Bartlinski Property Maintenance

As a recent first time home owner, I was a little more than overwhelmed about all the crazy little things that need to be taken care of with a house. Add to it the single woman factor and it seems that every sales person’s eyes light up with dollar signs when they think they can take you for a ride and make you buy every little thing that your house may or may not need. I’ve gotten accustomed to searching for services on the better business bureau website, I don’t want to let handymen or plumbers or anyone into the house if they’re not recognized by this service. They led me to a great moving company and I figured I’d use them again for my jungle of a backyard.
When I first set up service the gentleman I spoke with came out to the house, gave me an estimate for both the lawn and the backyard and told me bushes and shrubs would be maintained as well as the front yard. I was relieved to cut a check and not have to deal with it anymore. The first month of service went well, given it was January and the grass and plants weren’t growing very much. However, as months went by I noticed my lawn was deteriorating. For a landscaper it seems it would be common sense to rake the lawn, but I had to specifically ask him to do so on several instances. Even then the raking was not thorough and it seems they only did small parts of the lawn. He also wasn’t very great with recommendations, and wasn’t familiar with common types of ivy and invasive species. I’m sorry if you’re a landscaper in florida you should be able to identify these things.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was when he tried to convince me to re-​sod my entire lawn. He said it was gone and would not be able to be salvaged (at this point it’s March) and he says in his opinion there’s no way the lawn will be green and flourish again. I told him I’d get a second opinion and have a lawn company come out and fertilize. He offered a colleague and I told him I’d prefer to go with my own company, which I did set up. A week later I get a call from his colleague offering fertilizing service. I’m sorry, but I definitely do not want my landscaper passing my phone number on to random people, especially after I explicitly asked him not to. Needless to say I terminated their services in April and have been doing the lawn myself (with the help of some dear friends and Tru Green).
Two months later, the lawn is full, lush and green. All it needed was a thorough raking so the air and water and light can actually get to it and it came back. No $ 750 re-​sod was needed. Later, when speaking to neighbors they told me whenever the lawn service would come out they would just dilly dally for a 10 minutes, run the tractor over the lawn and be done.
I’m not above spending money on my home, or even paying extra for premium service. Actually I’d say I’m the queen of paying extra for premium services, but I hate being cheated. I strongly dislike contractors, realtors, bankers, landscapers or whomever trying to take advantage of a girl because she has no man by her side to advise her otherwise. Do yourselves a favor guys, stay away from this company. I know being cheated and manipulated is kind of the standard in the home care world, but you owe it to yourselves and your hard earned money to keep the search on for something better.