IndyAsh: Emerald Ash Borer Treatment Solutions

Perhaps the most responsive experience yet with a company in Angie's List. They responded promptly to my purchase of a special deal, letting me know immediately when they would be in touch to schedule. Their link to an external website (not ther company) to provide more info on emerald ash borer problems was enlightening and enabled me to identify my tree. They were pleasantly willing to schedule a treatment when I was home to observe and ask questions, or when I was not at home: it was up to me. I scheduled the visit ASAP even though I was out of town, because I was concerned about the health of my tree, and when I returned, I discovered that my tree was somewhat bigger than the scope of the coupon (which they had communicated up front, but I hadn't measured my tree). I was very pleased that they went ahead with the treatment and just billed me for the difference (under $30, I think). It's too soon to tell if the treatment is effective, but given how courteous and professional they have been, I have every confidence and would definitely recommend them to others/use again!

Whole process went very well. Scheduling was easy, Josh and his assistant showed up at the agreed time, and they injected our ash tree. During that time, they educated me on the disease, pointed out that our tree was already affected but still salvageable. I had thought that I was doing this as a prevention, and not aware my tree was already affected. Thanks to Josh's education, I now can identify sick/dying ash trees throughout my neighborhood and the city. And believe me, once you know what to look for, they are everywhere! Most of my neighbors have probably waited too long and are going to lose their ash, which will affect the look of the whole neighborhood. To everyone reading this: get your ash trees treated sooner rather than later, preferably before they are affected! The cost may seem steep for an injection, but still much cheaper than having a dead tree removed, and planting a new tree.

Jesse arrived at the agreed time to determine the number of ash trees on my property and provide a cost estimate. I found Jesse to be informed and a pleasant individual to interact with. Indy Ash was able to schedule the preventive treatments for my seven trees within a week. Returning home from my part-time job, I came upon Lauren administering the treatments, and she also is a pleasant individual. I am very satisfied with Indy Ash.

I got a good deal through Angie's Big Deal. Joshua was was proactive and very quick to call to schedule an appointment. He was prompt for his appointment. Joshua explained the entire process to me and even answered some unrelated tree questions I had. My ash tree is now protected for 2 years and IndyASH will contact me when it's time for my next treatment. Couldn't be more pleased with the entire process.

It went MOST unprofessionally. This service was never performed. A refund was finally made about 90 days after the deal. After much communicating through email, Indyash cancelled the deal on May 3rd. His explanative comment was: "My main focus is operating a company dedicated to treating and saving the Ash trees of Indianapolis from Emerald Ash Borer. In the past week, we have received a tremendous amount of calls and treatment work, most directly in response from Purdue Universities? increase in spending for public awareness about this very serious problem for Indianapolis. I really am sorry to have to do this, but we are a small family owned company, and have more work treating Ash trees than we keep up with. I came up with the idea to offer these assessments when things were very slow, there was very little work and I began questioning whether Emerald Ash Borer was as serious as I thought, so I thought I would pursue a consultation company and the Angies? List Big Deal was the kickoff of that campaign. And then the calls began coming in for Emerald Ash Borer. It is serious and now we are almost overwhelmed with work. We will issue you a refund check in the amount of $79, which you originally paid through Angies? List, within the next 30 days. " While I can understand that he is busy, I bought the service in good faith at an agreed upon price. He is very fortunate to be able to pick and choose what work he does and just cancel the things he chooses. I think it is most unprofessional to have treated a PAID customer this way. I am also disappointed in Angie's List for their role in advertising this service and failing to ensure that the contractor would perform the work advertised. IndyAsh is anxious for more business though! Even in his cancellation letter, he was eager to solicit additional business. This was worse than the "advertised special is sold out" - because he held the money for nearly 90 days. So, I judge this most unprofessional. The delays in first scheduling the service, and finally cancelling it 60 days later are unacceptable. I am adding this after the "Company Response" to refute some of his comments. Apology notwithstanding, he still reneged on the deal! He did not offer "a full list of high quality contractors that could come to take care of any of his(my) needs". I have no idea what he intends by his claim that he did his "best to communicate". He agreed to the deal on or about March 7, announced on April 25th that he would begin executing assessments on May 1, scheduled me for May 5, and cancelled me on May 3. I certainly was available and presented no difficulty for him to communicate. He just walked away from the deal! He also says he did his best every step of the way, including sending refund exactly when promised. So what! Keep in mind that he held the money for nearly 90 days, and waited 30 days after canceling to refund it.

Overall it went very well and very quickly. He was a very pleasant person.

I had purchased a coupon for treatment of an ash tree in a wooded area behind my house. Joshua called to set up an appointment and arrived as agreed. When I showed him the tree he pointed out a second ash that I wasn't aware of and treated it at the same price rate as the coupon I had purchased through Angies's list. I watched the treatments and was very satisfied. I am now in his data base and will get a reminder in two years.

Joshua replied the same day to inform me that my tree is too small for the product they use. He recommended an approach I can use on my own. Very prompt, very professional. I'll call/email them any time I need tree work.

I was one of the people who bought the $79 special that he offered. The only thing that came of that was he got to hold on to my money for four months and then he sent it back. He decided that it wasn’t profitable for him. He phrased it nicely, but I was kind of pissed about this. He did this to a whole bunch of people. I got some letters from him saying that he has started schedule the appointments and then he sent another letter saying that he wasn’t going to do it. Until he decided not to do the job, he was doing the schedule that was appropriate to what he was doing.

Everything seems to be doing better and they didn’t die. They are knowledgeable.

The owner and his apprentice were knowledgeable, pleasant, neat, and good teachers. I asked a lot of questions. I totally enjoyed them and they gave me hope for the future that such young, vibrant folks cared so much about our environment. This was a good experience and they promised to keep an eye on my tree. Thanks!

At the end of April, we received an email stating appointments would be made soon. A few days later, we received an email giving us a mid-May appointment date. On May 3rd, we received an email stating that all Big Deal contracts would be cancelled and a refund would be made. The reason given was that Joshua began to receive calls for the elm tree part of his business (his primary effort) and he no longer had time to fulfill his commitment to the Big Deal customers. According to his email, he decided to offer the tree assessments when his business was slow. When his elm business picked up, he was "overwhelmed" and decided to cancel the contracts he had already made. He referred us to another company if we wanted to pursue the service. Although I appreciate his correspondence and forthrightness, I am very disappointed that he broke his contract with the Angie's List Big Deal customers. He cancelled appointments for customers that had pre-paid for a service at a great rate for customers that would pay full price for a service. This is very unprofessional. I will not recommend his service to anyone for fear that he will not keep his contract.

They arrived on time. The tree was down quickly, and cleaned up well. You can't even tell they were there.

They were very good. They were very fast. They were very quick on the estimate and also the work. I was very happy with it.

Simple Man trimmed a buddy's trees several yrs ago and did a good job. Recently though they weren't getting that great of ratings on Angie's list....however the new owner Chris, had written a note to Angie's List explaining that Simple Man's was in transition between the old owner and him and the issues were being resolved.....,so I took a shot...Chris got a very reasonable estimate to me before I left on vacation....while on vacation I confirmed that he got the bid and by the time I got back the initial work was done...twice while on vacation Chris left me messages re his progress...upon my return I noticed some more trimming was still needed and I showed Chris what I still needed...he agreed his crew should have taken care of it when they were originally there...he wouldn't take his payment until I was satisfied...he returned in 2 days with his tools and took care of the remaining trimming and I paid him....his crew had done a good job of cleaning up also...if you didn't notice the trees had been trimmed you wouldn't know anybody had been in the yard while I was gone....neighbors have also commented what a good job they did

I called Simple Man numerous times to find out what the prognosis was on the tree. My husband got one call back and he was told that the results of the testing were not complete - to just keep watering the tree. That was in August. Finally, I cut off a portion of a limb and sent it to Purdue as specified on the Purdue extension site on the internet. I had a response in one week. There was a fungus identified and treatment suggestions. It cost $30.00. There were also suggestions as to what to do this year when the leaves are just coming out. My experience with this company was dreadful. In addition, I paid the first guy who took the sample separately by check as he requested - to him personally. The check for the "feeding" was made out to Simple Man's Tree Service. Go figure.

We had a bunch of bids and we went with somebody else (I don't know). My husband was the one who interacted with them. We would not consider using them in the future.

Simple Man Tree Service is very responsive, and I will definitely use them again. Chris, the crew leader, is a good listener and does an excellent job in making sure your job is done well and to your satisfaction. I highly recommend Simple Man!

Requested and received an estimate for some major work some months ago. It definitely was at the high end. Recently received a nice, but unsigned, letter which attempted to explain the company's "growing pains." The letter also included a revised estimate for the work, but that discounted estimate, although in the ballpark, still was somewhat greater than what the job is/was worth. Maybe this organization will recover its previous reputation.

They were responsive and punctual. They always answered my calls or got back to me within a few hours. They trimmed the tree very well. They did what they said they would. I will use them again in the future.

We got the name of this company from articles in Nuvo and The Tributary and also on the DNR website. Joshua is very knowledgeable and since we live in deep woods, had a naturalist come with him to confirm idenitification of the ash trees - not always easy to do in heavilly wooded areas. We are keeping our fingers crossed the trees will stay healthy!

This company was recommended by some neighbors. As seen in some other reports I think they may be suffering from growing pains. The bottom line is that it took almost a full month to get an estimate which is too long. While their estimate was very competitive I was concerned with their ability to get the job done in a timely manner, although I think they probably do excellent work. I called in early August for an estimate. They answered the phone promptly and said someone would call to set up an appointment. It took two days for them to call back, although they did call without me making additional calls. The estimator did indicate he could get to the house two days later. I did not meet him at the house as I had described the work I wanted done and it was fairly straightforward. I wanted some trees taken to the ground and another one trimmed. He did show up on the day he said he would which was a Friday. While at the house he tried to call me as he had some questions about the work to be done. Unfortunately I wasn't available when he called but I returned the call within about an hour and left a message as he did not pick up. I did not receive a call back. The next Tuesday I called him again since I had not heard from him. He picked up and asked if he could call me back in about a half hour. I did not get a call back. I called again that afternoon and he did pick up and said we could talk about the work. After answering his questions he said he would have to go back to the house again, although I am not really sure why this was necessary. He said he would get back out there by Friday. I believe that was to be August 13. I heard nothing from him and no estimate was left at the house, and because of the responsiveness issues I had already encountered I decided to go with another company and did not make any additional calls about getting the estimate. Much to my surprise, he did ultimately make it back to the house at the end of the month and did leave an estimate. However, at that point I had decided to go with another company and as indicated I was concerned about their ability to do the work in a reasonable time frame because of the issues with responsiveness.

The only "negative" for this company was the length of time to respond to my message seeking an estimate -- was a few days after the call. Jesse, who provided the estimate, was very professional. His bid was the best of 4 I obtained. (The other 3 companies were: Ping's, Angel Oak, and Broad Ripple Tree Service). After that point, everything was done as promised. The treatment for the trees was done within days of my acceptance of the estimate, and the remaining work was started very soon thereafter. The crew which did the work was quite professional and considerate of the property and furnishings. They made sure they cleaned up after the work. I strongly recommend this company.

They removed the elm tree, with no problems. The maple tree had one large limb removed and I wanted an additional limb removed that was hanging over the house. They refused to do it because they said it was not hanging over the house very much. I didn't think that was their call.

They charged me $460 for the job. They did an excellent job on the trimming and their price was beyond reasonable. I have used them in the past and I was really happy with them in the past. However, this time, they were a little different,. The first time I asked for an estimate, the guy didn?t show up. Then, he called later and said that he missed the appointment. So, I rescheduled and later he called me back to say that there was a storm. As I wasn?t in hurry, it was fine with me. So, he finally gave me the estimate, which I thought was very reasonable. It is just that they rescheduled the service twice. When I have used them in the past, it has always been a 30-day pay period. However, this time, the business manager called me and was really rude. He told me that he would come to my house and pick up the check. I told him that I wouldn?t be home and also mentioned that it was a 30-day pay. He told me that my husband was going to pay them immediately. I told him that my husband wasn?t the one who wrote the checks. I told him that they weren?t in a hurry to come out and do the service, and now they were demanding to be paid immediately. The guy was really rude and the only way I could get off the phone was by agreeing to mail the check the very next day. When I worked with them before, I found the guy who owned the company to be really nice. His name is Joshua. I loved working with him. When I worked with him last year, he came out and did the estimate. He was there when the crew did the work and I paid him. However, I never saw him this time. I am not sure if the business has expanded or if he has got new employees. They did a great job, though. The trees look great. It was a huge tree. I was very happy with their work, except with the manager, who called me and was very rude to me. He had called me on a day when I was already having a bad day. I get the trees trimmed by them every two years. Until the last time, they have been great. They have been so good that I used them for some work in my rental property. You can?t beat their prices. I would use them again, provided I don?t have to deal with the manager.