I hired "owner" Jake Miller to resod, edge/mulch beds, and repair hardscape. He said he had multiple crews, equipment, and had experience. He talked the talk.
My experience:
The worst of the worst: When he damaged a piece of our hardscape by cracking off a corner, he not only denied it but arrogantly said, "With all due respect" (a phrase he uses often) that I "couldn't prove" that he did. Well, it just so happens that we have multiple cameras on our property and one caught him on video doing exactly what he said he didn't do -- smashing off a corner of a paver. The video shows that he used a crack hammer instead of a dead blow mallet -- a big no-no and an example of an amateur. A dead blow hammer is coated with a rubber shell so that it won't damage or leave marks on pavers and it's used by all legitimate hardscape pros.
The video also shows Miller walking away for 18 minutes without setting any pavers (!) after he had already used his fingers (!) to apply adhesive. The adhesive was smeared all over the front of several pavers leaving a cosmetic mess. While away, one of Miller's "crew" can be seen reaching down to grab mulch pieces and sticking them underneath a few pavers in order to level them. Yes, mulch pieces. Then when Miller returned he can be seen standing on an edge corner attempting to apply pressure to those edge pieces so that they'd adhere to what little adhesive was left uncured. Not surprisingly, once that pressure was removed, the blocks shifted to an unlevel state. When Miller was confronted with video evidence, he refused to respond. In sum, Miller left our hardscape in a total mess, and we've had to seek hardscape specialists to undo what he and his team did.
-- Some other issues we encountered:
-- Miller scheduled us three weeks out; to begin at 2:00 PM on project day. So I made plans to have our sprinkler system relocated before he got there so as to provide the necessary water for the new sod. But Miller's crew (without Jake) shows up at 8:00 AM unannounced and starts working. I came outside and spoke to the sole English-speaking crewmen, asked why he was there early, and explained that he couldn't put the sod down until the sprinkler lines were moved. He said, "Nothing we can do, we had a cancellation". I showed him what was planned to be done (moving four sprinkler heads four feet, they had already been excavated, nothing needed to be connected or glued -- just moving flexible lines). To my relief the crewman said he'd take care of it. But when I came outside a few hours later those sprinkler heads had not been relocated, yet the sod had been laid. By then Miller was on site, and when I asked why the lines weren't moved when his crewman indicated they would be, he said, "With all due respect, it's not part of the contract". Then he demanded, "Why did you wait until the last minute to move them?!"
-- After Miller's crew left the property, again unannounced, I inspected the work. It turned out that he/his crew laid sod directly on top of the four sprinkler heads that were to have been moved! One of those heads was turned on its side and pushed into the dirt! So, I had to lift up the sod rolls myself and relocate the sprinkler heads as quickly as possible to ensure the sod received water to avoid ruin.
-- When Miller and I first met, he told me that a stump in the middle of the to-be sodded area would have to be removed prior to the resodding and that he'd take care of that. Yet in the morning of the project day he said he "couldn't get a hold of the stump removal person" and "didn't know when they'd be there, probably in a week or so". Well, that stump removal service did show up that day when they were supposed to -- at 2:00 PM, and asked, "Where's Miller?" The stump was thereafter only partly ground down, and the entire area was littered with wood chip debris. This mess was simply left on the ground, and Miller was to have had it cleaned up but he never did it and I had to hire out another service to come back and take care of the debris and lawn reseeding.
-- Even though Miller had over three weeks to prepare for my project, he showed up Day One without the hardscape sand and rocks needed to complete the hardscape repair. He said he'd come back "sometime in the next few weeks".
-- The edging was inconsistent by the crew who performed that labor, seemingly incomplete in some areas.
-- The mulching was haphazard.
It's worth noting that all of these issues were brought to Miller's attention by emails with attached photos. At first he said he was going to finish/redo some of the work, then he said he was quitting the project, then he said he would return to rectify (but didn't). In the forty years that I've hired landscapers, this has been the worst experience I've had. Miller is my son's age, so maybe I had a soft spot for him. I thought with my heart instead of my head. I am authoring this review so that others can make their own decisions about Miller and his "service". read more