Saturday, May 15, 2010
by Tom Stachler from Group One Realty Team - Real Est
LOOKING FOR LANDSCAPING SERVICES?
Well, beware....I would not recommend Brian Stimach or Meadowbrook Acres Sod Farm located in Brighton, Michigan. I tried this service last year requesting some simple services like putting in black corrugated landscape pipe in the ground with drains to extend away from the building the downspout water running off from the roof. Simple stuff right?
Their crew was more interested in getting the job done quick instead of the right way. Trenches were dug too shallow, no care or concern to fill in and compact the soil so it didn't settle and leave indentations a week later after the first rain fall, drains installed to high, poor seeding techniques, etc.
Worse yet, when I called the foreman Brian Stimach, he resisted fixing these issues and finally kept saying how he would have someone get in touch with me in a few days. Never happened even after a few follow up calls. He actually spent more time telling how busy he was, that his family was living in Florida and he had more important things on his mind with the business down there and the commute coming up on the weekend. Guess I was suppose to be sorry to have an expectation that they cared about the quality of their work and a satisfied customer.
What happened to the success business plain of putting the customer first and quality of service?? But I have to admit, this type of approach to customer satisfaction is too common in the landscape business. Beware of contractors who want to get a deposit for your job with promise to come back next week to get started. While deposits are not that unusual, I would never recommend you pay one until their first day on the job. Landscaping contractors are notorious for running around booking jobs in the spring and taking deposits so they have work to carry them through the 4 months of prime landscaping season. Everybody wants their work done in the Spring, but guess what....that's not possible regardless of their promises, so beware.
A good larger company to consider might be Continuum Services. Their contact number is 248-286-5200. They do a lot of commercial work involving design, and grounds maintenance. If you ever have any problems with them, let me know as I know person in charge and unlike MeadowBrooke and their foreman mentioned above, he IS concerned about customer service and satisfaction. He even volunteered to ask MeadowBrook Sod to go back out to fix my problem as he subcontracts some work out to them and other smaller or specialty firms. Of course, having grown tired of making numerous phone calls and receiving false promises, we decided it was easy to get someone else to correct the previous inferior work.
Take care and good luck. Remember you can get the latest new MLS property listings by clicking on this link.
