A 73-year-old recidivist aggressive carpet cleaner is set to pay $10,000 in court costs and double what he charged his "customers" after repeatedly forcing his services on the elderly.
Last December, David James Donald, 73, of Reservoir, was ordered by a court to stop forcing his way into people's houses, cleaning their carpets, then intimidating them into paying for it. He was also ordered to pay $6750 in legal costs, refunds and damages for the same behaviour.
![Carpet cleaner David James Donald and his van.](/web/20161214163921im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/a/5/1/0/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gta3u5.png/1481681683253.jpg)
But that wasn't enough to stop the avid cleaner. Mr Donald – who goes by "Don", and has DD on his number-plate – continued to force his services on at least five more unwilling pensioners.
In February, he strong-armed another elderly woman into paying him to clean her carpets – and demanded coffee and biscuits while he was doing it. He didn't even do a good job, the woman said, and then wrecked her garden.
In April, a frustrated Consumer Affairs Victoria issued a public warning about Mr Donald, before finally taking him to court in May.
This month, Supreme Court Justice Ross Robson proposed to fine Mr Donald for four separate cleans after he was again found to have breached consumer law. A final penalty is likely to be handed down within days.
Mr Donald's door-to-door carpet-cleaning business specialised in the hard sell, court documents reveal.
On February 12, Mr Donald rang the bell of 89-year-old Elizabeth Williams. When she answered, he shoved past her into her house.
He told Mrs Williams that she needed her carpets cleaned. When Mrs Williams said she couldn't afford it, Mr Donald told her she could.
"You get a pension don't you? You have some money somewhere don't you? You can afford it and it needs doing. I'm going to do it now," he said.
Mr Donald's offsider "Johnny" then started cleaning the carpets using a machine, while Mr Donald insisted Mrs Williams bring him coffee and biscuits.
Mr Donald asked Mrs Williams to write him a cheque for $550 – which he then bumped up to $600 for cleaning the carpet in the sewing room.
Johnny took the carpet-cleaning machine outside and emptied the machine into Mrs Williams' front yard. "There is still a lot of grey rubbish all over my garden," she said in an affidavit tendered to court.
To add insult to injury, Mrs Williams said they did not even do a good job cleaning the carpets, leaving them wet, sticky and stained.
Mrs Williams said she now lived in terror of the men coming back, and had been forced to change her lock.
Know more? Email the journalist: liam.mannix@fairfaxmedia.com.au
Mr Donald told the court Mrs Williams had no complaints about his work, and invited him back the next day to fix her television plug.
"Mr Donald admitted, however, that he had unintentionally broken a plug the day before when cleaning Mrs Williams' carpet," Justice Ross Robson wrote in his findings.
Mr Donald did not contest the case, and Justice Robson found the allegations proven.
In findings published this month Justice Robson proposed to force Mr Donald to repay twice the amount he charged his victims, plus $10,000 in court costs. The final penalty is likely to be handed down in the next few days.