Yaking Masani

In late April 2011, Mr. Masani was hired to perform landscaping at my home. The landscaping contract, total value of $12500, was signed and a payment of $8000 was made. Work commenced in late April 2011. At first, the contractor showed up on a somewhat regular basis. By late May, his attendance dropped off. By June, a week or two would go by without contact. The first completion date given was July 10. That date past and a new date in early August was given. After that, requests for completion dates were ignored. After a lot of re-work and many delays, the lion's share of the work was completed on December 15 (7.5 months after the start). As of December 27, the work was not fully complete but the contract was dissolved due to an unacceptable verbal tirade by the contractor. The contractor and I met on December 24 for a "walk down" of completed items, remaining open items and a discussion of payment. When I stated that I was willing to pay an additional $1000 for the work completed to date and another $500 when the work was complete in the spring of 2012. Mr. Masani did not take well to that and released a string of expletives. My primary concern was drainage. Before the initial estimate was given, I told Mr. Masani that the ground on the east side of the house had dropped 16 inches since I had regraded it several years earlier. I emphasized that it would not be easy to address the drainage issue on the east side and to account for this in the estimate. When the time came to address the grading on the east side, the landscaper's approach was a repeat of past attempts which had failed. The work was to be done in phases. Instead, work was initiated on all sides of the house within a couple weeks of the start. No area was complete until 7.5 months later. At the point when the contract was dissolved and mediation was sought, the west side of the house was unusable. The rocks that sat in that area for several months caused the underlying grass to die. When the rocks were finally moved, the area was dirt with weeds. With any precipitation, the area became mud. There were safety hazards through out the yard as the work progessed including nails and landscape fabric pins left in the grass and dirt. When Mr. Masani did show up to work, he left trash in the yard from his drinks and snacks. In the spring of 2012, I completed the landscaping by working weekends and evenings after work. There was an additional $2000 in expenses which included fill dirt for grading, landscape rock, landscape fabric and 800 square feet of sod. Bottom line is I would not recommend Mr. Masani to perform landscaping. He was unprofessional, undependable and his work was marginal.