I am the president of an HOA with 144 buildings and 576 units. If you're looking for large-scale…read morecommercial landscaping work, please read this carefully. Feel free to reach out if you need more information, as I'd be happy to help prevent others from making the same mistake we did.
We hired Chicago Landscaping during the colder months to replace an under-performing vendor. Unfortunately, we didn't see the full extent of their work until summer, and it was a disaster from the start. The work was consistently subpar, and any complaints were met with hostility and a complete lack of accountability. Dealing with Chicago Landscaping and their operations manager, Cameron, has been one of the most frustrating experiences I've encountered in my business life. I've never met someone so overly emotional and unwilling to accept criticism.
TL;DR: If you're considering this company for your HOA, run--don't walk--away from them.
Our landscaping fell significantly behind schedule, and when we tried to get a clear answer about when things would be resolved, we were given multiple conflicting time-frames. At one point, they claimed it would take 12 weeks to catch up, but the issue was resolved in much less time. Cameron's repeated emotional outbursts only made matters worse.
We escalated the issue by contacting the owner, Mike Gay also owner of Chicago Painting, and we were shocked by his indifference. He showed no interest in meeting with us to salvage the contract, even though our base contract was around $180,000 per year, and with extras, they were likely earning over $200,000 from us. If this is how they treat a large customer, imagine how poorly they might treat a smaller one or maybe they are just so small time and cant handle the rigors of large commercial work and thought we were their ticket to that level of business.
Cameron, the operations manager, is completely unprofessional. He had multiple emotional and unreasonable interactions with our management company, board members, other vendors, and residents. Our management company representative, who has over 20 years of experience, said she had never dealt with someone like him. At one point, Cameron even stated that we were not allowed to email him after 4 p.m., which is a ridiculous request. He demanded that no resident even speak to his staff. He made working with other vendors difficult, especially with our plumbers, by making unreasonable demands of them (that no other landscaper in 10+ years of dealing with them has made) and our management company. He had our poor property manager at the end of her rope because his unreasonable behavior made her job harder.
One particularly troubling incident occurred at a board meeting when an 85-year-old woman expressed her dissatisfaction with the landscaping work. Cameron became hostile and aggressive, to the point where I had to intervene and demand he calm down and show respect to our residents.
In conclusion, I strongly recommend seeking other options for your landscaping needs. The poor quality of work, combined with the utter lack of professionalism and appreciation for our business, makes this company not worth your time and likely will end with a decision you regret. Like the last landscaper review I left I cannot understand how the owner of a company can have a customer spending over 200k a year and just not care, and we were supposedly their second biggest contract.
