Mike's Evergreen, Inc.

I hired Mike's Evergreen to landscape my backyard. He was the most expensive of the three bids, however, I decided to go with him based upon his verbal and written reassurances that the contract price would not change, the fact that he agreed to do what I had wanted, and it seemed that he would do a good job. Mike requested over a $6,000 deposit on a $22,000 job (he told me to pay his concrete subcontractor separately). He requested another payment shortly thereafter for a total of $11,745.52. At this point, he had ripped out portions of my previously working drains and added in some new drains that were done incorrectly (and I found out later that his installment of drains in that location was unnecessary since my yard is at a slope). Additionally, he finished only some of the drains.He completed just half of the irrigation piping and one of the pipes was broken. I had to constantly chase after his concrete subcontractor to do a decent job with the concrete. Each time that I asked Mike to handle the situation,he would return and say that I had hired his subcontractor separately, even though the concrete work was in his contract. There were many problems with the concrete, including discoloration, cracks, stamps that were embedded halfway or not at all, a hose that was drug across it during formation, and so on. His subcontractor stated that he would re-do it,however, the second time-around ended up being just as bad, if not worse.And, during all of this time, I discovered that Mike had not measured anything in my yard. He wanted to charge me $4-5,000 extra because he was off by a margin of over 50% on the number of trees - he had "calculated" 32 Italian Cypress trees spaced out every three-feet. He told me that he had made a mistake and that I would need some more trees. I eventually had to go measure the yard myself and discovered that I would need even more trees for three- feet spacing: a total of 59 to 60 trees. He not only failed to measure the trees, but he also failed to measure the concrete, patio size,pergola, bbq area, etc, making it so that I could no longer have what I had contracted for while paying thousands of dollars extra.Mike also damaged my previously existing concrete with the installation of an unfinished and improperly installed conduit that violated the setback rules. He didn't get a permit and later tried to say that I told him not to get the permit.Unfortunately, i could not sue Mike in a court of law, because of stipulations within his contract that he had included for his own benefit. Mike knew that I was a young woman without any prior experience in construction-related matters, as he stated so in his letter to me. I believe that he took advantage of that.After writing a letter to both him and his subcontractor demanding a remedy, the latter provided me with a refund (I was informed that he did so probably because Mike kept saying that I had hired him separately, and yet,I had no contract with him). Only when I complained to the BBB and the CSLB, Mike decided months later to give me some of the money back.Mike has since attempted to have my BBB complaint taken down and has google searched my name and printed off my blogs to try to defame my character instead of focusing on the facts of the case. He has requested of his subcontractors to lie on his behalf. He even tried to use one of the previous plan layouts that he came up with himself, without my approval, in order to try to say that I changed things up after the contract was signed. I never received a final layout plan in accordance with the contract.I was informed by a prominent construction law firm that I had a good chance of winning for fraudulent inducement to enter into a contract,deceit, and fraud in the factum which comes with attorney fees and possibly punitive damages. However, my option to sue him in a court of law was taken away. I've lost thousands of dollars. I wish that I had looked into Mike's history more, as he was previously sued by Ewing Irrigation and by another person (despite the fact that Mike has denied both).After two years of dealing with him, I am still left with a huge loss of money and have to hire someone else to fix and finish his work or take it out completely and redo it. Unbelievable.

After the workers came out to stake the tree, it was obvious to me that this was not going to work as the stakes were already coming loose.  I called the Company and asked to speak to the owner.  A man came on the line who I believe said his name was Mike.  I told him that in my opinion, I thought that his workers, being the professionals, should have known that the staking was not going to work and should have suggested some other remedy or declined the job.  I told him that I didn't think I should have to pay for the work, and suggested that I pay half.  He obviously did not like this idea.  I asked him if he thought I was being unreasonable.  He said yes.  I couldn't believe this and after further discussion, he finally said fine, do what you think is right.  

I decided, and told him so that I was going to pay the bill in full, which I did, even though I felt I was being more than reasonable offering to pay half the cost.  

A few days later, we had heavy rain and wind and the tree was ready to fall over and appeared that it would land on my neighbors home if it did fall.  Even though it was late at night, I called a tree Company out to have the tree removed.  The owner of the tree Company said that the roots of the Palm were rotted and that was the reason for the tree being loose and getting ready to fall over.

I cannot believe that Mike's Evergreen would not have noticed that the tree had root rot.  Overall, a very bad experience.  I would never do business with this Company again and would never recommend them.

He is very personable and nice but I didn't use him because he paid no attention to detail.

THE QUALITY OF THE WORK WAS GREAT. THEY WERE ALWAYS ON TIME IF NOT A LITTLE BEFORE. THEY WERE A VERY PROFESSIONAL TEAM. I WOULD USE THEM AGAIN IF I NEED TO.