Business ProfileforMy Lawn Crew

Hired My Law Crew to bury 3 downspouts and lay a dry creek bed. The creek bed didn't work, it actually aggravated the flooding in my backyard. I sent them photos and videos and they came out and said they would fix it. Minimal effort was put forth, roughly 3 wheelbarrows of dirt were added and 50 rocks moved. The next rain showed that it still didn't function properly and actually requires water to flow uphill. Now they are coming to remove the rock and will refund me part of my money. I'm going to have to hire someone that knows what they are doing and that can actually install a simple dry creek bed. I do not recommend My Law Crew.

My Lawn Crew was doing a project in ************* when the neighbor to the right asked us to do some drainage work for him in conjunction with what we were already doing at the current project located at the house on his left.

The work he asked us to do included routing all his downspouts, catch basins and A/C condensate on the left side of his house to the culvert located out back behind his fence, create a catch basin area at the fence located at the back left side of his house to collect water coming off grade, and install a dry creek out back to facilitate water flow from his neighbors property through his property to the culvert out back.

We used large Tumbled Stone River Rock, (4"-7"), due to the amount of water flowing in that area, being concerned that smaller stone would be washed away.

We gave him a quote for the above work. He was unhappy with the cost, so we gave him a discount at his request.

After work was completed, we had a heavy rain event that showed two problems: First, the catch basin near the fence was not collecting water properly and second, the dry creek out back was getting overwhelmed and damming up.

The drainage pipe from the downspouts, catch basin and A/C condensate line were working properly.

We went out and fixed the catch basin area located at the fence line to do a better job of collecting water from grade at the fence. We also installed more river rock in his backyard to create a wider mouth for receiving water from his neighbor and we extended the discharge pipe located in his neighbor's house, from the catch basin, farther back into the dry creek to help with not overwhelming the dry creek structure located in his yard.

After this revision was done, we received another heavy rain event.

This showed that the revision done at the fence catch basin was successful and working according to design.

The drainage pipe from the downspouts, catch basin and A/C condensate line were still working properly and as designed.

However, the dry creek out back was still causing water to dam up and collect in the backyard.

We received the pictures and feedback on a Thursday and had a crew scheduled to come and address the problem the following Tuesday morning.

Monday night we received communication that the he did not like the look of the large stone, that we had installed them improperly and he wanted us to remove the stone and provide him a refund.

We made sure to communicate to him that we would come out as many times as it took to resolve the problem, but he said he did not want us to do anything other than remove the rock and that he was not going to change his mind.

We then cancelled the appointment for that Tuesday morning so that we could see if we could work through the problem with him.

Over the next couple of days he became more combative and insisted we not only remove the rock, but that we remove the rock by the end of the week, threatening to hire somebody else to remove it and send us the bill if we didn't get it done by that Friday.

Even though we would have fixed the issue, regardless of how many attempts it would take to do so, he insisted he did not want us to do anything else to fix it.

We then redirected our crew to go out there Friday, removed the dry creek stone on his property and gave him a refund for the dry creek portion of the project.

To be clear, we would have fixed the problem, but needed to take it one step at a time to ensure that what we were doing was effective.

These are the steps we would have followed if given the opportunity, but we were only able to complete Step 1.

Step 1: We implemented the fix that is described above. Reworked catch basin at fence, installed more rock and extended discharge pipe.

Step 2: That Tuesday we were planning on raising the grade in the back yard to facilitate better water flow from grade into the dry creek.

Step 3: We would have excavated the dry creek further to be shallower than how it was originally installed.

*We did not initially dig the dry creek as low as we usually do because we were concerned about damaging the root systems of surrounding trees and we wanted to try other things first before we ran that risk.

Step 4: We would have expanded the dry creek even more as necessary to accommodate the water flow.

*We would not have replaced the large stone with smaller stone as, in our professional opinion, the water volume is too great for smaller stone during a heavy rain event.

Once it became clear that the large sized stone for the dry creek was a sticking point, we realized that there was no way to meet his expectations, as we will not purposely install a dry creek we believe will ultimately fail.

While it was not our choice or desire to walk away without fully fixing the issue, we did as he insisted in an effort to resolve the situation to his satisfaction.

Great story. Not true. They did fix the part by the catch basin, they were supposed to scoop out the ground more and put the rocks below grade, they didn't do that. They also didn't extend the drains on the neighbor's property. They didn't do what they said they would do. And the dry creek bed was designed wrong and required a total rework. They didn't add more rock, that's untrue. They didn't tell me they couldn't scoop my creek bed lower because of trees, that was only after they removed the rock at my request as they refused to do it right. I guess that's combative, but when they said they would be there Tuesday, after ignoring my earlier request for 4 days to fix or remove it, I told them to take it out and I didn't think I had to wait another week as I had just had the lawn aerated and planted.

The downspouts are good. I told them that. The creek bed was bad and they didn't do it right. They did refund my money, but I know they will be back as my neighbor wants the discharges moved further to the back of their yard, which they never did.

Combative = dissatisfied and not putting up with B.S. I never raised my voice to anyone. I never threatened anyone other than to tell them to remove the rock or I'd hire someone to do it.

With this company the customer is apparently unreasonable if they are dissatisfied with shoddy work. And I was overcharged. They apparently sub out their work (at least in my job). Find a company that does their own work and stands behind it.