Cu Landscaping & General Construction

Mr. CU gave an estimates and took a deposit of $2700 on April 9th 2022 and informed work to start in 2 weeks. Have attempted to contact him many times and does not respond.

We hired Mr. Cu to level our front yard, build a retaining wall, and plant shrubs around the perimeter. His original quote was $11,000 before tax. After getting several lower estimates we decided we wanted Mr. Cu to do the work because we liked his ideas, but we told him we needed him to come down on price. He agreed, dropped the price $2000, and with tax the final price was just under $10,000. We wrote up a contract, we asked him if he took Visa and he said yes. We gave him our Visa number and put $4000 down with the balance to be paid upon completion in January. His crew arrived two days later. They do not speak English. They worked quickly and the job progressed nicely. On Day #2 I looked outside to see the wall half built, but noticed they were using a different stone than we selected. We left several messages for Mr. Cu but couldn't reach him. We explained to the female crew leader that it was the wrong stone, she removed that stone and piled it on pallets in our RV lot, ordered the correct stone and started installing that. The incorrect stone was left in our RV lot for two weeks before it was picked up which was inconvenient, but workable. The job was 95% completed within one week. The wall, sod, shrubs and bark look great. The only thing left was to plant a tree in the yard and we were told they would be back in the spring to plant the tree, which surprised us! We were told mid-February at the latest they would be back. We asked Mr. Cu to just take the tree off of the bill and we would take care of it ourselves later, he refused, assured us they would be back to plant the tree. In mid-February we got a call that they would be by to plant the tree the next day. Mr. Cu told us our balance of close to $6000 was due, and he wanted it paid by check. We reminded him that he had agreed to a credit card transaction back in December, and the deposit of $4000 was billed to that card. He said he didn't take credit cards normally, he was charged for them, and he wanted the balance due in a check. We explained that wouldn't be easy to do, that it would be a hardship. Mr. Cu was insistent. I transferred money from savings, Mr. Cu showed up the next day and planted the tree. I handed him his check, then he told me that he needed the amount split up into TWO checks so the bank wouldn't put a hold on them! I was infuriated that he went back on his contract and demanded we pay by check. I almost told him that if he wanted the balance paid to just bill the card, but I also wanted it over and done with. I did tell him that he put us in a bind by demanding the balance paid by check, but he didn't seem bothered at all. We are torn in our review. The yard and wall are beautiful. They did really nice work, but the communication/language barrier obviously was an issue when it came to materials and placement of shrubs and trees. I would recommend Mr. Cu for his work and the work of his crew, but I will never recommend Mr. Cu because of his business practices and lack of professionalism. Changing the payment terms of a contract midway through is unethical, and I won't recommend him because of this. If Mr. Cu is hired, get everything in writing, make sure payment terms are specific and in writing, and make sure someone is around to watch the crew. They are dependable and hard working, but we had to remind them several times what went where, and since the wrong material was halfway installed before I noticed it, it set them back a day. The good news is we have a front yard we're proud of, but the bad news is that we won't recommend who did it for us.

There was a communication problem. He is from Vietnam and his workers either didn't want to speak English or couldn't. The job got done, but the communication was not the easiest. He does know his business. He knew exactly what he was doing. People always stop to comment on the yard. It looks great!

Mr Cu's team arrives, begins working immediately, cleans up any cuttings, trimmings, etc. and departs without fanfare leaving a perfectly trimmed yard. Other companies could learn a lot from these folks!

After the job completed, everything looked great; but then again, it was just hydro-seed which required time to grow. After a month, we noticed several patchy areas, approximately 30% of the backyard. We called Mr. Cu, who is very hard to get in touch with, perhaps because the job was done and the payment made. On that note, when you do get a bid from Mr. Cu, make sure he documents everything on paper and signs it, including the bid price. I realize this is mostly standard procedure but when the payment was made, he had asked for a higher price. During the bid, he promised to lay weed blockers over the top soil to prevent weeds; I later poked through the sod to find that was a false promise. Like I said make sure he's documenting everything that he's saying. After several attempts to contact him and we eventually did, all he did was leave us a couple of small bags of lawn seed on our front door. He did bother to come over for us to walk through the result. I felt that was pretty pathetic.