I received an estimate from A Gardener's Scape ( aka Chris Tull) in Feb.2002. I signed a contract for him to do landscaping in March 2002. The agreement was for us to pay 1/3 at signing, 1/3 at half completion, and 1/3 upon completion. We were told by him that the project would take 60 days at the most, and that we would be the only job that he would be working on ( I was specific about this to him).
We signed the contract and wrote him a check for 1/3 of the job. We did not see him for 4 weeks after that.I called repeatedly, but he kept telling us that he needed to finish an other job, so he could devote all of his time to ours.After threatening to cancel the deal and take him to court, he finally showed up and did a tiny amount of work.
He then asked for MORE money before the job was half completed. He was very unprofessional, and told us that if he didn't get more money his wife would leave him or his phone would be cut off.It was not long after we gave him the second 1/3 of the money, that he wanted the last portion EVEN THOUGH HE HADN"T FINISHED HALF OF THE PROJECT YET.
At this point, the 60 day job was on it's fourth month!Our yard was a total shambles. We could never get him or his workers to stay and work all day, and he kept forgetting what he was doing. He and his workers kept asking us questions that we had already answered many times. He acts like a person that is on drugs.After five months of this hell, we got as much work as we could out of him, and hired another company to finish the job.
The other company finished the other half of the project in two weeks.Chris Tull had the nerve to call us in December 2002 to tell us that we owed HIM more money and was threatening to sue us!My husband told him that if he called us again we would get a restraining order. We found out later, through his former employees, that he didn't pay his workers for months ( sometimes not at all).
He spent all our money on other jobs and didn't have the money to finish our project, and according to former employees, didn't care if he did finish our project.His former workers also claim he doesn't have the bonding that he claims in his Yellow Page ad. Stay away from this nut case!
Diane
Bellingham, Washington
U.S.A.