Zechariah Foxworthy Absolute Lawn and Landscape, Jungle Boys Lawn and Landscape, Straight Edge Lawn and Landscape Failed to complete work as agreed upon and paid for Indianapolis Indiana

On April 7th, 2023 I made a post on a community site on Facebook looking for recommendations for a professional landscaper to come and assess a serious drainage issue and overall poor condition of my backyard. I received several names. A Kaia Smith posted a business card for Absolute Lawn and Landscape as one of several  businesses recommended by others. I didn't know it at that time she was the fiancée of the business owner. And have since figured out, unfortunately too late, that she trolls multiple community group sites recommending Absolute Lawn and Landscape and is the "front man" lining up customers for him to scam. 

I finally started to call several on Apr 24 but no one was answering their phones. However within a minute of me calling the phone number listed for Absolute Lawn and Landscape they called me back. I was told he was in the area and could come that same day to look at my backyard and give me his recommendations and the cost for him to complete same. Which was great because along with the urgency  to fix the drainage issue that was threatening the integrity of my home's foundation, I needed the muddy areas corrected ASAP due to unexpectedly having to take in a rescue dog. I was tired of dealing with mud being tracked into my home. My health makes cleaning same all the time extremely challenging.

Zechariah Foxworthy and another male showed up at my house that afternoon and he did a brief walk around my backyard. I explained and showed him exactly where I had standing water after it would rain and pointed out the multiple rivulets in my lawn created by water not properly being absorbed by the lawn itself and traveling down to the two areas that were the worst areas that collected standing water. One along my rear south foundation. The other around and under my front fence gate. I also told him that I needed to get all the areas around my fence posts seeded because of the dirt left after having a new privacy fence installed in Jan 2023. We also discussed seeding alongside the backside of my rear fence line where I had a large amount of brush, invasive bushes and debris cleared in early March 2023. I made it clear I wanted him to make my backyard functional and safe for me to walk around in and resolve the standing water issue from my yard not properly absorbing rain water. 

He initially tried to get me to agree to installing a french drain but I was not comfortable with that. He also tried to talk me into just replacing all my existing lawn with sod and I was not comfortable with that either. Thank God I didn't agree to either as I would have lost even more money than I did. And I have since seen sod jobs he did for other folks like me that he scammed. We finally agreed on a plan to add some top soil to two areas along the south foundation line to help move the water flow away and out from the two trouble spots, add soil around my concrete patio I had installed earlier in April to bring the lawn more level to the patio where my step off was 5 inches from same , seed all areas devoid of grass including the area along the backside of my rear fence, put a thick layer of straw down to minimize my rescue dogs contact with mud because he was adding topsoil and watering would create even larger areas of mud, address the multiple rivulets by adding spot soil and seed, and last but not least, aerate to improve the entire yards ability to absorb rain water, and spread fertilizer and weed killer to my entire back yard making it more functional. We did not set a date to start and he was to email me the agreement that night.

I did not get the agreement as promised.  The very next day, April 25th he was calling me at 10:12 am. He said he had just finished a grading project in Southern Dunes (roughly 4 miles from my home) and had the dirt and equipment to start work on my yard that morning. I was hesitant because it was moving too fast, especially without an agreement in hand,  but he pushed for me to let him come and start. At 10:22am before he even arrived, I received a text from PNC Bank saying Zechariah Foxworthy was requesting I Zelle him the full $1800 we had agreed to. And I foolishly did so by 10:25am. That was exactly what he hoped I would do. 

He and the same male that was with him the day before arrived around 10:45 am. What I was able to observe was Foxworthy using a mini skid steer loader. I only saw the soil being spread around the patio and after he did that I observed the other male tossing seed by hand on top of the soil then laying a layer of straw over it. I could see him moving back and forth behind my rear fence line with the mini loader because the rear gate was opened but was unable to see if seed was spread. 

They were at my home less than than 2 hours, leaving around 12:30pm. He did not do a walk through after he said they were done, but said he would be back in two weeks to reseed as needed and check on the settling of the soil around the patio. He had stated when we were establishing what he was going to do that he wanted to wait to aerate, fertilize and spread weed killer after the new grass was well established. But cost for same was included in his quoted price.

     I did my best to keep the areas covered in straw wet to promote germination. But I also noticed that evening, when I finally had the chance to fully walk the backyard cautiously,  he had not done anything as far as seeding all the dirt around all the fence posts as promised. I assumed he would do that next when he came to check the progress of what little they did do. By May 15th I had not heard from or seen Zechariah stop by to check how well the seed had germinated. Essentially I had zero evidence of new grass and the established grass he covered with top soil was the only thing working it's way up through it. So I emailed him with pictures attached of some of those areas.

He didn't call me but out of the blue, while I was away from the home he had emailed me at 9:11am on May 16th saying he had a guy at my house to reseed but he couldn't get my gate opened. I didn't see the email until after 12pm. But I saw on my security camera the guy had managed to get in and my camera recorded him raking the dirt around the patio but didn't show him seeding nor did he put fresh straw down to protect the seed from blowing or washing away. When I got home I really couldn't see any fresh seed. And May 19th we had heavy rain that undoubtedly washed any he may have put down since there was no longer any straw to help protect that from from happening.

That was the last time I heard from him. I went to communicating by email only at this point so I had documentation of everything. An email asking when he was going to return to finish the agreed upon work was sent Jun 6th, followed by another one June 13th. Both included pictures of the sad state of my yard where he had done anything to it. No response. My yard is in worse shape now than it was before he touched it. I have more areas with standing water than before. And the patio soil settled and I am right back to a 4 or 5" step down onto the lawn. If I physically could have done what little he did, I could have easily bought some dirt, seed and straw for under $100, spread the soil by hand raking, worked the seed in and probably had a better outcome. But with COPD I can't. I have to depend on others to do something I use to be able to do myself.

What little he did was no where worth the $1800 he quoted. And he already had the dirt and equipment from a project he did that morning before mine. I am sure that customer paid for all the dirt and the mini skid loader and Zechariah saw an opportunity to double dip using what he had from their project that they already had paid for and charged me as well. 

On June 15th I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. That is when I saw I was not the first person he scammed. There were two complaints showing he did the exact same thing to others. He agrees to do specific work, does some of it, or does shoddy work, leaves much left undone and never responds to phone calls or emails afterwords and do what an honest business owner would do. Make things right. He never returns to fix or finish the agreed upon work.

He also didn't respond to the BBB in those other cases, including my complaint. So our cases were closed and he shows an "F" rating on the BBB website because of his refusal to respond. There was also 5 reviews on the BBB site saying pretty much the same thing about how he takes your money and leaves you hanging. He also has several civil cases on MyCase specific to his business. One is still pending. It was set for trial the last week of August but was rescheduled for October by request of either the homeowner or Foxworthy. I wasn't able to determine. But my guess it was at Foxworthy's request. 

I posted a "Do Not Hire" warning on several Facebook community group sites, and on NextDoor the same night I filed a complaint with the BBB and was dumbfounded when others started to respond saying he did the same to him. As of September 12th I have connected to 28 additional customers, including two vendors that provided him with landscape materials, that he scammed. All identical as far as how he scammed them, and all from the last three years since he first started his business as Jungle Boys Lawn and Landscape. 

Please Note. Pictures were my lawn before he touched it. However when trying to add what it looks like now I had exceeded the limits and it won't let me remove the pictures of how my yard looked before Foxworthy touched it so I could post pictures of how horrible it is now.