This is Pulte's contractor of choice for their homes' front yards. My boyfriend and I, in building a new home, wanted two specific trees for our yard. First and foremost, we had no qualms PAYING someone to give us our desired trees; we knew if we had no contact with the landscapers they'd put in what was standard, a mesquite and/or palo verde, which we did not want. Prior to move in, we had contact with Neal from Desert Valley, who told us not to select any specific front yard package through Pulte and that he would give us those two specific trees at no cost contingent upon us writing a good review of DV (based on my rating, you can already tell where this is headed). That seems a bit of a shady solicitation, but I have no problem providing a good review if a company does good work. I write unsolicited reviews frequently, because I rely on consumer reviews to make purchases. But whatever, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.
From that moment, we've gotten nothing but runaround from DV and what little work they did do for us (the front yard contracted through Pulte) is sloppy, unfinished, and frankly a disgrace to this business and throughout our neighborhood. Upon move in, we found a randomly tossed selection of desert plants and two willow trees. One willow was planted on a slope and had a large mound built up around it. I later learned from a reputable gardener from Green Things that DV's crew had built the mound around that tree because they were too lazy to dig it deep enough into the ground. He told me that tree, as well as the one very shallowly planted in our courtyard, would surely have died. A few homes in our neighborhood have trees with large mounds built up around them as such.
After several calls with Neal, who frequently dodged us, he reneged and said he was unable to give us the trees we asked for, but if we agreed to go with DV to landscape our backyard, he would "fix" our front yard for free, which is even shadier than the first proposition. And that wasn't actually true either! We had Neal come out and give us a quote for the backyard. He admitted in looking at the front that DV had done a sloppy job and that we were missing some boulders which should have been used to cover exposed pipes. He said DV could finally swap out the trees with what we originally asked, but it would cost us to redo the other plants or add river rock/riprap. So they wouldn't be "fixing" our front yard for free, another false promise. Because we'd been given such a runaround, my boyfriend was very forward in saying we would hire a competitor for the backyard unless DV came in much lower on their quote, and they didn't. Not to mention, the estimate was sent more than one week after it was promised. We told Neal we wouldn't be needing him for the backyard but wanted DV to take care of some remaining problems with the front yard. Apparently, Neal wanted to be the one to kick us to the curb, so after hearing we wouldn't be using him, he texted my boyfriend refusing service to us, which is honestly laughable. "You can't break up with ME; I'm breaking up with YOU!"
Neal doesn't have the authority to promise free things and shouldn't do it, because it makes the company appear slimy and dishonest. We were unfairly solicited a couple of times in dealing with DV. And beside all of Neal's smarmy dealings, DV is not getting our backyard contract because their workers did such a quick, careless job on the front, which is what everyone actually sees when they first look at a home! read more
