I hired Straub to do routine yard maintenance twice a month. Their rate of $52 for each person-hour ($104 for the two guys scheduled) seemed really high for maintenance, but I wanted to see what working with them was like. At the time, I was considering them for a large landscape project redoing my whole yard. Their two guys showed up and spent the entire hour with the leaf blower on, blowing leaves around the yard (they did eventually pick them up to haul off). There was no weeding done, no trimming, nothing that would be of real value.
When I asked the guys on one of the visits to trim some blackberry vines in the front of my property (which they had not bothered to walk down to), they did it with poor grace and frowns on their faces, as if I were asking for too much.
It did not take long to figure out this was not the contractor I wanted to work with on any big project, so I informed the owner their services were not required any longer. He sent me back an email with the basic message "you can't fire me because I'm firing you." I have worked with contractors of various types for decades, and in various cities, but had never seen anything this angry or unprofessional before. His email ended with "are relationship is done." (misspelling his)
Straub did not bill me for 3 months after their services were done. I put this down to remorse. Perhaps the owner realized his services were way overpriced and low value, or maybe he realized his email was totally unprofessional. No, neither, it was just administrative incompetence. Eventually they sent it. read more
