Lakewood Landscaping

Andy seemed very nice and competent on our initial meeting, and was able to provide a quick estimate. Also, since it was already late in the Spring with long grass, he agreed to come that same week for initial lawn mowing. Over the first few weeks, the lawn care seemed fine. However, I felt I was paying too much for the services I was getting - the quality of work seemed rushed and haphazard. He ran right over my "welcome" door mat with the mower (it was sitting on the edge of the sidewalk), which then sat in chewed up chunks, without any acknowledgement or explanation. I asked him to be careful to not blow grass clippings into my new vegetable garden or flower beds, so that it would not create more weeding problems for me. He agreed, but then I overheard him tell his team member to follow my directions even though "I know it sounds crazy." Andy also seemed to take short-cuts. If something in the lawn was in the way, such as a wheelbarrow or a few apples fallen from the apple tree, he would mow around it rather than moving it or trimming close to it. He would sometimes be done with the whole lawn in under 30 minutes. Although we verbally agreed that my monthly payment covered mowing every week, whether it needed it or not, there were weeks which seemed to get "skipped" in which I saw no evidence of anyone having been there to mow. Also, Andy's billing cycle was over two months late - I didn't get a bill for May services until late July, and for June in August. All of these factors led to my increasing belief that he did not value tidy, organized, or high quality work or attention to detail. If I am going to pay to have my lawn maintained, I would like someone to genuinely care for and nurture it. (In his defense, he did set the lawn mower blade one notch higher at my request after this was recommended to me by the guy who does my fertilizer/weed control.) After the 3rd week of September, I no longer saw any evidence that my lawn was being mowed or maintained in any way. No leaves were blown or removed. When I called Andy in the middle of October to find out his plan for Fall cleanup, he said that they had been out every week the past few weeks as scheduled. I don't like to accuse people of lying, but looking at my lawn and the way that falling leaves had obviously been accumulating without the grass underneath being touched, what he was saying simply was not true. Then he said he would be out that week to begin fall cleanup, but he never came. I have an enormous amount of leaves in my yard with large trees, and it creates a huge mess in the Spring if this is not cleaned up in the Fall. It has now snowed on top of the leaves, leaving a wet yucky mess. As of the end of November, I have never heard from him again and he never did any fall clean-up on my yard. I called multiple times with no response. I waited as long as possible, then when I finally realized he was not coming at all, I had to scramble to find and hire someone else very late in the season to deal with the mess. Also, when I talked to Andy in October, he agreed at that time to give me an estimate for cleaning out my gutters. I waited several weeks for Andy's estimate, planning to use his service, but had to hire someone else to do it late in the Fall on an emergency basis when I never heard back from Andy. The whole process has been very frustrating and inconvenient for me. I would have appreciated at least a call back from Andy saying that they would not be able to come for fall clean up, or an explanation of what prevented them from coming. I also did not appreciate being told that I was receiving a service during early Fall which was not actually being done. Not calling and not showing up is just a bad business practice. I would not recommend this service provider to anyone, and I will not use them again.