RototillerGuy

I read the negative reviews on Yelp about his unprofessional and rude behavior before hiring him. I figured that he probably had a rough around the edges, no-nonsense personality based on his ex-military background that could rub people the wrong way. I also intuited that he felt quality of his work with fair and transparent pricing took precedence over customer service. After all, if you do your job, do it well, and do it on time and budget, that's what really matters, right? Who cares about feelings? That might work in a dogmatic, hierarchical system in the military that emphasizes chain of command and discipline, but when applied to civilian interactions, how you interact with people at work and home matters. As does integrity, which Merriam Webster defines as "firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : INCORRUPTIBILITY". His website blog emphasizes that he is a man of high integrity. But this is where his personal code of moral and incorruptible values differs from societal norms. Reading the negative and positive reviews, his price was always noted to be reasonable and no one ever complained about the quality of the work, just the man himself. I also figured that someone who has time to respond to each negative review like he was on 4chan was a very immature adult. This should have been a red flag not to hire him. Moving on, we hired him for lawn demo, rototilling, compost, soil prep, 5 sprinkler stations in the front yard, 5 in the backyard, with copper piping for the front sprinkler. When he arrived the day to start work, the sqft from our plans our landscape designer provided were inaccurate. He remeasured with me watching, and our plans were very inaccurate and we had to resubmit the bid. I asked him about factoring in extra labor and how many hours, to which he said "don't worry about it", but he will deny ever having said that. He will also say the website clearly says lawn demo estimates are there to add, he never tells clients how much extra time is needed because everyone complains, etc. The point is that he stood right next to me and reviewed my final bid to start the project before I clicked submit and never said anything more about the extra labor. We start the project and pay a 50% deposit. He tells me to coordinate with his son Matthew during the project who will be acting as the project manager. It's a bigger project than expected so they work 2 consecutive days with 4 workers. 1 day for demo, 1 day for rototilling/compost/soil prep. Also during that time 2 workers broke off to dig 2 drip line irrigations in the back yard for 1/2 a day so that our hardscapers could get ready to lay concrete. Based on the designs, my wife and I realize we did not include the irrigation for the planters area by the garage and that our old garage has no footings, so we ask Matthew (son and project manager) if the workers can move the trenches further away from the structure, which Matthew approved and his workers dug the necessary 12" trench, having to redig about 15 feet of trench. He got mad about this because he was unaware of this change. I followed his instructions - communicate w/ project manager, and he tried to blame me for his own poor communication. I get a text after day 2 about the extra labor for lawn demo - I initially feel annoyed that this large labor cost is now increasing the initial budgeted plan. I feel caught off-guard, but his workers worked their asses off, so okay, I'll pay. ***THIS IS WHERE THE RELATIONSHIP COMPLETELY BREAKS DOWN*** Matthew spoke with my wife after one of the workers hit a pipe and it started leaking. They shut off water valve to the sprinklers but still leaking. Mike said say it was a sprinkler head knocked off an old line and he saw it happen, but that was a lie as my wife was home. He blamed the valve to the sprinklers as being faulty, which is was. But after installing a new valve, the same area of our lawn continued to be wet and leak through the soil. Mike then said it was probably old water remaining in the pipes leaking through, except when I shut off all water valves and it was still soaking. He said his contract specifically says it does not cover damage to galvanized pipes and said he wouldn't be responsible for a $5000 repipe job. I dug and looked myself. They hit our copper mainline (see pic). He tried to blame us and our escrow for not disclosing the water line is not buried at code 18-24 inches, and he's not at fault for the property damage his workers caused. I refused to pay the remaining balance for work completed to date unless repair for damaged mainline was deducted. He finally capitulated and got his money for the work but never apologized. TL;DR - Don't hire him. He does the work he advertises well. He's just a terrible human being, and it will come out if anything unexpected occurs during the project. He is a bully and gaslighter. I hope he works through his anger and accountability issues someday