You could see the relief on Bob Mann's face. You could hear it in his voice. "I had faith," he said.
Two weeks ago, the house in Pittsburgh's Beechview neighborhood where Bob lives with and takes care of his brother Gary was literally collapsing around them.
Today the house where the Mann brothers grew up, the place where they desperately wanted to stay, is a safer home for them, thanks to a generous contractor and his crew.
Workers replaced the brothers' crumbling roof, so filled with holes that the brothers needed a couple of kiddie pools and dozens of coffee cans to catch the rainwater.
The damage was so bad, it had collapsed the ceilings throughout their second floor. You've got to see the before and after -- the "reveal" -- to believe the transformation.
The repairs on the Mann's house got rolling when Gary Mann wrote me a letter asking for help. I read it on my KDKA radio show. Jerry Nasseri and his wife heard it. They decided right then and there that Jerry, owner of Nasco Roofing & Construction, would help.
The roof was in pretty bad shape. "I wouldn't call it the worst but it was one of the worst," admitted Jerry.
There's still work to be done inside the house to repair the damage left by years of water leaks, but for now the brothers are relieved and grateful to be under a new roof. "Before there were holes in the middle. Look at it!" said Bob, admiring the work done by the Nasco crew.
The brothers' new feeling of safety comes down to something pretty simple. "it's a dream," Gary told me. "You can go in and lay down and go to sleep and the ceiling ain't going to come down on you."