cinderblock said:

I've been using my landscaper for two years. He was introduced to me by my real estate agent, when I bought the house.

I decided I should move on from him when I started picking up behavior patterns that made me strongly suspect he was a pathological liar.

For example, he would charge me $70 extra for fertilizers and pesticides every month, but I've never seen him apply them, ever, in two years. I also have a nosy, retired neighbor, who's a horticulturalist. All he does is garden all day, and he, too, has never seen the landscaper apply fertilizers/pesticides. If you know anything about this, it's a bitch to do, and it takes a while. I've tried it myself, once, and it took me a solid half hour, and I was soaked in perspiration from covering all the square footage.

Another example, is when he charged me $120 to clean the gutters. A month later, my carpenter comes and goes up on the roof to do some work, and he's like, "You really should get your gutter cleaned." I said, "My landscaper said he cleaned it last month," and the carpenter's like, "I see no evidence of that."

Another time, he charged me for 5 weeks, when there were only 4 weeks during that month. I call him, and he says, "Oh, I also fertilized." But on the receipt, he charged me for five cuts. Yet he changed up the story to suit the final tally.

Also, he doesn't cut the lawn every week. He comes once every three weeks, if that. It's pretty easy to tell when he cuts the lawn, because his equipment leaves track marks throughout the lawn. But he routinely charges me every week.

He also does my snow plowing for the drive way, and sometimes he won't come, and I'll call him, because I'll notice my neighbor's driveway is always looking like it's been plowed, whereas mine is always covered in snow. At first, he used to say, "I came, but there was a car blocking the driveway," until he realized I live alone, and I never have visitors, so there is absolutely zero reason anybody should be parked in my driveway. In my whole time here, nobody has blocked my driveway. This is not Los Angeles. This is Cleveland, Ohio. Nobody's even parked in the streets. So after he realized that excuse didn't make sense, he started switching it up to, "I came really early in the morning, and it kept snowing, so yeah, I'll be coming by again in the afternoon."

This guy can never own up and take accountability. He has a built-in, knee-jerk bullshit reply to everything. And he also acts like he's doing you a solid by going out of his way to fabricate things he didn't do. For example, two weeks ago, when he came to do my Spring clean-up, I spoke with him, and he said, "Oh yeah, yesterday I came by and cleaned out your front gutters, just a couple sticks. But I didn't charge you. I just took care of you. I knocked on your front door, but nobody answered."

I know this story is bullshit, because I was home all day that day, and I would've heard if he knocked or rung my doorbell. Secondly, he's not the type to come to my house on back-to-back days. This has never happened. So for him to swing by just to clean out my gutters for free, makes zero sense. And thirdly, I just got my gutters replaced, because the old ones were so messed up from not being cleaned, and I also purchased gutter guards, so there should be no "sticks" up there. Fourthly, if you know anything about cleaning gutters, it takes forever, because you have to pitch your ladder and get up and down, and pitch your ladder again, repeat, repeat, etc. He would've never done this for free. Hell, he charges $185 an hour. The idea that he examined my entire gutter system, 360 degrees around the perimeter, and he found "sticks" simply on one section, makes no sense. I also have windows upstairs, where I can see my gutters. There are no sticks, anywhere... I told this to my neighbor who has the same gutter guards, and he immediately started shaking his head in disbelief.

Anyway, I have more examples, but to cut to the chase, I finally called him and said I won't be requiring his service anymore. He asked me why, so I said my neighbor referred me to someone else. This was true. My neighbor and this landscaper have had a history of confrontations before, where my neighbor didn't approve of his landscaping methods.

The landscaper got very defensive, and he started criticizing the neighbor. He kept talking about how he services so-and-so, and basically he started name dropping expensive properties that rely on his services. He also kept preaching that he's been doing this for 24 years. And he said that he gets inundated with customers who want to get on his schedule, but he turns them down, because he can't handle the volume. Of course, if this was true, that there was a long line of would-be customers begging for his services, he wouldn't be wasting his time telling me this, and he would move on to the next person on queue.

And I kept having to reiterate that my neighbor would like me to try his way for a while, and I tried to let him off easy by saying, "I may end up calling you in the future if it doesn't work out."

Then the landscaper went off on the neighbor again, and then repeating the same shit he told me just a minute ago, that he's been doing for this 24 years, and he kept saying, "Your neighbor does this for a hobby! I do this for a living! He doesn't know what he's doing!"

Finally after what seemed like an eternity, he says, "I'm gonna swing by one of these days and have a word with your neighbor." I'm hoping he'll reflect on this and forget about it soon after.

Literally 10 minutes later, he's ringing my doorbell. I pretended I wasn't home, but he rang my doorbell for 20 straight minutes. At this point, I'm getting flashbacks of the stalker ex-girlfriend that I've only seen in movies.

Anyway, he finally drives off. A week later, at midnight, I get a text from him, and it says, "I talked to the neighbor next door. Did you find a cheaper price or something? I did the lawn and cleanups and plowing for 2 yrs for u!! This is my 24th yr in business!!"

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Wow lmfao

I'm fuckin dead

Burke Dennings said:

Ever see Lawnmower Man?

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Niffla said:

This is like the Jim Carrey movie The Cable Guy, except it's The Landscaping Guy

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I was actually thinking about that too

Niffla said:

Burke Dennings said:

Ever see Lawnmower Man?

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Yeah when I was little I saw it -- been a loooonnnggg time though.

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