Landry Landscaping

DO NOT HIRE! Chris from Landry Landscaping stole $16,500 from us. We hired Chris Landry of Landry Landscaping to execute a complete backyard landscape renovation. We signed a contract that agreed to a payment plan of (3) $10,000 installments. The initial $10,000 payment was provided at the beginning of the project. The original estimated project timeline provided to us was 2 weeks. After 2 days of work, Chris texted us asking to redo the payment terms. He wanted us to provide smaller increments of $3,500 every few days, with the first payment being provided on the day of this request. Chris claimed the reason for this change was because he had to provide a 3rd party irrigation company an initial deposit and he had also already purchased all the material for the retaining wall and walkway (which he admitted he mistakenly purchased too early on in the project - we also never saw this material). He stated that the smaller installments were needed to pay his workers and keep the project moving along. We agreed to this updated payment schedule, stating that we would work with him as long as the project progressed as expected. After providing an additional $6,500, the project was running way behind schedule and we had already paid Chris much more than the work that had been completed. Therefore, we told him that going forward, we would need to set up a new payment plan where payments were only provided once specific parts of the job were complete. Chris agreed to this plan and sent an updated payment schedule based upon these terms. A few days later, we texted Chris asking to discuss the schedule of the project so we could coordinate the delivery of our shed. After no response, Chris showed up the next day and removed all his equipment and material. We called him within the hour and after one ring was sent to voicemail in which we left a message. Multiple days went by where we continued to text him and received no response. Finally, we sent him a last text asking him to respond to us that day or we were to assume he has walked away from the job and did not plan on coming back - Chris never responded. Additionally, we called the irrigation company, who had already completed a half days’ worth of work, and they confirmed that they never received a deposit (Therefore, Chris deceived us in efforts to get us to pay additional installments in advance when he told us he had paid the irrigation deposit from the initial $10,000 installment we had provided him). Ultimately, Chris left a massive pile of stumps, wood chips and full tree trunks on the side of our driveway, left our walkway halfway completed, our backyard completely dug up and most of the total project still needing to be finished. Overall, we paid Chris $16,500 and he walked away with most of that payment for work that has not yet completed. We now also have additional expenses we will need to pay for due to the mess that Chris left behind. Chris ripped up part of our walkway. This portion of the job was not written into the overall estimate because he was correcting prior work that was done incorrectly by his brother Dave (Dave and Chris used to own Landry Landscaping together). Chris stated he would complete this work at no charge to make right on his brother's mistakes. However, he left this job half done and we will now have to pay another company to come out and re-finish it. His team also drove their machinery across our front lawn unnecessarily (they should have drove around through the backyard since the backyard was already being refinished). Therefore, we will need to pay a company to loam and seed our front lawn. We were completely scammed and I highly recommend staying far away from this company!