Laub's Landscape

Horrible job from beginning to finish. Installed a “sump pump” in my backyard or at least attempted too... Not only did I have to complain over 2 weeks, just to get the work completed correctly... one of their workers removed pavers from my front yard to do the work. I’m sorry but this is theft & destruction of personal property. DO NOT USE!!

HE NEVER EVEN SHOWED UP - We accepted his bid on 9/13/2018 and he indicated it would take 10 weeks to get started so he "penciled us in" to the calendar for 11/26. We called to push the date back one day and he never called us back to confirm. We called on 10/26....no reply. We called on 10/27. Where are your guys? He called back apologizing that we were never put on the calendar after waiting 10 WEEKS! He promised he would get back to the office, confirm his availability and put us on the calendar. HE NEVER CALLED BACK. After 4-5 calls and voice mails to him over several days and weeks, HE DIDN'T RETURN A SINGLE CALL. Why is it hard for people to actually show up, do the work and collect a pay check? How hard would it be to get in touch with him if there were problems with the work???? AVOID AVOID AVOID. UPDATE: No wonder he has an "F" Rating from the BBB for the exact same complaint from other homeowners.

I had the worst experience ever with this company. Here are my chief complaints: 1. (OVERCHARGED) Most importantly, they charged me an additional $810, over their bid for the additional sod that was needed due to their miscalculation!!! This is without changing anything from the original request. They simply measured incorrectly, they said, and so I had to pay for the additional sod. If I would have known that they were going to charge $810 more, I might have chosen one of the other companies that gave me similar proposals. I called the other companies to see if they honor their bids, or if the cost can change if they measured incorrectly, and they said that as long as I didn?t change anything, then they honor their bid. Yet, this company had apparently given me just an ?estimate?. The other 4 landscapers that I spoke to said that they thought that was very unprofessional and that is not how most landscapers handle their bids. Legally, an ?estimate? is not binding, like a quote is. BUT, an estimate should be close to the correct price (not around a thousand dollars off!) and the contractor should use his expertise to come up with accurate ending cost. Which Laub did not have, since it took 4 tries to figure out how much sod to get, and even then he couldn?t finish the job. Regardless, when other companies quote you a price, it is set in stone, so that you can compare companies and not get roped into the cheapest one who then becomes the most expensive one once you are locked in. 2. I also got charged an additional $210 to level the front, even though the front was as it was when the original proposal was given. Now I?m up to $1010 that I was unfairly charged! And I had even told them that I wanted them to just move the dirt from the center island which was not being covered with sod, since it was too high, but they insisted that I would still need more dirt, and so after they left I had to spend hours shoveling and pushing wheelbarrows full of dirt to the backyard to get rid of all the dirt that I paid for and didn?t want?.So far I was overcharged $1160! 3. Also, I put a wood barrier in the back to separate the rock from the sod and I told them that it was temporary and nothing fancy, but could they just prop it in place when the sod and rock is put in?$134.55 for labor and materials?.what materials? I had it there and in place!!! 4. I was told that the job was a 1-day job. At the end of one day, I had half my yard done and I was told that it would be $1248 more to finish. I tried to fight it but then said that I would unhappily agree to pay $600. When the final bill came and they wanted even more money, I said that was totally unfair and that I don?t feel comfortable being charged more once again BECAUSE THEY MEASURED INCORRECTLY THE SECOND TIME TOO! And David?s answer was??either pay it or I?ll be out tomorrow to lift and remove the sod? WOW! 5. (QUALITY) Well, was the job done nicely at least? NO! The stone patio that they were supposed to lay, was a ?hill? of rock. So ridiculous! And they put cheaper stone under it, so the stone may eventually intermix (yuck). The sod was called ?the worst sod job I?ve ever seen? by one landscaper. Our gardener who cuts the grass says that the sod was not leveled properly and that is why the grass looks so bad after each cut. I constantly feel and trip on the holes that were left between the sod rolls, nearly twisting my ankle. Some of the trees did not have nice circles of sod around them, but instead had weird haphazard shapes because the sod was just laid and not cut. Areas a full square foot were skipped. After miscalculating several times, they still didn?t have enough sod to finish the job, so they just left it unfinished. 6. (TIMELINESS) I was told the job would be done by 1pm, on the day they arrived. It took 6 weeks, and was never totally finished. After the first miscalculation, they arranged to get sod as quickly as possible, which still took awhile, but that?s okay. After the second miscalculation, I had a half finished backyard, and couldn?t even get the landscaper to return my phone calls to tell me when the job would be finished. I figured he had ordered the sod and would just show up, but 2 weeks later he showed up unexpectedly just to measure again! And he left without telling me when to expect them back. I figured the sod would arrive on Friday since that was the next delivery day, but without a call, it took another week for the sod to arrive and it was nearly dead by the time the crew put it in. And then he had still miscalculated!!! We had to wait for him again to get more sod to almost finish the job, and that sod looked so dead when it arrived. Luckily it did perk up, mostly. By the time he came to put the last load of sod in the weeds had fully grown in again. Luckily I thought to tell he to spray again, for he wasn?t going to. 7. (SPRINKLERS) the sprinkler crew broke two pipes. Luckily I found out before the sod went in. They fixed them. The grass was not getting watered well, and some was dying due to poor sprinkler placement. We had them out twice to fix it. The sprinkler still didn?t hit all the grass and so some areas are straw-dry, and the irrigation company refuses to come out and fix it, unless we pay them. 8. Additionally: we had just paid for a new driveway and the Laub trucks left huge oil stains everywhere. I asked them to put something under their trucks to catch the oil but they didn?t. I assumed that they would clean it up, but they didn?t. They refused to sign a Lien Waiver. The termite stakes were mostly gone when they were done even though I had asked them to be careful with them and to replace them when finished. I specifically chose this company partly because I thought the owner had a good design sense and he could help me form a nice sod line for flower beds. Not only did he say he couldn?t be there to help create the backyards sod lines, but he ran out of sod in the end and didn?t complete the serpentine line as asked anyhow. He helped with the front, but when we hired a landscaper for the flower beds, they said the lines were terrible and re-did them. And I had to be there overseeing everything, even though he knew what I wanted and said that I didn?t have to be there. If I hadn?t watched them the entire time at least 6 huge mistakes would have happened. For instance, twice the people laying sod try to lay a straight line across my backyard instead of the serpentine line that I had hired Laub to do. Also, a tree that I asked him to take out the day before, was promptly forgotten the next day. He just couldn?t complete the job as asked because he couldn?t remember what the customer requested and he didn?t take notes. I really had a good feeling about this guy. He was so professional-looking, sounded like he was very knowledgeable, and seemed to be a good designer too. Plus he was a really nice person, except when it came to our money issue. I feel terrible submitting this report but I felt that other need to know this information.