Life's a Beech

Oh where to begin. Here is our big beautiful beech tree. It provided plenty of shade (often too much shade for our garden) and plenty of leaves in the fall. The only downside is it was dangerous. It was dead, rotting, and branches were falling. In fact, one large branch fell a couple of weeks ago breaking the top of part of our fence. We needed it down, ASAP. Storm season is coming up.

Foreman is up in the tree. One of the large branches that had fallen from being cut.

First problem of the day: the crew showed up at 11:30am when they said by 9am. There is already things going wrong in the above picture. The foreman said that they would rope the large branches down, therefor not causing as much damage to anything that may be in it's way as it came down. Well, they didn't rope a single branch down. Now in the below picture, it gets worse. This was the real cause of our stress.

The entire tree is in our neighbor's yard on the other side of our fence.

We knew the tree was not in a good spot. The foreman told us that he would cut down our tree segments at a time so that it would not do what it ended up doing. He later complained that the tree was really heavy and blah blah...he knew it was a beech tree which is a very hard and heavy wood!

In the process we knew our yard would get trashy but it was in the agreement that they would clean it up. No biggy.

So since they got here late (2 1/2 hours) they stayed until about 7:45pm. But they were complaining the whole time saying they didn't want to come back the next day because they weren't getting paid enough. blah blah blah! They were the ones who estimated the job, and they were the ones who didn't come on time. If they didn't think they were getting paid enough, then they should have estimated for more. However, we had gotten 2 other bids before we decided on these guys. All 3 of the bids were about the same give or take a hundred dollars. So before they left they had asked on two occasions for their payment. The first time was about 3:30pm and he was asking for cash instead of check. What a joke. I told him I doubt Scott would do that. Then they asked again before they left. We told them we weren't going to pay them until they were done. Anywho, they left without being paid. The rest of the pictures are from the next morning of the remains of what they had left.

The log on the left was from the previous branch, our problem. But the log on the right was from them, their problem.

Again, the broken fence on the left, our problem from before. The broken part next to the gate, their problem.

One of the many divots/holes they created.

An imprint from a branch

They told us that our yard would look like nothing happened. I'm pretty sure the deeps gauges into our yard say something else.

Deep hole where a branch impaled itself.

The back side of our fence where they "piled neatly" our firewood.

The "neatly" cut stump

The several broken trees that they hit that belonged to our neighbor. Everything on the other side of our fence is not our property.

The brush that they threw into our other neighbor's yard.

The agreement was they would throw the brush to the curb because the city will pick it up. Several occasions they complained to ME that it was too far away and the wood was too heavy. Hold on, isn't that what we're paying you for????!!!!

This branch was impaled about 2 feet down. Cabo is the size comparison and model.

You can see the brush all to the right side of the fence that should be on the street...IS ON OUR NEIGHBOR'S PROPERTY.

The pole. They told us they would cut it into fire wood size. And this is how they left it.

Now this is in my neighbor's yard.

Everything on the left side of the fence is in our neighbor's yard. Seriously?

This divot was about 12 feet long. Again, in my neighbor's yard.

The photo doesn't do it justice. But the hole here is approx 4 feet deep. Again, neighbor's yard.

A complete mess.

To say the least we were furious. Our neighbor was fuming. Scott was livid. (I was more ticked about my flowers being smashed by their obnoxious feet) They finally came back the second day at guess what time?! 11:30am. Scott had called the night before after they had left and left a voicemail on their boss's work phone. In summary "I am completely dissatisfied. They asked my wife for money when they were not even close to being done. I'm not paying a single cent until they are done. They ruined my neighbor's yard. I am extremely upset at the work that has been done, or lack thereof". So they came back with a second crew. They went to work and at about 2:30 when they said they were done I went out to inspect it. At this point I just wanted them to leave. I was in the house and could hear them yelling and fighting with each other like a bunch of 12 year old girls. I'm not even kidding. So I called Scott and gave the phone to the foreman. Scott said in essence, "My wife is not going to pay you. I will pay you after I have spoken with my neighbor to be sure that he is satisfied." The foreman was obviously mad at Scott. He gave me the phone and I kid you not, ran off to his truck. They left. They came back that night after Scott had gotten home. Scott and our neighbor had them do some last minute jobs that they missed. (Mind you, all that day and night when they came back they complained about not being paid enough for this) In the end, we learned our lesson. NEVER hire door knockers. The thing is, we've seen them in our neighborhood before and saw the work they did. Not bad. But NEVER EVER. That was a ridiculous experience. There is more to the story, like more specifics of what happened. But this was the overall gist.