MARTY'S COMPLETE YARD CARE

Marty gave us an estimate to cut and kill weeds in our very tiny yard as well as mow and edge. He was the only one of 3 companies we called to show up so we unfortunately hired him without getting any other estimates. Our mistake since we overpaid for poor quality work. He dropped off a few of his workers and left. They mowed the lawn leaving it higher than we liked. The edging job was not very good. When Marty came back to spray the weeds we told him we were not happy with the yard work. He did nothing to fix it other than demand payment. He had a container that said Ortho. Whatever it was did not kill any dandelions or other weeds. Work was done in about an hour. Had we been able to find reviews here (initially searched, nothing came up) we would not have hired Marty. We found him through an ad in our local newspaper. We are rating a “D” solely because he showed up.

Marty's crew came on time and worked hard to clear all the weeds from around our shrubs and large flower beds. They were careful not to harm my newly emerging plants, and left our yard looking beautiful. The crew was polite and hard-working. Our front and back yard beds and lawn edges are now neat and clear of weeds, ready for spring!

Marty takes care of the lawns satisfactorily as I request.

Hired this company from an ad in the newspaper, at least 12 years ago, after my other lawn mowing person retired. He came and gave me the estimate. When I asked how much he said, "oh $20". Incredulous, I asked "are you sure?" -- he said yes. It's true when they say, if something is too good to be true it usually isn't. Marty himself never did any work that I saw. He drove around two non-English speaking persons who did all the work. It appeared he had probably picked them up from the Mission or the like. Marty just simply stood around and acted bizarrely. One day I witnessed him ripping pine needles off the neighbors tree and then sniffing his hands, repeatedly. First thing that happened was my hydrangea bush, which was being nursed back to health, got mowed over. Never did come back up. Marty could not bill me on a monthly basis. I would ask when I saw him and he would put it off. Once, one of his mowers broke down and he had it stowed behind my garage for at least a week before he came to pick it up. I have vinyl siding and I have numerous chips and cracks in the plastic down low from mowers hitting it. If people were careful it would not have been hit and damaged. Last straw was at the end of the season, he came demanding entire bill paid in full. Even after I kept asking to be billed monthly and he could not provide it. Perhaps he has changed some of these behaviors since I hired him so many years ago, perhaps not.

Incompetent service. His tool broke while he was aerating the lawns and he continued working with a broken system and the lawns were not done properly. Shoddy and sloppy work done.

When we returned we discovered that Marty had pruned all the shrubbery and expected to be paid for it. We have our own individual that trims our shrubbery, but he does not mow lawns. My wife and our trimmer are very particular. Only hand trimming and no power tools. Marty came in with power trimmers and ruined what we were trying to accomplish. My wife had spent ten years getting her Japanese Maples to look a certain way. Not any more. Marty took a power trimmer to them and they are half the size they were. They were long and graceful and reached the ground. Not any more. My wife still cries when she looks at them I had a large rhody that I was training to fill a fence corner in our front yard. It was 6 feet tall and just about perfect for what I wanted. Not any more. It is now 4 feet tall. The other shrubbery had all been hacked at. It is unbelievable that someone would do this. This was nothing but an attempt to get more money. We feel totally violated. There are a hundred words and phrases that would describe this man and his business ethics, but not to be libelous I will leave them unsaid

It took a crew of three for three full days to do the job. They were punctual and hard working. I would use Marty and his crew again!

They were here at 8:00 and worked till late afternoon until they were done. They were courteous anytime I explained something that I had forgotten to remind them about and they listened and did it correctly. My yard is not the weed city of the neighborhood anymore. We also had a gutter company here and they worked around them so there were no conflicts. I did lose a couple of small flowers that I would have liked to keep but I would recommend them to friends.

It went very well, Marty showed up on time to give us an estimate and his crew also came when he said they would. They left everything clean and tidy and removed all the weeds and branches they had cut or pulled and came for the check after they had finished everything.