There was a worrying development on Monday’s episode of The Block, when a contestant hit the floor of his home, only to discover what he suspected was asbestos.
Melboune plumber Tom was nearing the end of the process of demolishing his and wife Sarah-Jane’s guest bedroom, with only a small section of the floor left to break up.
But when the mall came down, he made a surprising discovery.
“As soon as I saw it, I was like, oh my God, here we are, more delays,” he said.
The Block moved quickly once the deadly substance was detected, with everyone in House One tooling up for an entire day while a team moved in to assess the risk and remove the asbestos.
“They closed our house and rightly so, asbestos is very dangerous,” said Tom, who was left with little to do but visit his fellow contestants as he nervously waited to see how long his house would be out of action
About six hours later, foremen Keith and Dan finally returned to the site to give the all clear that work could resume.
And Dan also explained why the asbestos had not been detected before the houses were handed over to the contestants: “In this place, under the fireplace and used as formwork, it is very difficult to locate. That’s why we didn’t find it – Tom did the right thing by alerting us,” he said.
Elsewhere in Monday’s episode, contestant Sharon was still reeling after her partner Ankur’s bath and she came last in Sunday’s judging.
The couple had come under particularly harsh criticism from judge Shaynna Blaze, who warned them that their house was “the grande dame, the jewel in the crown. How are you going to treat her?” this? Because if you’re going to treat her like this, you’re going to have to deal with me. “Sharon was left in tears immediately after the trial, testifying in the first week. The Blockshe was already “over it”.
An episode later, and he was in a more defiant mood.
“(Shaynna) says, ‘This is my house, I love this house, I’m so mad that they did this…'” Sharon began.
“Well, it’s not your house, girls. You didn’t buy it. If you’re going to buy it, that’s a different story.”
She continued to call Shaynna directly, arguing that she had missed some of the key details of the room that the couple had included to attract her.
“Besides, I tried to accommodate you. You said you wanted antiques, but your ancient eye didn’t even recognize the antiques in the room. It literally had stuff in there from the 1890s!”
Sharon said that following the harsh trial, she had made a promise to husband Ankur that she would not beat herself up so much going forward.
“This is the pact we made, because I’ve literally spent every day crying since I got here, and that’s not good.”