COAST LANDSCAPE

This contractor not only did work that was well short of what their own guidelines called for but then despite the fact that the contract that they wrote provided for law litigation without arbitration, I pointed out their shortcomings to them and said I marked out 2 different 3x3 foot areas in which they were supposed to have planted and the plantings were clearly deficient. The 3x3 foot areas were only examples of a much, much larger 2500 square foot hillside. The whole hillside was deficient. Rather than saying we will take care of that, we recognize it, we failed you in this, maybe we did not get it right but now at this point, we can't redo it right because to go back in there and replant the areas, we'd step on all the plants that we already planted and that would damage them, and it  just wouldn't be right. I looked at them in disgust and said you have control over the job, from start to finish, I pointed these things out to you along the way, you would have paid attention and now you want me to pay you for the whole job on the basis of plantings. Only 13 plants were planted in the area that was required to have 23. I said I'll pay you 13 20/3 of the contract and we'll be done with this. They had sent one of their representatives who is actually the brother of the CEO out to me that day to resolve it. We said that was what we're going to do and we shook hands on it and I worked at my office and I wrote a one-page agreement basically discussing exactly the terms and I mailed it to them. You sent me an invoice that shows 13 20/3 of this, I'll pay it and we'll each go our separate ways. It didn't stop there unfortunately. Apparently the brother went back and got hold of the CEO and the CEO said we can do better than this and despite the fact that the contract that he wrote called for arbitration rather than litigation. This company filed a lien against the property with no attempt whatsoever to make any engagement of arbitration and I protested to him and said that the contract that he wrote was for arbitration and we can't do that because it's going to cost much more than the amount of money in dispute in this contract. We can't be bothered by this, it would cost too much money to arbitrate. After that, out of coincidence I learned that there was a service in my city that offers free arbitration to any disputing parties that have some neighborhood dispute that they want to settle. I called the city, spoke with the folks in the program and they said it is the sort of thing that they were willing to take on, mediate, and decide, and we do it for free. It's just one of the services our city has to offer. Everybody involved in this had been a professional mediator and they happen to reside in the city, it is just one of their ways of getting back to the city and making it a more pleasant place. The folks of the arbitration department of the city called them and they refused to participate in the mediation to settle the dispute, that was because they filed the lien against the property despite the fact that the lien was specifically prohibited by the contract that they wrote. After weeks back and forth over the lien, I finally went to personally visit the CEO. I said it's a dismal that you won't even honor a deal made with a handshake made by your own brother and you won't even honor the contract that you wrote in this, I don't have any further to do with you and you don't want to have further to do with me, let's finish the deal. I will give you the 13 20/3 of the contract if you'll drop the lien and it was agreed and I paid him a cheque of half of that and I told him he'll get the cheque for the other half. It was a cashier's cheque so there was no doubt about whether the funds were good. I showed him both cheques, I had the other one in my hand. I would give the other cheque when the lien is cleared. Ultimately, the lien was cleared from the property and I sent him the second cheque in between the time that we had that conversation and the second cheque was sent to him after the lien was cleared, the company moved. They changed addresses, they never bothered to notify me that they had changed addresses so when I sent the second cheque to finally finish getting rid of them, it came back to me marked undeliverable as addressed because they moved. In the mean time, they thought that I had failed to pay the second payment because I haven't sent the cheque. Even though they moved, they never mentioned that to me and had never given me a new address. What they did then despite the fact that I had an agreement with them in writing which said that they would not come within 100 feet of the property, they came back and their workers poured pounds of unwanted grass seed over the whole area to basically add weeds to all this area that I had asked for planting in in a specific ground cover. They frightened the tenants on the property to the point that the tenants moved out because they had gone up on the property and they had turned off the irrigation system to the whole property. Then the weed seeds that they had planted which at that time the tenants thought were fertilizer, started to grow and I had 2500 square feet of hillside sprouting out unwanted weeds that I couldn't kill. If I would kill them, that would kill the original planting so I finally found a way to track them, found the new address, sent them the cheque and told them don't ever come here again. They did malicious mischief to the property that they had been hired to improve after they so stupidly neglected to notify me of the new address where I should send the money that they were expecting. I never argued with them on the price. I was willing to pay the price that they suggested. They never came through on what they said they'd do, it makes price irrelevant. I hired them because the father of the CEO had been a longtime personal friend. I was ill and I needed a heart operation and I was so sick that I could not complete the work myself so I hired them when I went in to the hospital for the operation. These people are so unscrupulous that they are willing to do this level of malicious mischief even though they had signed an agreement printed in black and white that they won't go on the property. I don't want to have contact with them, I don't want to mention them, I don't want to bring my complaint to their attention and give them cause to come back and perform more malicious mischief. I spent the last month and a half on my hands and knees on that 2500 square foot parcel pulling out the weeds that they deliberately planted and I still got remnants of weeds, they're popping up and need more attention day after day. I don't want to do that again.

Work went as scheduled and within budget. He also coordinated with our pool installer so everything went smoothly. He responded quickly when I called with questions.

The original contracted price was $60,000. After commencing, Coast Landscape's president, Mike Sharp, claimed that he accidental underbid the project because he used the wrong scale (1/4 instead of 1/8). He said he had to pay more for concrete, wood, everything, so I had to pay him more money and ended up getting far less then what was contracted for in terms of items such as artificial grass. Although the overall job was good, the problems having to do with the price (see above), the faulty construction and installation of two wooden gates and his failure to respond to my requests have spoiled the positives. The problem with the two gates has been long standing. Within one week of installation, two of the three gates began to sag. His crew tried to fix them once, but only to have them sag again, one not opening or closing correctly at all (rubbing against the side completely and failing to close without forcing the gate up to re-close). I have called Mike several times to have them come out to fix it, but they have yet to respond to my requests. I rated this company a D in price because he did not stick to the contract price and I felt pressure and duress to have him complete the project. I rated the company a C in Quality of work because I have yet to get them to fix simple gates which should have been installed correctly, let alone fixed when given the chance to. I rated the company a D in responsiveness because they have yet to respond to my requests to fix their mistakes. I rated the company a C in punctuality because he promised to complete the project in 6 weeks, it took him eight, and they have yet to respond to my requests to fix the problems after several requests to do so. I rated the company a D in professionalism because they have not responded to my requests upon repeated requests, which I find highly unprofessional, as well as the fact that they broke an exterior outlet cover but never informed me of their mistake, let alone offer to pay for it. The overall experience is a D plus to C minus at best, I rated him a D for his customer service and failure to keep his word.

The original contracted price was $60,000. After commencing, Coast Landscape's president, Mike Sharp, claimed that he accidental underbid the project because he used the wrong scale (1/4 instead of 1/8). He said he had to pay more for concrete, wood, everything, so I had to pay him more money and ended up getting far less then what was contracted for in terms of items such as artificial grass. Although the overall job was good, the problems having to do with the price (see above), the faulty construction and installation of two wooden gates and his failure to respond to my requests have spoiled the positives. The problem with the two gates has been long standing. Within one week of installation, two of the three gates began to sag. His crew tried to fix them once, but only to have them sag again, one not opening or closing correctly at all (rubbing against the side completely and failing to close without forcing the gate up to re-close). I have called Mike several times to have them come out to fix it, but they have yet to respond to my requests. I rated this company a D in price because he did not stick to the contract price and I felt pressure and duress to have him complete the project. I rated the company a C in Quality of work because I have yet to get them to fix simple gates which should have been installed correctly, let alone fixed when given the chance to. I rated the company a D in responsiveness because they have yet to respond to my requests to fix their mistakes. I rated the company a C in punctuality because he promised to complete the project in 6 weeks, it took him eight, and they have yet to respond to my requests to fix the problems after several requests to do so. I rated the company a D in professionalism because they have not responded to my requests upon repeated requests, which I find highly unprofessional, as well as the fact that they broke an exterior outlet cover but never informed me of their mistake, let alone offer to pay for it. The overall experience is a D plus to C minus at best, I rated him a D for his customer service and failure to keep his word.

THINGS WENT WELL, EXCEPT SEVERAL WEEKS AFTER, IT WAS OBVIOUS THE TRAILING ROSEMARY PLANTS, WHICH WERE TO BE PLANTED WERE NOT. A BRUSH VARIETY WAS USED. NUMEROUS E-MAILS AND PHONE CALL WERE MADE TO REQUEST A CORRECTION OF THE PROBLEM. MR SHARP STATED TRAILING AND BRUSH ROSEMARY ARE THE SAME. HE WAS SENT INFORMATION SHOWING THE DIFFERENT VARIETIES OF ROSEMARY, AND STILL HAS NOT EXCHANGED THE PLANTS. TRAILING ROSEMARY DOES NOT ATTAIN A HEIGHT OF OVER 1 FOOT. BRUSH ROSEMARY ATTAINS A HEIGHT OF 3 FOOT OR MORE. WHY COMPLAIN? BECAUSE ALL OF THE LOW LYING PLANTS BEHIND TO 3 FOOT HEDGE OF ROSEMARY CANNOT BE SEEN, OR GET PROPER SUN LIGHT. WE ARE NOT TALKING MEGA BUCKS, 30 ONE GALLON ROSEMARY'S RUN $3-4 EACH. HOWEVER, AFTER SPENDING $3000 TO HAVE MY LANDSCAPING DONE, THE RIGHT PLANTS SHOULD HAVE BEEN PLANTED.

My wife and I were very pleased with the results when we arrived home late at night to a beautiful landscape accented by spot lights. Mike was very pleasant to work with. He kept to the schedule agreed upon; actually the work was done one day with great rapidity. I did not feel that the cost was rock bottom but considering the expertise and labor it was probable quite reasonable.

THEY ARE DEPENDABLE, AND PAY ATTENTION TO DETAILS. THEY WILL DO SMALL EXTRA THINGS FOR ME, LIKE PLANT SHRUBS OR FIX SPRINKLERS, WHEN I ASK THEM TO, FOR NO EXTRA CHARGE. I HAVE A LARGE YARD AND IT ALWAYS LOOKS GREAT.

THEY DID A GREAT JOB GETTING MY LANDSCAPE CLEANED UP. THEY SCHEDULED MY PROJECT REALLY FAST! THEY WERE ABLE TO TAKE CARE OF THINGS I HAD OVERLOOKED. MY HOUSE LOOKS GREAT, THANKS TO THE GREAT LANDSCAPE. MY REALTOR CAME BE TODAY, AND WHILE I WAS EXPECTING A LIST OF TO DO'S SHE SAID EVERYTHING LOOKS GREAT! WE SHOULD BE ON THE MARKET BY THE END OF THE WEEK.