Buyer BEWARE! Courtney Allen and Affordable Landscaping and Remodeling is company you don't want to use for any work around your home. Putting out a bid for a stone pathway, new stairs off the back porch, and some excavating. He won the bid by being the lowest priced and fastest available to do the job. That should have been a red flag and do more research but, wanted to give him a chance. After speaking with him and feeling comfortable with his confidence to get the job done; he was hired.
What I got instead was a pathway that has broken and uncentered stone, stairs that are between 12" and 7" deep, which are not leveled, screws that were not completely screwed down (if they even had screws at all). There were gaps in between the braces and boards (back & bottom) and bracers for the stairs weren't evenly spaced. To add to the frustration one of his employees hid a used bloody tampon in the pine straw for one of my dogs to find and eat. The job was supposed to be done in a week but, after two weeks of unprofessional work he was fired. I believe that he got in over his head, since he had to be constantly told about the mismeasurements and hazardous conditions; that were caught during every step of his work. He said on Thursday of the first week that he would be done with the job in an hour; the steps weren't even cut out. I had to move large stone myself while Courtney's employees watched. They used 5-gallon buckets as water wells that they only buried halfway underground. Again, having to point out to him they need to be totally coved, he acted surprised. Between all the back and forth of what was not getting done or not being done right I'm sure he got frustrated, but I just wanted the job done correctly, which I was paying him to do and agreed upon. To cap everything off after he was fired and paid him all but $881.35 out of the $4K quote. He posted an obvious lie about how he was treated, and then asked if he could come back and try to fix his mistakes. See the close-up photos of the actual work that he said was completed. Courtney has a lot to learn but he should not make his clients pay for his mistakes and just because I am a woman doesn't mean I don't know how things should be done correctly especially when I told him over and over, trying to help save him sweat, time, and money. Obviously, he didn't want to listen to a woman tell him how to do his job, and I wouldn't have if he would have done his job correctly. read more