For starters, I was told by the owner that Yards Apart took credit cards and he even described the "little white box you stick .into you cellphone" yet when I asked to pay the second half of my payment, before they completed the work, I was told they don't take credit cards. Had I realized they lied to me during our 1st meeting, they'd not have left with a check for half the job nor been hired.
Sadly, I hired them. They'd appear and disappear at will, never giving me notice of when they were coming or going, leaving branches and plant debris al over my already stressed front grass for over a week which upset not only me and my husband but our neighbors, too. The owner never takes notes so his bids may look complete but he does what he wishes and consistently, with me, tried to add more to the bid almost daily. He does what he wishes when he wishes with little to no regard for what we agreed upon or what the bid stated.
Plants I asked they not remove were removed and plants I asked them to remove are still growing. The bid included mulching all the beds yet they left the largest bed without any mulch along with two smaller beds, yet half-filled a bed with mulch that I specifically asked not be mulched! Worse, they used a mulch I specifically asked them not to use as my husband and neighbors are allergic. I showed it to them and was stunned, weeks later, to walk out and see our beds filled with it. He told me it wouldn't blow away with a leaf blower so would be easy to clean yet it has blown in our Austin evening wind. The soil he told me he'd use never came, at all.
The bid also included hauling off wood from our backyard (it is all still there), removing all plants and debris next to the back fence, and they, too, are all still there. Every plant that was to be trimmed was hacked into no shape, at all. They look as if some large animal chewed them all. My clematis were all destroyed, even the ones in bloom. My Crepe Myrtles in front may never bloom again and look awful, and a huge Crepe Myrtle in the back is now in the shape of a tall stick! No branches, at all and hacked into in places: I am told it will die.
Lunch trash and drink cans were left on the days they bothered to show up for me to clean up. Because the job was to last 3 days, in the 2nd week, I put into writing that I didn't want two trees cut out down so they could complete all else as I needed to leave town. They cut the trees anyway. The work was never completed, I paid them in full over 4 months ago.
The owner never wrote down a thing I asked for even the two times he returned at the request of my many emails to please complete the job after I paid him. In fact, he made fun of his wife for bugging him about coming back to complete my work! He had the same bid in hand that I did yet seemed amnesiac when it came to finishing or even knowing a thing about it. Finally he did return after the 4 months of being paid in full, of coming back twice to see what wasn't completed, but with the idea to only cut that Crape Myrtle into a stick! I told him not to return without my stepping stones and without giving me warning and then wrote it but he showed up, anyway. 1/3 of the work is not, and will never be, done.
When I wrote him that 1/3rd of the work was not complete, I got no apology or offer to repay me 1/3rd of the money but I did get something close to this: we want to offer you the best quality of landscape work available! Finishing the work would have brought that closer to a possibility but that didn't seem to cross his mind. which still astonished me!
I was taken. We have now had to hire another company to try to salvage our once lovely yard. And two of our neighbors are very upset as our yard reflects on their yard.
We always had people stop to tell us what a lovely yard we had but now they ask what ruined it. I tell them WHO ruined it. I've never been treated so unprofessionally! We treat all workers very well, usually pay ahead and in 22 years have never had a company leave the work unfinished or done in a way that wasn't just as we discussed until Yards Apart! I've never submitted a poor review about anyone before at any site because I've always been treated professionally by people who care about their work and use us for good references. Yards Apart isn't someone I'd rehire or recommend to anyone for anything, sadly, but they made the choice to do a poor and incomplete job. I wish I could have given this company no stars, at all. read more