The Block Luke’s AWOL!
The Block descends into chaos after a contestant disappears
He’s the smiling Queenslander who’s dealing with The Block’s intense competition by looking on the bright side – however, the pressure finally gets too much for Luke Struber this week.
After an altercation with foreman Keith, Luke storms off-site and disappears for hours – leaving his wife Tess Cattana, 28, and his builders with no idea where he is or what he’s doing.
The drama unfolds after “The
Blockinator” Keith Schleiger notices a safety breach, and immediately kicks the Cairns couple’s plasterer off the site for the remainder of the competition.
Furious with Keith’s cut-throat decision, Luke gets into his truck and speeds off into the distance – leaving his wife and his remaining tradies gobsmacked.
“I was just super-overwhelmed with the build,” Luke tells Woman’s Day. “It was such a stressful time [losing the plasterers] – I was kind of kissing the wind goodbye.”
In a bid to escape from the situation, Luke, 30, drives almost three hours away from site to pick up the insulation for the other contestants.
He says he had to leave for his own sanity. “You never want to offload your burden to anyone else,” Luke confesses. “Everyone is fighting their own battles – they aren’t listening to your problems, so I just drove.”
After returning hours later to a frazzled crew, Luke’s slammed for not taking the build seriously.
“It’s like talking to a brick wall. You’re not taking it seriously, you just laugh it off,” foreman Dan Reilly says to Luke after he returns on-site.
But it was laughing that helped the young Blockhead deal with
‘It was such a stressful time – I was kissing the wind goodbye’
the stress. “It’s not that I don’t take it seriously, but it’s either laugh or cry in that joint,” he tells Woman’s Day.
“I felt like there’s enough tears around, so I thought I’d just have a laugh. But if they were that concerned, they would be there helping out a lot more. Dan knows what it’s like, he should be there giving me a hand, not just telling me how poorly I’m doing.”
“It was definitely hard to keep a positive outlook,” he admits. “It’d be good for Keith and Dan to be more foremen than problem finders – they don’t tell you you’ve done something wrong until two hours have passed where you’re meant to be so you can rectify the problem.”
“We sacrificed a lot to get down there and we were about to embarrass ourselves on national television.
“It was definitely the hardest. Getting into that mindset that you’re not cut out for it isn’t nice at all.”