r/homeownerstips

I hired a small landscaping business to remove weeds and clean up my backyard. The original quote was $400, but he offered to do it for $300 because of scheduling issues.

The scheduling has been a mess from the beginning. He was late/missed the agreed time several times and had to reschedule multiple times.

I had a rock delivery scheduled for Monday and someone coming to help me install the landscape fabric and spread the rock, so I asked him if he could finish the weed removal before Monday noon. He specifically told me he had pushed his other customers around and would be available all day Monday, and that he would come in the morning and finish before noon.

He worked about 1 hour Sunday evening, then left. On Monday, he was late again, worked about 2.5 hours, and then suddenly said he had another job to go to and couldn't finish.

He said the yard was more involved than expected. However, he had already seen the yard in person twice. He said I can either let him come back Wednesday and still pay the full $300, or he can stop now and charge me $150 for the work completed so far. I am totally okay to pay extra as per situation. But the thing is I want to get it done by Monday not Wednesday.

He blamed me for ordering the rock delivery, blamed me for taking time off work, and claimed I didn't give him enough details. Finally, he told me he’s just new, and that this is more of a hobby for him, not really a professional landscaping business.

At this point, some of the weeds have been removed, but the weeds he pulled haven't even been bagged, even though bagging/removing the weeds was part of the original job. There are also areas of the backyard that he hasn't worked on at all.

Am I obligated to pay him anything when the job was left incomplete and unbagged? (I paid him $50 cash on first day)

I went through a rotation of independent cleaners for about four years. Some were great, a couple were fine, and two eventually just stopped showing up. The biggest issue was always the gaps. Someone gets sick, takes a holiday, or ghosts, and suddenly i am scrambling for a replacement and explaining the whole house again , do not move the rug, upstairs faucet sticks, shoes off, the dog barks but he is fine.

i am seriously considering switching to a cleaning company now. Obviously more expensive, but i am trying to figure out whether the premium actually buys better consistency or if I’m just paying for an office and a logo. For anyone who’s used both, was the extra cost actually worth it?