TURNER'S LANDSCAPE CONTRACTORS

He shows up every week when he is supposed to and does a good job at mowing. He is also dependable.

We contracted with Turner's to build a patio and retaining wall. The landscape architect was prompt and a nice guy, although we did not ultimately like his design and chose one of our own (no problem so far, a matter of taste). But. . . I asked him about the effects of the construction on the property (lawn, adjoining fields) and he was very reassuring. I should have called a halt to the whole process, though, when a week or two later, after a period of heavy rain, the company showed up with heavy equipment. To make a long story short, I was and still am happy with the patio (and the guy who did most of the work--I think his name was Matt--worked like a demon), but MOST unhappy with the damage to lawn and fields. The filling and reseeding was far from adequate (more than two years later I can still see tracks, the area around the patio has not properly regrown, and the rather large area in the field is still rough and very difficult to mow due to lack of adequate filling (and I was charged extra for some fill dirt to repair the mess they made). When I expressed concerns during the construction, the owner basically blew me off: "Just trust us," etc. One of the other guys, when my wife objected to his truck parked right on top of our septic tank, was rude and dismissive to her. So, bottom line: The guy who built the patio knew what he was doing and did an excellent job. If I could hire him and not the rest of the company, I would. But as far as rehiring the company, no thanks.

Turner was supposed to lay a 4 foot drain under the sidewalk and lay the brick on top. They didn't dig the drain deep enough and the following spring the bricks had popped up and were all over the place. They sent out a guy in Spring 2007 and all he did was dig the bricks out and place them back in. He didn't do anything with the drain. I had some other contractors out at my house that said the issue was with the drainage underneath the bricks and that the bricks would continue to rise out of the ground until the drain was dug properly. I had also asked for a rounded area off of the driveway for a wheelchair to get in and out of the car. They never did that part because they told me they ran out of bricks and it wasn't in the contract. I bought the bricks myself from a wholesaler and know that he had plenty more at the time. I just let that part go because the area had been marked off, but it was never drawn on paper and I didn't feel like arguing. I tried calling Turner a number of times after hearing about the drainage issues from other contractors and couldn't get anywhere with them. I then contacted an attorney. Turner told the attorney that the drain was not part of my contract with them. I still have the contract which my attorney passed on to them. They are not able to deny the drain as being part of their job. So instead, they say that they don't believe there is an issue with the bricks. They have repeatedly told the attorney that there is no issue. I have had a few guess estimates on the work averaging around $250.00. I don't believe that I should have to pay another company to do work that I have already paid Turner to do. At this point, my attorney has said that it seems that Turner is probably just hoping that I will go away since the cost to take them to court would be more than the cost of paying someone else to fix their mistakes. I just want them to fix the drain and be done with it.