Looking for Good Handyman Deal, Couple Kidnaps One

It's so hard to hire good help nowadays. People are busy, the work is sometimes not up to snuff, and paying the poor dude to fix your place is wicked expensive.

One California couple solved the problem by kidnapping a handyman and forcing him to perform six hours worth of work, all the while beating him and threatening to kill him, according to CBS San Francisco.

Jason DeJesus and Chanelle Troedson are accused
of kidnapping a handyman and making him work

The fifty year old handyman, who authorities did not identify, escaped when his captors stopped at a gas station en route to another house, where they planned to force the guy to do more work, according to CBS San Francisco.

Of course, the couple, Jason DeJesus, 36 and Chanelle Troedson, 33, are in a heap of trouble.

This apparently all stemmed from work the handyman did at DeJesus's mother's house that the mother didn't like. I guess this was the couple's way of making up for the supposedly shoddy work.

I still think it would have been a lot better if DeJesus and Troedson went to Angie's List or Yelp to post a bad review of the handyman's handywork.

Then again, it turns out posting reviews on Yelp can be dangerous, too. A contractor is suing a Fairfax, Va. woman for $750,000 for posting a really negative review about him on Yelp, according to the Washington Post.

The article says it's the woman's free speech rights running up against what can happen to a business in a viral Internet atmosphere by one review. The woman says the contractor did a crappy job, the contractor disagrees.

Then there was the case back in January when a Chicago area woman, Cecelia Groark, wrote a negative Yelp review of a restaurant called Bottled Grapes over a screwup with a reservation to a wine and food pairing class at the restaurant.

The restaurant's owner, Krunch Kretschmar, apparently an internationally known wine expert,   i  set up a fake blog purported to be from Groark, that made it appear she was a major crook and an incredible jerk, according to the media reports on the litigation with this.

The fake blog had postings like this: 

“Cecelia troubles began when she started Embezzling from her last employer to support her drug addiction. While her treatment in the Cook County jail did little to help her, she is continuing to fight her demons everyday. Now turning to the Oldest profession to gain the funds need to support her habits, she is now trying to turn a new leaf. We wish her well.”

The fake blog was quickly deleted. Groark, of course is not a drug addict and does not work in the world's oldest profession." According to reports last winter, she was suing for a total of $650,000 in damages.

I couldn't find any recent updates on how the suit went.

In any event, it's Wild West out there in Yelp land, apparently.

Maybe the couple who kidnapped the handyman in California were indeed looking for an easier way to handle the situation than turning to Yelp.  Are kidnapping and criminal charges easier than a messy lawsuit?