Landshaping

Description of Work: The owner of Landshaping, Ken Wolfe, A Minister and a friend of my son, came to my house to price building two retainer walls and landscaping my yard. When he filled out the contract he didn't itemize the things I wanted him to do. He wouldn't write up what I really wanted in detail. He just wrote down the wall itself and wrote guarantee no water.(Had a major water problem from a hill behind my house) He was suppose to widen a ditch above my house that was to take care of water runoff from the land above me. Instead he had his evacuator to fill it up with big rocks. When the rain came the ditch was so clodded up the water jumped the ditch and over the walls. My backyard and under my house was flooded. I told him he clodded the ditch with rock and the water could not flow. I reminded him he was suppose to have widened it and lined the ditch, not fill it up where the water could not flow. He finally came over after calling over and over again, and took some of the rock out of the middle but he never widened it. (he never wrote this in the contract, he just kept saying, "We'll take care of it, don't worry". I also hired him to do my landscaping (New Sod--mulch and planting scrub,etc---Before the flood waters) He left me in a muddy mess from Oct to March 2008 before he so-call finished. I had to have a man pour a concrete wall between me and my neighbor because the wall Ken built did not stop the water from flooding in my yard. The ditch was so full of rock, the water wouldn't flow so it dumped over my neighbors hill who's yard is higher than mine so the water flowed off their hill down to my backyard. After the concrete wall was built, I told him to put top soil to the top of the wall so the water would flow away from my house. He just put enough to level the yard and the water now soaks in the ground and eventually gets so water logged it soaks under my foundation and up under my house again. He was suppose to place lots of mulch around my trees and when he did not, He said, "Oh, I didn't figure that". He would not return my calls or answer my messages. Even though I told him all these things, he just kept saying, "We'll take care of it, we are the best". My mistake was to hire a so-call friend of my son and a Minister, and a man who I trusted without making him itemize everything I said. He acted like he wasn't responible to take care of this mess. even though he took about $30.000.00 from me and the landscaping is awful. I had to hire another man to do the side of my yard again and he got a man to put in a sump pump to help and I paid him over $4,000.00 dollars and it never worked. I finally called someone else to do it again and it cost me $875.00 because it was installed wrong. I told Ken about this and he said that was the other mans fault. I told him he was the man who got him to to it and I feel he was responible for his guys work. He said he would call him and talk to him and call me back. I never heard from him again. He has a bubbly personality, but he is a fraud and NOT a man of his word.

Description of Work: Initially contacted to construct a retaining wall, ca. 4.5' high, curving 12' to contain water run-off/erosion. Work entailed clearing brush, minimal excavating by hand, laying uncemented blocks, filling with crushed rock. 2nd proposed job was a smaller (2' high) retaining wall.