A-1 Tree Service

They have good equipment and have always done a great job. Their prices are very reasonable.

A-1 Tree Service solicited work by knocking on my front door. I had seen them taking down a tree around the corner and they seemed to have done a reasonable job, so I agreed to have them take down a tree and take out the deadwood of other trees in my yard. We agreed on a fee for this service and they were to return later that afternoon to do the work. Before they returned, I phoned A-1 to make sure they were going to remove the tree ?remains? and the other yard waste generated by the agreed work; my neighborhood association and the city yard waste removal service require any yard debris of this magnitude be removed by the contractor doing the work on the day the work is performed. A-1 assured me that they would stack the debris neatly at the curb in front of my house, and the city would haul away all of it on their regular pick-up date for my neighborhood at no charge to me. Being a Saturday, I was unable to verify this with the city. I thought I could appease my neighborhood association until the regular pickup day, but still the debris would remain in front of my house for almost a week. Finding no way around this at the time, I agreed to have them go ahead with the work since I would be unable to do anything in my yard for the next several months. They returned that afternoon and completed the work. The deadwood was taken out (mostly); some limbs I had specified were removed from other trees, though where they learned how to properly prune a tree I have no idea since they cut most of the branches off two feet away from the trunk; and the large tree we wanted taken down was taken down. Unfortunately, in the process of taking down this tree and hauling its ?parts? to the curb, damage was done to the surrounding garden beds, even though they assured me that this would not happen. These will eventually rebound. They failed to remove the small debris, so I had to hire someone to come in and finish the clean-up in these areas. Upon completion of the work that evening, they wanted payment in cash. The charge was substantial enough that I didn?t have that much cash on hand. They agreed to take a check if it were payable to ?Cash?. So that?s what I did, reluctantly; seems like a fly-by-night company approach. As far as the city picking up the resulting debris without any additional charges, it didn?t happen. On the Monday following, May 24, I underwent a fairly complex surgical procedure. The following day, Tuesday, my wife called the city to see if they would take away the debris on our regular pickup day, just to be sure ? the city sent someone out to assess the amount of yard waste; I had to pay the city $150.00 to have it removed as it was in excess of what they would remove on a regular pickup. Before they would do this, my wife had to go to the city offices and pay for this to be done. Needless to say, things were fairly hectic with me just coming home from the hospital and my wife having to leave to take care of this; I had to make sure it was taken care of, and I had no confidence in A-1 returning to do this, so I paid the city to remove the debris from the curb. For me, this company was less than professional and seemed to be conducting business ?under the table?.