FOUR WINDS TREE SERVICE

Russell had stopped by my house one evening to point out that I had dead trees and offer to remove them. This was a coincidence since my brother and I were just discussing that very thing. His estimate was very good, $500 to remove two trees entirely and top a third, when someone else had said $350-$450 just to cut down one tree. I decided to go with Russell. He set up to arrive at 9am on a Friday. Thursday evening he called and said that he was running late on a job and would be a couple of hours late, he expected to get here by 11. Friday, he did not show up until 2:30. He did not call to let me know that he was delayed. I had errands to run that I could have been doing during that time, had I known. Naturally by the time he finally got here, I was fuming and when I said something to him, he didn't seem to understand why I was angry, which did not improve things. He started with the dead trees in the back yard. He climbed one and began cutting off branches. He let those branches fall wherever they might, resulting in damage to other trees on my property. When he got that tree down, he started on the second dead one. That one was somewhat rotten and he did not want to climb too far into it. Again, he climbed and cut some branches, letting them fall. One of them came within a foot of falling on my shed. He then tied a rope into the tree and came down. He had his crew pulling on the rope as he cut down the tree at the base, presumably to guide it and control where it fell. They did not succeed. It fell against another tree (I have a lot). He began cutting off chunks from the bottom until it was shorter, then pushed it over. A lot of shouting ensued as it headed for the shed, but he'd cut just enough, so it did not hit it. I was no longer certain that I wanted him doing anything to the third tree, the one that just needed topping. Not only could that fall on the house, but it also could fall on some new landscaping and destroy it. He promised to use ropes and did so, lowering each branch with ropes carefully to the ground. He and his crew did clean up all the debris.