Merryman Grounds Maintenance

Stay away from this contractor. Google him.

Overall experience started well with great communication and advice from Dave Merryman, the provider, but by the end of the project I was thoroughly disenchanted with quality of the pavestone work, lack of communication with Mr. Merryman, and his refusal to honor all of the contract. Driveway widening was done very well, with the pavement subcontractor introducing steel rod reinforcements (REBAR) to the paving edges to strengthen it's load-carrying capacity. The men were timely and they did a very nice job of applying aggregate to match my existing driveway. Mr. Merryman initiated an excellent suggestion that I add a pavestone walkway to replace my existing short sidewalk. He worked with us to choose an appropriate red color to match the brick on our house, contrasting with tan edging stones to outline the sidewalk. His paving men arrived on time on the agreed start date, and did a nice job of clearing out the sod, tamping down the underlay of stones with a vibrating compactor, and laying out the pattern in the brickwork. However, the workmen never installed any paver edge restraints to ensure the bricks would stay in place, a highly-recommended feature from just about every home improvement video on YouTube or in how-to instructions from notable sources like Lowe's. A few days after the bricks were laid, the contractor sent out a single workman to pour fine sand between the bricks; this man arrived completely unprepared for the job. He even had to borrow my broom to sweep the sand in place! In addition, he didn't bring along a compactor to shake the sand down between the bricks and ensure a tight compaction. Instead, he handed me the remaining bag of sand and instructed me to sweep sand into any cracks myself as the sand settled between the bricks! I called Mr. Merryman to ask him why there were no edge restraints and also to question why they weren't using Polymeric Paver Sand, which not only cements the stones in place but helps keep weeds from growing between the stones. Mr. Merryman's answer to me was "if you want to spend the money on those items, you can buy it yourself". I subsequently took my yard blower and blew out most of the existing sand, and then purchased and applied Polymeric Sand myself. I even rented a vibrating compactor to compact the sand before I wet it down to lock the stones in. In addition, my wife and I spent an entire afternoon hand-digging out grass along the edge of the stones and installed metal paver edge restraints ourselves, a task that could have been accomplished with ease by the contractor during the initial pavestone installation. I am mystified why Mr. Merryman would not have taken those steps from the beginning: It only took 2 containers of Polymeric Sand to finish the job right (at a mere cost of $38 total) and the metal paver edging cost us an additional $60. Why would Mr. Merryman consider these quality touches too expensive, on a contract that paid him $3200? My final complaint with MGM is that Mr. Merryman wrote into our contract a promise that he would throw in "free" bark mulch in our flower beds after completion of the driveway work. Despite texts and 2 phone calls through his secretary (who promised action), Mr. Merryman refused to respond to my calls. I finally gave him an ultimatum to come by the end of August 2014 and complete the contract as agreed, but except for calling me, he has steadfastly refused to make good on his promises. I believe MGM has the skills, equipment, materials and expertise to do a great job, but is more focused on cost-cutting than industry-standard quality. This is to his detriment, because customers who are treated like me will never give them a good recommendation. Because Mr. Merryman didn't fulfill the terms of his contract fully, didn't communicate well, and forced me to undo some of the work in order to achieve the quality I had counted on him to provide, I have to give MGM a grade of D overall.

**Note to readers: This contractor has many aliases/business names, to include MGM, Dirty Dave's Sweeping, Harbor Construction, Christmas Decor. All are the same address, yet different phone numbers** This project started off simple enough. My husband and I wanted to use our tax refund to do some repairs and improvements to our yard- specifically, fix the drainage issues in our yard and install a backyard patio. The contractor (Dave Merryman) started off friendly and gave us an oral quote, which worked with our budget. My husband paid a down payment using the credit card machine in Dave's office and got a receipt with the promise of an invoice within the next few days. The longer the project went on, the more the original deal evolved (as I'm sure projects do) but as long as we didn't go over budget I wasn't concerned. I didn't like their paver selection MGM had (although we had already paid for pavers) so we went through a different company to buy pavers, therefore taking the already paid money to credit the rest of our project. We ended up paying in about three credit card installments. After the last payment (still no invoice-original or ammended, despite my asking several times) I noticed an additional charge for $800 on my credit card. When I called, he offered to meet with us (which he re-scheduled 3 times before cancelling altogether). Worried that we were being scammed, I shut off the card since he had accessed it without our knowledge or consent. The work itself was just okay - the workers did hit our fence with their backhoe and didn't tell us it had broken a 4x4, plus they left trash and cigarette butts all over our yard - but the biggest problem by far was that my husband was constantly calling the original contractor to get the $800 back. Whenever he recalled what he was charging us for, he added items (such as the pavers) that we had received and paid for from a different company altogether. Long story short, we started recording our conversations with him and 'borrowed' some of the equipment when the project was over to hold as collateral until we received our money back (which he would promise to credit, then go back on like he never agreed in the first place, so we would be back at square one). Finally, he called when he needed his equipment (now locked in our garage) and I talked to him vice my husband (to eliminate the testosterone factor, ha). We came to the agreement that we would deliver the equipment to his office the next morning as long as he signed an agreement saying that he would pay us our overcharge of $800 by the close of business that day (the bank would be closed at the time he needed his equipment at 6 a.m., which would give him time to go at 9:00am to get our cash). We drew up the agreement, met him the next morning, (we taped this, of course) delivered the equipment and both parties signed the agreement. By 1:00pm, we had our money back. The sad thing is, I could have overlooked the fact that he needed more money to finish our project, but to just re-ring our credit card using his machine was unethical and illegal. I'd never use this guy again based on that fact.

We have a paver patio installed now and it looks nice, but I am so glad the experience with MGM of Hampton is over! A couple days after giving us an estimate, they called us and said they had an opening that very same day and they could fit our project in, since it was somewhat smaller. It felt a bit rushed, but I figured we'd proceed. After they spent the day clearing the area of shrubs, we visited their site in Hampton to choose our stones/pavers. My husband and I easily agreed on our favorite, made a deal, and left. Shortly after that, we got a call stating they did not have enough of those stones to do our patio and to order more would take 3 weeks and cost and extra $500! We were now left with a giant mess in our back yard and a decision...so I made a second choice on the pavers- from their display. Surprise! They didn't have that in stock, either. The owner of MGM, David Merryman, said they would actually pull the sample out of the ground and give it to us, along with other matching stones they had-- and it would look nice. So we left it at that. The next morning was a nightmare! Mr. Merryman called me and was immediately hostile. He said they didn't have extra, matching stones, but could still give us the sample. The problem was- they would need to make it slightly smaller than planned. This news is in addition to MGM telling us the day before that the estimate had now gone up another $800, partly because they had not measured properly in the first place. So I tried to tell the owner- if I was getting a smaller patio, we needed to re-negotiate price. He proceeded to say the following: "If you're going to Jew me down, we're not going to come out there." Needless to say, my jaw hit the floor. The owner of a company would speak to a customer like this? When I repeated parts of the plan he was telling me on the phone, to make sure I understood... he blurted out "It seems like you have amnesia and you've forgotten what we talked about last night!" Fortunately for us, the lead construction worker, Scott, was great. He found extra, matching stone. He and the crew installed it and it looks nice. Bottom line: I'm pretty sure we coul have found another company that did the same work without grossly disrespecting me. I hope this review will help you. Another thing we've learned during this process is to have written estimate AND have it re-written as changes are made.

I was very happy with the work that was done in my back yard. The initial price was lower than the price that I actually ended up paying. The quality of work was worth the additional amount. They did clean the area before they left, if needed I would use them again. I would recommend them to others.

I was very happy with the work that was done in my back yard. The initial price was lower than the price that I actually ended up paying. The quality of work was worth the additional amount. They did clean the area before they left, if needed I would use them again. I would recommend them to others.