The Vent - Part 2

[Marilyn. 340]

so I just called and the lady said she couldn't find any mail back there for me... she said to call back by 4:30 if the mail wasn't delivered today..

I guess it is a possibility that we didn't get any mail

[Krikit 1,164]

so I just called and the lady said she couldn't find any mail back there for me... she said to call back by 4:30 if the mail wasn't delivered today..

I guess it is a possibility that we didn't get any mail

If she couldn't find it it's probably being delivered to your house. lol

[Marilyn. 340]

so I just called and the lady said she couldn't find any mail back there for me... she said to call back by 4:30 if the mail wasn't delivered today..

I guess it is a possibility that we didn't get any mail

If she couldn't find it it's probably being delivered to your house. lol

I guess.. maybe they just found it today

[Carlawarla 1]

I'm annoyed and frustrated over the "lawn care" people we hired off of craigslist. The lady came prior to doing the job and quoted us $60.00 an hour (saying there was two of them, but that $60.00 included the two people), and that the job would take approximately 8-10 hours. We were to pay for the sod cutter, $70.00 for the day, and then $100.00 for removal. So, we figured approximately $770.00. I had her sign this written up agreement.

She mentioned she would show up at 6:30 a.m. on the 17th. She phoned on the 16th to say rain was expected, so she couldn't come now until the 24th. On the 24th by 8:00 a.m. I called her, and left a message on her voice mail. She called back at 8:30 a.m. and said they were on their way, they couldn't pick up the sod cutter until 8:00 a.m. when Home Depot opened. I checked HD website and it said they open at 6:00 a.m.? Hmmm. So they both show up just after 9:30 a.m. The machine is 400 lbs. She can't use it, so he has to use it, and she's rolling sod up behind him. About a quarter of the way into the job, the sod is not rolling up, and is just breaking down in clumps. She comes to the house to tell me. It looks to me that it's maybe not cutting in deep enough, and I tell her that, thinking that maybe it doesn't have a good enough "bed" underneath the grass to allow itself to be rolled up, but she says no. She asks for garden bags to put the "clumps" in. I said we didn't have any left, so they go out for lunch, and to pick up bags. They get back and after about a half hour, she comes to the door and asks for a shovel, a spade, and a rake. Grrr. I'm thinking, didn't you bring your own?? About an hour after that, she comes to the door to tell me that things are going slower than expected, and that it's not rolling in the middle of the lawn as there is grubs and that's what making the lawn crumble. I don't know if that's true, nor do I know what I'm supposed to do about it. She said they're going to finish cutting the lawn and they'll have to come back tomorrow to finish up. I said fine. I had no intention of giving her any money until the job was done.

The next day, SHE is back. No guy. She starts "rolling". She can roll now, as it's quite obvious that they did set the cutter lower, and now it's deeper and she can roll. I ask her why she's by herself, and she gives me this huge story about where her partner is. Then some other guy with a 8 foot trailer shows up and starts loading the rolls of sod. Then he leaves. I have to go out at 9:00 a.m. and tell her I'll be back at 11:00 a.m. I'm back at 11:00 a.m. and she tells me another guy with a 10' trailer has been here and gone with another load of sod. I can't tell if that's happened, because I really don't know for sure how much was there when I left, but I really don't care, because that's her job to get rid of it. I do notice however that there is about 17 bags of lawn waste. I said to her, we're paying you $100.00 to dump this sod, and now you have 17 bags of lawn waste that WE'RE supposed to get rid of?? She said, well, there is nothing we can do, this is the clumped stuff. I phone Gene,and he's mad.

At noon, she comes to the door and tells me, there is two strips of sod, that for some reason??? weren't cut, so she doesn't know what to do. She said, do you just want to dig it up? I said, NO, we hired YOU so that we didn't have to do that. I don't want my husband to have to do it, it's heavy work, and we hired someone to do it, so HE didn't have to. UGH!!! She said, well I don't know what to do. I said, let me call my husband. I explain the situation, and he's mad, I say, YOU talk to her. He does, and I can hear her end of the convo. I get on the phone when he's done and he said, I told her it's her responsibility to get it done, whether she digs it up by hand or she has to rent the machine again, but the part that they forgot to cut the day before is HUGE and he's not doing it. If she does leave it, he's taking $60.00 an hour off what we said we'd pay her for him to do it. (I really don't want him to do it.) I should also mention that we KNEW it was hard work, but we thought since she had a landscaping business that she knew what she was doing and priced accordingly. We were even going to give her up to this point a $70.00 tip because it was hard work.

So, at 1:00 pm she comes to the door and says that she needs money to pay the guys that were hauling that SHE hired from craigslist. I said, no. The hauling was part of HER pay, and she could pay them after she got paid and she wouldn't get paid until the job was completed. Now she's really mad, and she's yelling at me. I'm very intimidated and not scared, but I"m just cringing inside and feeling sick. I don't like conflict like this!!!

I call Gene and put her on the phone with him and they get into a huge arguement over the phone! I can see her with the portable phone yelling at him, saying... "grubs....I'm all alone today....you owe me....hauling...would cost you from someone else....blahblahblah" UGH!!!!!!!! She then hands me back the phone and says she'll see me Thursday morning. She said she'll pay for the 1/2 day of the rental of the sod cutter since it was their fault that they didn't cut it, but not the labour.

Wow, I just looked back to what I wrote. LOL That was very cathartic!

I know we're going to "get into" it on Thursday when it's time to pay. Gene can't really take the time off of work to deal with this. I feel badly as it is that I've even called him twice yesterday to handle this conflict as it is. The problem that we're going to have is that this has gone on now for much longer than the number of hours she said it was going to take now. Not because of anything we did though. It was because they didn't cut it right the first day. She says that if she had to dig it up by hand, it would take her an extra two hours anyway. So, that's now 12 or 13 hours of labour? Should we even be paying that?? She says she would never have given us a estimation so low if she knew it all couldn't have been rolled, and it couldn't all have been rolled because of the grubs. Gene says it could have all been rolled had they cut it correctly as they did for over 1/2 the yard. We CAN see where it was rolled, and that the level is deeper for which they set the cutter. Again, arguments...arguments....

I'm exhausted, and I was exhausted yesterday...

[Krikit 1,164]

Ohhhhhh, God, Carla. What a nightmare. I hope she's had time to come to her senses by the time she comes back tomorrow. Her low estimate is HER problem..... not yours. Don't pay her any more than she's contracted for. She promised you two workers.... you didn't get that. Hold her to her contract. It will be a good lesson for her. Wishing you a good day tomorrow.

[JillA 2]

Oh my gosh Carla, that's terrible!! I hate confrontation as well, that must have been awful for you. It was smart of you to write up a contract though, so she has to follow through.

My vent is that we have a mouse or mice in our apartment My husband wanted to buy those traps that snap them but I refused, as I won't kill them. So I bought live traps instead and will let them free when they are caught. It just makes me feel uncomfortable that I have new roomates

[Carlawarla 1]

Oh my gosh Carla, that's terrible!! I hate confrontation as well, that must have been awful for you. It was smart of you to write up a contract though, so she has to follow through.

My vent is that we have a mouse or mice in our apartment My husband wanted to buy those traps that snap them but I refused, as I won't kill them. So I bought live traps instead and will let them free when they are caught. It just makes me feel uncomfortable that I have new roomates

ewwwwwwww mice! I've never seen a live trap. We had mice once years ago and I had my ex set traps, and that meant he had to check them and remove them...I never wanted to see them. I remember waking up at night to "snap"!! ick!! How do you empty a live trap though? Where do you take them? Can't you just leave poison or something out and have them eat that and then die? Maybe they hide to die and then disintegrate!

[JillA 2]

Oh my gosh Carla, that's terrible!! I hate confrontation as well, that must have been awful for you. It was smart of you to write up a contract though, so she has to follow through.

My vent is that we have a mouse or mice in our apartment My husband wanted to buy those traps that snap them but I refused, as I won't kill them. So I bought live traps instead and will let them free when they are caught. It just makes me feel uncomfortable that I have new roomates

ewwwwwwww mice! I've never seen a live trap. We had mice once years ago and I had my ex set traps, and that meant he had to check them and remove them...I never wanted to see them. I remember waking up at night to "snap"!! ick!! How do you empty a live trap though? Where do you take them? Can't you just leave poison or something out and have them eat that and then die? Maybe they hide to die and then disintegrate!

Well the live traps are pretty easy, I'll even empty them! It's just a little box, on a slant with a door. So I put peanut butter in the back, and they run in to eat in and the weight makes the door close. There are holes for air, then I pick up the trap and bring it outside to the field and open the door and the poor guy makes a run for it. The poison ones are a good idea, but I'm weary they will hide and die in our place and I don't want mouse corpses hiding about

[Ban Hammer 13,342]

carla, this sounds like a new version of the pave your driveway scam. keep track of the hours they work as i expect the bill they try to give you will be higher than you expected.

they should provide all of the tools they need, along with garbage bags.

[Carlawarla 1]

carla, this sounds like a new version of the pave your driveway scam. keep track of the hours they work as i expect the bill they try to give you will be higher than you expected.

they should provide all of the tools they need, along with garbage bags.

I've never heard of the "pave your driveway scam"? I have been keeping track of their hours, and we are in agreement thus far on how many hours they've worked. The problem is, so far, they've worked 10 hours, which is fine, as she said it would take them 8-10, and we thought 10 was fine, however because they didn't cut the sod in those two places (not our fault!), they have to come back and now she wants to charge us the labour for that. She didn't give us a "I will have this done in 8-10 hours), she gave us a "this should be done in approximately 8-10 hours", and that's what she signed. However by the time it's done, it will have been maybe 12 or 13 hours. And we did agree to an hourly rate, so this is where I'm having some problems...well, that and having to tell her and have her YELL at me. Of course they should have used their own tools, but they didn't have any...I couldn't refuse to let them use ours. lol They did go buy the bags from Lowe's and didn't provide me a reciept, but now you got me thinking that maybe she will?

Edited August 26, 2009 by Carlawarla

[Krikit 1,164]

Don't do the poison thing! If they die in your house somewhere.... behind the walls or something.... you'll get larvae and then flies galore! It will be something out of a horror movie. Trust me. You need to find where they're coming in and seal that up.

[Carlawarla 1]

Don't do the poison thing! If they die in your house somewhere.... behind the walls or something.... you'll get larvae and then flies galore! It will be something out of a horror movie. Trust me. You need to find where they're coming in and seal that up.

Oh, that's good to know. You talk from experience I bet.... Doesn't sound like she'd do that anyway. She's using the live traps. I've never seen them. They sound cool, as long as you have someplace to let them go. But you're right Krikit, you have to find out where they're coming from or else they keep coming back!

[JillA 2]

Don't do the poison thing! If they die in your house somewhere.... behind the walls or something.... you'll get larvae and then flies galore! It will be something out of a horror movie. Trust me. You need to find where they're coming in and seal that up.

Oh, that's good to know. You talk from experience I bet.... Doesn't sound like she'd do that anyway. She's using the live traps. I've never seen them. They sound cool, as long as you have someplace to let them go. But you're right Krikit, you have to find out where they're coming from or else they keep coming back!

Oh definitely!! Today Glen's grandfather is coming over to help me pull out the stove and fridge as I think there is a hole back there. He'll help me seal it up I have great in-laws!

[Krikit 1,164]

Don't do the poison thing! If they die in your house somewhere.... behind the walls or something.... you'll get larvae and then flies galore! It will be something out of a horror movie. Trust me. You need to find where they're coming in and seal that up.

Oh, that's good to know. You talk from experience I bet.... Doesn't sound like she'd do that anyway. She's using the live traps. I've never seen them. They sound cool, as long as you have someplace to let them go. But you're right Krikit, you have to find out where they're coming from or else they keep coming back!

I've never been so freaked out in my life! And I lived alone, so I couldn't run out screaming and have someone else take care of it.

Jill, your inlaws sound awesome.

[Autumnchik 6]

So, my inlaws were planning to come visit us in September. However, my MIL has to have her gallbladder removed and has to wait for a surgery date. She was told it could be anywhere from now until 3 months from now, and she might only get a couple days notice. Grrrrr!!!!