his wife and kids.
Ever the conman, he deceptively waited until after settlement date had past to put his ulterior motives on full display. Instead of “restoring the house to its former glory” as promised, he demolished things that did not require fixing. First his cowboy tree loppers completely devastated my grandmother’s garden, with no regard for whether plants were growing in the ground or growing in pots. Not only did they massacre the pot plants my grandmother had left my mother, but they also took a chainsaw to my mother’s dog kennels and her antique table! They also killed two epiphytes worth about $2,000 each that were growing on the Magnolia tree, epiphytes which he claimed he wanted. The Magnolia tree was supposedly to be spared because it was a protected species, but in fact they cut off the branches on one side so it became lopsided – probably so it will fall and they can ‘justify’ removing it at some later date. The stone fishpond was also damaged by these cowboy tree loppers.
The garden was only the beginning. My cousin then demolished a built-in bookshelf in the entryway and a build-in wardrobe in one of the upstairs bedrooms, neither of which needed any repairs. He gutted the entire ground floor interior, including the mirrors fixed to the hallway wall, the understairs storage, and the bi-fold windowed doors to the kitchen – again, none of which were in need of repair. He sealed up the fireplace which had no defect apart from a few mock brick wall decor panels peeling away. And he demolished the brick barbeque, whose only damage was again the chimney and grill. This damage I had stressed repeatedly to him that I intended to have repaired. He even tried to knock down the granny flat and only stopped after it had been reduced to frames because of council intervention. The garden he devasted has since become an illegal dumping ground for his trash.
For me, the barbeque and the fireplace were the straws that broke the camel’s back. When I complained bitterly about them, my cousin told me that I had, quote, “15 years to do something about the barbeque.” This demonstrates that he never even attempted to visit our grandmother in the last twelve years that she was alive, or he would have known that the barbeque was damaged in 2020 during the pandemic, back when it was impossible to even leave the house and get a repairman over, not fifteen years ago.
What we are witnessing is the willful destruction and desecration of my grandmother’s property and legacy. This demolition has effectively stripped the house of everything that made it my grandmother’s home. The executor regrets selling the property to him. I am already discussing the matter with my lawyers to take legal action against my cousin.