BEWARE, this guy may threaten to sue you if you question the work his team does! If only Yelp…read moreallowed you to give zero stars, I would do that here. The owner of this business is Kelvin Schlorf. He threatened to file a lien on my house when i asked him (politely) on the day of the job to come back to complete the work before i rendered full payment because part of the work was not done. In fact, he only came to my job for a total of 15 minutes in the middle of the job, so he never saw the end result himself that he refused to come back to look at. Instead of coming himself to the job that day, he sent a few workers. Apparently, he was too busy with other Jobs for my $1000 dollar job. This was hands down the worst landscaping experience of my life and I am a homeowner many times over, having worked with many landscapers and tree services on my properties during that time, but none as bad as this experience.
Kelvin first came to my house for a free estimate and quoted me $350 to remove 2 dead, rotted birch tree stumps in my front yard. They were fairly small, one was a cluster of multiple small trunks about 12 to 16 inches total in circumference and the other about 6 to 9 inches around, both fairly routine and rotted down to the roots. I was also paying Kelvin to slightly level the front yard around the rotted larger tree stump cluster, which sat on a small hill maybe about 3 feet high and about 10 feet in circumference. I knew it wasn't more than a few hours work and thought the estimate was fair. Then a few weeks later, a day before stump removal needed to happen (because of other construction work that depended on the dead stumps being removed) Kelvin came back and, for no apparent reason, increased the estimate to $1000, claiming he had never given me the original $350 estimate, which was not the truth but unfortunately I didn't have the original estimate in writing and I had no other option. He knew this because I told him we were doing trenching in the front yard for a construction project on my home in the next few days (he knows my GC, who referred Kelvin to me). I told Kelvin I thought the estimate was way too high for the amount of work needed, but I'd be willing to increase the estimate from $350 to $500 and then I'd pay him more hourly if more work was needed than expected. But Kelvin rather rudely said "no" to my request, and that if I did not like his new estimate of $1000 I could hire someone else for the job. I had no choice because the work needed to be done the next day or my construction came to a halt and that would cost me a lot more, so Mr. Schlorf had me over a barrel. So Kelvin's workers came on the morning he said he was going to come, and they dug out both tree stumps and most of the roots in about 45 minutes tops (mostly with shovels) and then proceeded to level some of the ground with a small one-man stump-grinding machine, but they only leveled the hill less than halfway and left most of it unleveled. They were here for a total of no more than about 2 hours and then they left, but not before emptying around 20 full barrels of dirt and tree scraps into my construction dumpster, which I had not given them consent to do. Kelvin was only on site for about 15 to 20 minutes then left. I never saw Kelvin again.
When the job was done I reached out to tell him the job was not done and the yard wasn't level, but instead of saying he would come back and take a look it, he mainly ignored my pleas and said that if I didn't pay him the $1000 promptly he was going to secure A LIEN on my house (wait...what???). I hadn't even signed a contract with him, but here this guy was threatening to get a lien on my house. So I paid the first half of his fee ($500) and texted him about 6 or 7 times begging him to come back and see what still needs to be done and I would then pay the balance. I also left a few voicemails because he would not answer his texts or pick up my calls.
Then, within a few hours, he emailed me a PRELIMINARY 20-DAY NOTICE, making good on his threat that he would file a lien if I did not pay him the $1000 in full without further discussion or recourse. This all happened on the same day of the job. It was an absolute nightmare, all while my house is under heavy construction by a GC who referred Kelvin to me. Kelvin eventually removed $70 from the bill but only after I insisted he cover the costs of the dumpster fees I'd have to pay for the 20 or so trash cans full of dirt and tree scraps his workers placed my construction dumpster (the actual dumpster costs were even more but I was just happy to be rid of this guy and get any discount from his absurdly high price). To this day, 2 months later, I am still leveling out the front yard on my own with a standard yard shovel.
Attached is a photo of the incomplete work and a redacted copy of the Preliminary 20-Day Notice that Kelvin sent me.
