Unhappy Consumer
Expected much better from Marcel Miranda's company
When I hired Miranda Renovation & Landscape Company, it was from a
recommendation based on a commercial job they had done quite well. I
expected they would do the same with my smaller project of a stone
walkway and a new lawn. The walkway came out
okay, a few stones could have been cut to fill in some gaps but it was
acceptable. With the time they saved by not cutting stones, I expected
a
much
better lawn than what I got.
Here is a picture of a section of my lawn 2 weeks after they had left
the job.
Click on the image to see a larger picture.
Notice the area that is completely barren. The picture really
gives you an idea of what
I was left. I had picked out hundreds of pounds of rocks and large
pieces of wood, also a couple dozen pieces of broken glass. One person
from Miranda eventually showed up, then explained some raking might be
needed, promised to come back with some seed for the bare areas, but
never did.
Some of the weeds and moss originally on my lawn then poked through
the
areas without seeds or where the loam was spread just thick enough to
cover what was already there. I've spent many hours watering but
that
was something I expected. It's the hours of picking out rocks,
glass
and large sticks that I didn't expect. I have also now spent many
hours loosening the soil and planting my own grass seed (once the
rocks, glass, etc. was removed).
The next pictures are of a rock that was mostly buried in the loam.
There is a ruler in the picture to give a sense of the real size. It
weighs a little over 3 pounds and ranges in thickness from 1 1/2
to over 2 inches. There were also other rocks baseball size or
larger. There
were far too many rocks, pieces of wood and pieces of glass in the loam.
The rock is 9 inches at its longest dimension.
Click on the image to see a larger picture.
And it's 5 inches wide.
Click on the image to see a larger picture.
What has bothered me is the lack of care Miranda Renovation &
Landscape Company had with my project. It
appears there was no prep work done on the existing surface before they
spread low quality loam
and then scattered some grass seeds. The loam was not bought "clean" or
"sifted" but a rock the size of the one above is way too much. Also, I
was
never given any instructions about what to do to help the lawn grow
better. It was just left for me to assume the quality was good, nothing
more was needed.
I had paid half the cost before they started the job and then the other
half at the
request of Marcel Miranda. He told me they were not done yet and
would
return to finish up. That turned out to be only a few minutes one
evening over two weeks later (after the picture above was taken).
I trusted Marcel's word about his company finishing up. Looking
back now, I should have held back the
final payment until the job was completed to my satisfaction.
Perhaps it would have saved me a lot of my time doing the manual labor
required and should have resulted in a better product since they are a
landscaping company.
Back to
Dennis
Schafer's Personal Page
This page published on July 17, 2004.
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