ALAMO LANDSCAPING

To be honest the completed fence looks nice. So if you are looking at hiring Alamo I can at least say that the final product looks good. But I have trouble recommending them due to the headaches involved once they get to building. The major problem was timeliness. The original bid quoted 10 days for completion. It took three times that long. Along the way Alex, the owner, was terrible at returning phone calls or giving me specific times for when he'd be back. He'd often promise me a day and then show up a few days later. Once he got the first half of the payment he wasn't very good at returning calls. Another thing was after tearing out the old fence he promised he would take the rubbish to the dump in short order. It sat between me and my neighbors house for three weeks. Which was a serious problem because there were rusty nails and screws lying around on the ground and sticking out of wood planks, which was not only dangerous for us, but also for my neighbors two little girls who were fond of walking around barefoot or in sock-feet. We mentioned this to him, but nothing was done. There was also a problem with both of our dogs. Without a fence they ran free between the yards, which we knew would happen, but because it took so long to finish, this went on for a long time. The crew was also bad about closing the open areas up, so the dogs wouldn't escape, which they did three times, because they kept forgetting, and we live on a busy street. Alex also had a habit of bringing his 4 to 5 year-old son with him to the site. The child would be there around all of the rusty nails, screws, equipment and action. His son would also play on my neighbors girl's play-set, and as much as I hate to think like this, was a walking liability waiting to happen. Some of these things might be excusable, but the big disappointment came when Alex came to me about 80% through the job and said he needed more money to finish. I scratched my head and mentioned that wasn't in the bid. We both then realized that one of my neighbors hadn't paid his portion of the bill (we had all entered into a deal of paying for half of our shared sides). His fence had already been completed, and he already paid in full the amount Alex had quoted him, separately, which didn't include his part of the total cost. So he actually saved money, while I was charged more, all because he had been given an erroneous estimate. I agreed to pay half of that total, and did so. After paying Alex the final amount he said he would return to finish the small bit of extra work that remained, that being decorative trim for the fence, more weatherizing and a latch for my last gate. He didn't show up for a week, after which time I called him. I had to do this three more times, each time getting his voice mail or getting him (just once, and on another phone) but getting no response. After three more weeks he finally did come and finish, after I left him one last threatening message.