Marcelo Sequeira

This guy is definitely a jack of many trades. He is a brazilian and ready to take up pretty much any work had it not been for obtaining the licenses to do some types of work. I have seen 2 people working with him, but not sure if he has any other people. But all his workers are also fantastic workers, working long days and pretty fast as well. I had a pond in my backyard filled with some creepy plants and it was looking very scary. It had a very old worn out fence around it which on the first day I bought the house, I wanted to take out. So we decided to remove the existing fence and build a new fence around the house. Due to the large area of the backyard, we wanted to use the good panels of the old wood fence to the back of our property, vinyl fencing to the front facing side of our property and chain link fence on the other side the house (Next to the chain link fence, there are no houses). Since I did not have much experience dealing with contractors before, I was only interested in a contract work and not pay by the hour. The first guy that we hired seemed to be a very enthusiastic guy though a newcomer to the field. But he seriously underestimated the work and left without a trace after doing some work. Then we hired Marcelo who gave a quote of about 2.5 k. (We had also asked for a quote from another very well recommended landscaper at the same time and that guy had quoted about 5k for the work not including the pond work) We told Marcelo in the beginning itself that he had to be flexible with our changing ideas as the work evolved, and he was fine with it. We bought all the materials, so this money was only for the manual labor. As the work evolved, we again realized that the work involved was way more than what we originally expected. Also, cleaning up the side of the pond and filling it with some landscaping rocks also was no simple task. But Marcelo kept his word and did all the work without any complaint. But as the work progressed without any end, I think he also was forced to cut corners and that showed up to the end of the work. Some part of my lawn was in a pathetic condition and he was supposed to clean it up. But he didn't do it. Also, he didn't clean up the debris inside the pond saying that the water was too dirty. I also got the feeling that he charged me too much for buying the top soil at about $31 per yard (I had to buy about 30 yards of top soil). He had also promised me to create a waterfall in the pond. That too never materialized. But otherwise, this guy was amazing since he was ready to take up our changing requests without asking for a quote increase. I think for the price that he quoted, he did an immense amount of job and had it not been for the low quote price, he would have done an excellent job overall. I will definitely call him again for any major work. Some of the problems working with him 1) His workers do not know english 2) He is a little stubborn guy. He likes to do things his way and it is a little difficult him to make him things do our way 3) He keeps changing his word. One day he might say something is good and the next day, will say the opposite