The need was to adjust the grade for water flow around our home while filling in a ditch and adding dirt to the outer perimeter of the house. The man came up with an elaborate, flamboyant plan for our back yard, complete with a paver walk way, building a bank far from the actual water problem, complete with juniper trees. He thought removing a tree, would be a good idea. In order to redirect the run of water, he needed pine straw, at a whopping $10 per bail, and a boulder, for decoration. Yes, a boulder. There evidently was a need for an air conditioning unit pad as well. He must of missed the one the air conditioning unit was sitting on!
We have had a lot of issues with our new home's basement flooding. We have the inside dried in, so we turned our attention to the outside problem, to keep the water from flowing too close to our house. We had a straight forward request for Creative Landscaping: give us an estimate to adjust the grade of our back yard with a bobcat for proper water flow, then separate quotes for seeding and sodding the back yard. What we got was something entirely different. The fellow would not give me an estimate for seeding the yard, after I asked him several times. He did give me the sod estimate though. He saw what I was talking about, and described how he would fix it, which was right on track. Said he needed top soil, which seemed fair. But he didn't give a simple quote for that. He added on the pinestraw, and overpriced downspouts. This was plan 1. Then he sat up a scheme in order to get us to "save" money, and go into plan 2. According to him, we would need topsoil. But if we let him remove a tree, any one in the back yard many of which were at a great distance from the actual problem, he could bring the price of the topsoil down, as we would be using the soil from around the tree. But I am still adding to the price for having the tree put down. One tree was actually a problem tree, seeing that is was so close to the grading labor, and might damage the tree. But the tree selected was one way in the back. Then he constructed a reason for it to go down, aside from the use of it's soil. This particular tree area spawned an idea of a great bank in the back of the yard. Once again, how does this fit into grading the yard AROUND our house? But then he decided we would need a paver wall (one of 3) around another tree, along with hauling in a giant boulder, and (plan 3) a wonderful paver patio/walkway in front of our porch. ??? I never received a separate price for grading around the house to keep the water flowing away and a price for seed. He simply would not do what I asked him to do. And I was as straight forward as possible. I struggled to keep from laughing as he went through his hoax. By the way. We had someone else come and do the work we asked for. No top soil needed to be delivered. There was plenty left over after the grading, piling it up around the house, and preping the yard for sod. No pine straw. No boulder. And it keeps the water out of the house.
