PARCO MAINTENANCE CONTRACTING

Parco is, in my opinion, a thoroughly mediocre company. The young men who cut our grass are polite, and when they are asked to make changes (for example, changing to a bi-weekly, rather than weekly cutting schedule in mid-summer), they remember to make the changes. However, the company does not offer to do many of the niceties that you would expect. For example, in the spring and early fall, when they cut grass, they do not rake up any sticks before cutting. In past years when I have not been able to rake the sticks before the grass cutting starts, I have been unable to clean up the debris left over from the chopped up sticks because it was too small to rake. In addition, I have noticed that, rather than moving a fallen tree branch, they actually mowed around the branch and left it there. In other words, they will cut grass, but don't expect anything approaching full-service lawn care unless you give them specific directions. The prices are quite reasonable, however.

Our experiences with Parco's gutter cleaning service have been hit-or-miss. The first year we wanted them to clean the gutters, they did not clean the gutters or return the messages we left on their answering machine. (I was unable to get in touch with an actual person.) The next year, the gutters were cleaned to our satisfaction, but many of the gutter shields were not replaced. The following year, gutter shields were not replaced, and piles of the debris from the gutters (anything that fell, I assume) were left on the back patio and front walk. My neighbor called them to come back to her house, because they had left trails of gutter debris on the siding. Last fall, I heard that Parco was using different individuals to clean gutters, so I used them again, and I had no complaints. While last year's gutter cleaning service was acceptable, I am looking for someone else to clean my gutters in the future, due to a spotty work record.

I am very disappointed with Parco's leaf clean-up service. We have used them for three years, and this year they were more expensive, I believe, and definitely less effective. In the past, they had done leaf clean-up two or three times over the course of the fall. This year, they came once in mid-November, after most of the leaves had fallen, leaving us with the choice of either having our lawn to look like a mess all fall (which we did, for quite a few weeks, in the hopes that they would show up soon) or to clean the leaves ourselves (which we eventually did, about two weeks before Parco finally arrived). When they finally did clean the leaves, they left quite a bit of leaves and debris on our lawn. Basically, they used a large leaf blower and blew the leaves over our back bank. In the past, they had also raked up what was left after using the leaf blower and cleaned out the leaves that had fallen in bedding or against the house. This year, they only did the grass.