New Block crisis as another key team member suddenly quits

It’s the season of dramatic walkouts, as each week, more contestants and trades down tools and quit The Block for good.

This season’s Block walkouts continued during Wednesday’s episode of Nine’s reno show, with another team’s trades dramatically quitting the show – this time over rumours about unpaid bills.

In a drama that had played out in recent episodes, husband-and-wife team Courtney and Grant had not paid a bill from a local company who provided their shower screens.

As Courtney explained on camera, they had paid “two of the three invoices” for the job, but there had been a dispute about problems with the glass and they didn’t want to pay in full until it was rectified by the company.

But that had some major knock-on effects, with word spreading among Phillip Island’s construction community that The Block wasn’t paying trades on time.

Haydn said things were “getting weird” with their landscapers …

… before they phoned Ricky and quit.

Rival team Ricky and Haydn had noticed the mood sour among their trades – specifically, their landscaping team.

Haydn said once rumours started spreading, it had been “getting weird” with their landscapers, who were suddenly “talking about contracts, payment upfront, payment on the day” – before they phoned and quit the job altogether, citing concerns they wouldn’t be paid in full.

Ricky laid out the seriousness of the situation, coming more than halfway through the season and with landscaping just weeks away.

“Now we need to find a landscaper, we need him to agree on the design, we need to get a quote off him … and we need to do it, like, three weeks ago,” he said.

Ricky said the walkout had suddenly left them about three weeks behind.

The boys filled Scott Cam and Shelley Craft in on their problem during the hosts’ regular midweek walk-around.

“We lost our landscaper … he brought up the fact that The Block has a reputation of not paying their bills. That’s what’s going around on the island,” he explained.

Both hosts appeared dismayed that The Block was getting a bad reputation among Phillip Island’s close-knit community.

“That’s not cool,” said Craft.

“We’ve got to get rid of that reputation in town … I’m not sure how we do that,” said Cam.

Scott and Shelley were not happy to hear The Block is getting a reputation.

Ricky and Haydn’s landscaping team pulling the pin is the latest in a series of dramatic exits that have rocked The Block this year.

Earlier in the season, the boys fired their builder on camera, following a series of setbacks they said they “couldn’t recover” from and that left them without trust in his ability to deliver the project.

Then sisters Maddy and Charlotte were left in tears when their builder Zac dramatically quit on camera, immediately pulling his team from the build after a fiery argument about their respective communication styles.

And then there were the contestants Maddy and Charlotte replaced, Perth couple Jesse and Paige, who became one of the few teams in Block history to quit the show following weeks of escalating tension and arguments between them.

This week there was a sad new update from the engaged couple, who’d said they quit because they wanted to put their relationship before the show: They’ve now called off their impending wedding.