J&M Preferred Services

Summer 2012 was a good experience. In addition to mowing, they removed long rows of rose bushes, trimmed a high hedge, and cleared and replanted portions of the lawn. Spring 2013 brought revised management and a new contract with around 75% price increases, but we had been satisfied and signed on. Beginning in early summer I began to receive invoices including services already paid for. I wrote a note and paid what was due. The double billing has continued since that time. My wife (who was home when I was not) noticed that the men were moving across our lawn with extreme haste. She had to point out areas at the periphery that needed trimming and blowing which the crew were very reluctant to address. Later I noticed that a water access pipe in the yard had been sheared off and left open to the elements. I pointed this out to Mike Montanero, but he argued that the pipe had been broken "for a long time." In fact, J&M had been the sole landscaper on our property for two years at that point. Last year J&M put a marker next to the pipe to warn the mower operator of the pipe's presence, but they did not do that this year. Further, I still have to police the yard for rose shoots from the former hedge, so I walk right past that pipe scanning the ground as I go. Two weeks earlier, it had been intact. We will now have to pay for a repair. The J&M crew relaxed at lunch all summer in the shade of a tree in our yard whether working on our yard or not, and this was fine, but one day from our second floor I noticed a worker striding across our lawn toward our garage. Since they weren't working on our lawn, I watched, and saw him urinate on our garage wall in full view of the neighbors, then stroll back to his coworkers. Finally, I arranged with Mike Montanero for our high hedge to be trimmed. I asked for an estimate. He said it would be whatever it was last year. I said that it had been $250 last year, that I had the invoices and could forward one to him. He repeated that he would look it up and that he would charge the same amount. I shrugged. When the bill came he had charged us by the hour, not a flat fee, and that charge was $440, well above last year's $250. I called Mike Montanero and left him a long message including all of these complaints except the urination. He never returned the message, never emailed me, and has never spoken of it. We have never been treated with such contempt by a firm we have hired.