Mark's Tree Service & Stump Removal

Monday came and they did not show up for the job. Around 11:00 am I got a call from Mark Morton saying that his truck was in the shop because he had ordered a part for it on Friday and it didn't come in yet. He later changed this to "it was raining on Monday". He appologized for not being able to make it and said he would come out the next day. Tuesday came and went and nobody showed up, Mark didn't call us. My husband called him and he said his truck was still being worked on and should be finished before noon. He also said he didn't want to start the job in the afternoon so they would be out first thing Wednesday morning. They did not come on Wednesday, Mark did not call us. At that point I was certain Mark was not going to do the job for us as he orginally promised. I contacted another yard service company I had previously gotten an estimate from and asked if he could still do the job. My husband still wanted to go with Mark's Tree Service. So he contacted him again and was told again that they would show up on Thursday morning. On Thursday his workers didn't show up until about a quarter to eleven!! They cut the trees and one of the logs hit our house. sloppy workers. They spent more time sitting in their truck taking breaks than actually working. They knocked off working around 4pm and sat around it got dark at 5pm. They left their equipment all over our yard and came back out Friday around 10:00 am to continue working on the trees and leaves. My husband decided to have them cut down and additional three trees which were diseased or too close to the house. This would cost an additional $1,000. I thought that they would never begin cleaning up the leaves, they seemed to be reluctant to start that part of the job. They did a small portion of it on Friday and then quit working early in the afternoon again. Saturday they came back out to fall the last tree and begin finish cleaning up debris and leaves. Mark called me around noon on Saturday and said his men should finish the job that afternoon and was asking me if I could pay for a portion of the job in cash ($500) so he could pay his men before they left town that night for Thanksgiving. I told him that the job would have to be finished before I was going to pay anything to him. I told him that meant all the leaves had to be up to my satisfaction. He said he wasn't expecting to be paid before the job was done. He told me they had everything cleaned up from the trees and all they had to do was rake the leaves. At 1:00 pm I pulled into the driveway and it was still full of mud and debris. I looked in the back yard and it was covered in leaves. There was no one working, they were sitting in their truck, AGAIN. They had just three and hours to rake an entire yard, if they quit at 4 pm like they had done the previous two days they were not going to complete the job. But I knew if they didn't complete it and left town like Mike said they were supposed to, they would not come back and make it right. I had to leave to do numerous errands and would not be back before it got dark. Around 5 pm, my cell phone began ringing and it was Mark. I was far too angry to speak to him as my anger had been building up all week and had finally come to a head. I had to finish my errands and I was not driving all the way back home just to give his men the $500 in cash he was asking for. I told him I would have to see the job in daylight to make sure everything was finished before I paid him one cent. Mark continued calling my cell phone several times and I was not answering. He would not give up and kept calling me. He said his men were standing around waiting in the drive way for me to come pay them. Finally, I answered the call and told him I felt like I was being harassed and told him he could come back on Sunday morning after I had a chance to look at it. On Sunday morning it was obvious that they had done a hurry-up, last minute job just as I thought they would because it was Saturday night and they wanted their money so they could leave town. They didn't care what kind of job they had done. They didn't do a thorough job as I had expected, they didn't remove the leaves all the way to the tree line as I had wanted. They left logs in the back yard, saw dust everywhere, tire tracks all over in the mud and two empty pop bottles on the side of the driveway. Mark came by on Sunday morning to get him money and I told him about my dissatisfaction with the job and his men. I paid him the $500 cash and the rest in a check. I have used this company before and they seemed to do a better job, I don't know what happened, but I would not recommend them or use them again.