DO NOT USE Hughes Exterminators for your lawn treatment/fertilization company! They damaged my entire lawn and permanently caused damage to one area of my lawn. They also permanently damaged an area of my neighbor's lawn who had to re-sod the damaged area!
I contracted with another lawn fertilization company for a few years who had transformed my lawn into a healthy, plush, green lawn. At the beginning of this year, Hughes Exterminators bought that company. After they treated my lawn for the first time, my lawn immediately started to deteriorate. By the next day, it was obvious my lawn looked unhealthy, turning brown and with dirt spots appearing. With each subsequent treatment, my lawn continued to get worse. The color change and unhealthy appearance was clearly noticeable, including by my neighbors, at my property lines with my neighbor's lawns on both sides of my property. Also, I am a person who takes a team approach to maintain my lawn with the recommendations from the company lawn people including watering, adding topsoil, when necessary, etc. and have been doing so for years.
The Hughes Exterminators technician sent for the initial treatment informed me Hughes Exterminators purchased the previous lawn company and then treated my lawn and the problems started immediately. Once I realized my lawn had been damaged, I called Hughes Exterminators and asked for immediate assistance. They informed me they would assign me one of their most experienced technicians. This technician, from the first time treating my lawn and on subsequent service visits, repeatedly told me he was the best and most knowledgeable lawn technician and had experience for over 20 years. He also continued to criticize and speak negatively of many lawn fertilization company technicians and lawn fertilization companies on each service visit. This included criticizing the technician from the previous company who had successfully transformed my lawn.
He continually told me to be patient, that he would make my lawn better, and to put topsoil in the newly formed dirt spots (which I did). Each monthly treatment continued to deteriorate my lawn. I called Hughes Exterminators again and again for assistance including requesting a service manager to visit.
The service manager visited and stated I was doing everything right and did not have an answer on fixing this problem other than stating they would treat it with a "new" fertilizer. I expected this new fertilizer would be applied immediately however, that did not happen until a couple of weeks later. Once again, I called Hughes Exterminators and they agreed to send their agricultural specialist. I also noticed that one section of my lawn which previously had primarily St Augustine grass growing had died and was dying and being taken over by torpedo grass and crabgrass. I had never had crabgrass in any area of my lawn since living in my house for almost 10 years (original owner) and never had any torpedo grass in this area.
The agricultural specialist did visit and inspected my lawn and applied a liquid and granular applications to my entire lawn. By the next day, my lawn looked even worse causing lawn, that was previously green, to turn brown and die - it looked "burnt".
I called and ended the contract. However, they came for one last time for a treatment and mistakenly started to treat my neighbor's lawn. My neighbor stopped the technician after only treating a small area. Within a day, that area of the lawn turned brown. He subsequently had to replace it with new sod!
I contracted with new lawn company. Their representatives confirmed that my lawn had been improperly managed and fertilized. These bad actions caused the damage including being burnt and causing the crabgrass and torpedo grass growth. Further reinforcing this, after one treatment, my lawn immediately looks significantly better including a healthy green color with many of the dirt spots filling in appropriately. read more