Northwest Landscape Maintenance

AVOID THIEVES
Never hire Northwest Landscape Maintenance to do any work for you.
On summer 2014, the HOA «Orchard Farm West» hired this company for us to trim the Bougainvillea plant nearby our house.
Two workers from Northwest Landscape Maintenance came to do this job.
When they were working, the manager of those 2 workers called them from time to time.
I asked the workers how I should pay for this work, which I knew beforehand is $ 120.
They dialed their manager and the manager told me to pay $ 120 to those 2 workers.
So I paid $ 120 to those two workers for the project to complete the deal.
Then, the Northwest Landscape Maintenance required the HOA «Orchard Farm West» to pay $ 120 also, so the Northwest Landscape Maintenance has received the payment for the same job for a second time.
When I called to the accounting department of the Northwest Landscape Maintenance, the accountant responded me that the company had not received $ 120 from those 2 workers or their manager. It means those 3 people stole $ 120, and the company the Northwest Landscape Maintenance cannot even clarify who those people are, who the company sent to trim the Bougainvillea plant here.
The HOA «Orchard Farm West» required us to reimburse $ 120 for their payment, so we did, after had already lost $ 120 that we paid the team (thieves) from Northwest Landscape Maintenance.

I question this company’s integrity and have decided not to do business with them.

We selected Warren and his company after seeing them do some good paver work in the neighborhood. Warren is easy to work with and talk to when we could reach him. Getting a quote was a hassle of unreturned calls and missed deadlines. However, this was no different than every other of the several vendors we sought bids from. It’s a sellers market. Several months after we wanted to start, they broke ground. His employees were polite and worked amazingly hard when necessary.
The job took about 2 weeks longer than quoted. It was pretty clear he was juggling more than one job, — not unusual or unreasonable. A whole bunch of guys worked at the house for the first several days then only 1 – 2 guys would return on most of the remaining days working about 6 hours per day.
In the end, his guys disappeared leaving behind a $ 50 hose they borrowed without asking and destroyed in the process. Concrete was left splashed on windows, trees and walls. Warren did not seek or offer a walk-​through to ensure the job was done right. Instead, he emailed a bill for changes made that added about 4 percent to the entire job total. It was a surprise considering the changes were very basic and were discussed during the initial quote process but apparently overlooked when he submitted the broad-​brushed quote.
In the end, the hardscape looks great and as far as I can tell is built to last. As we begin the landscaping on our own, though, we are finding several issues. We’re finding buried debris from the job and careless work on the sprinklers and landscape wiring.
He charged us a huge amount for the irrigation line item with the stated expectation he’d be putting new irrigation throughout the entire back yard. For that huge amount, they put in one small zone and connected all the pre-​existing zones using my old valves, wiring and controller. Now, upon planting the area, we’re finding two of the valves won’t activate with the controller and all of the zones are so plugged with mud that each one has to be disassembled and flushed. None of the sprinklers in the new zone actually hit the zone, they just spray over the top of it. So, I’m left spending my time and money fixing a job that I paid a huge amount to get done by Warren’s crew.
Landscape wiring was run straight across the planting area, rather than running around the perimeter where the lights actually go. The first shovel into the dirt to plant a tree resulted in the wire being yanked out of the transformer. Doing the job right would have cost $ 10 in additional wire. I know, because I’m the one now redoing the job the right way.
Would I use Warren again? Yes, for the hardscape. In hindsight, I’d require a detailed line-​item quote from him and set clear written expectations for what the job would look like at the end down to the smallest detail to prevent being charged for changes at the end. Probably not a bad idea no matter who you use. Lesson learned.