MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Yvette Booker remembers seeing a glint in her neighbor’s driveway earlier this year on her way home from work.
“I want our driveway to look like that,” she said to her husband.
So she found out who did it for her friend: a man named Timothy Johnson who owns Grit n Grind Construction. She soon signed a $600 contract with the company for them to do a similar job at her home.
The Bookers were excited. They wanted the driveway and walkway to match their shutters..
“It’s supposed to be a shiny stain, almost like a shiny penny,” she said.
But it didn’t take long for the sparkle to fade. Booker said the paint never dried correctly.
“He told us not to drive over it for two days. After the second day we drove over it and then there was traction all over it,” she said.
It took another month to get Johnson to return to fix that. When he did, he started chipping away at the original paint, but never finished, leaving them with this splotchy driveway for months.
“Every time I drive up I want to cry cause this is terrible,” she said.
Johnson stopped responding to them, so they called the WREG Problem Solvers.
“I really want my money back from him,” Booker said.
The Problem Solvers went to work, first checking Mississippi and Tennessee records, including contractor licensing boards and the secretaries of state. We didn’t find anything on “Grit n Grind Construction” or “Timothy Johnson.”
We did eventually find a home address in Horn Lake and went there multiple times to try to get this case resolved.
On a repeat visit we spoke with someone who said Johnson wasn’t home, but did ask what we wanted.
We told her about the job at Yvette Booker’s home and that we wanted to know why he abandoned the job.
She said it didn’t sound like Timothy Johnson but couldn’t offer an explanation.
So we called Johnson and asked him directly if he planned to refund them $600.
“They told me to come out and complete the job,” he said. “[I plan to come] between now and before the weekend.”
After he made that promise, the Problem Solvers asked how he’d fix the issue from last time.
He said the store had given him the wrong product and it wouldn’t happen again.
He then said his company does not go by “Grit n Grind Construction,” but then hung up before we could clarify.
Johnson did not return to fix the job by the weekend, leaving Booker with this warning.
“Grit n Grind is not a man of his word,” she said.
More to come on how the Problem Solvers still intervened to get this job fixed.
