Contact the owner and express your concerns. Sounds like lack of a contract was a red flag in this instance. Contracts protect both parties, you are now discovering them not whipping one out at the close of the deal should have been cause for alarm. You might have come out all right with someone you already trusted, had an established relationship with--like when you have a gardener that has been maintaining your garden for years make some improvements. But you didn't know these people and are finding out they are apparently flakes. Now you have to deal with this aspect of their approach. If talking to the owner does not produce results then you will have to take other steps. Probably other posters will chime in with what these other steps might be.

Media here has had amazing horror stories about landscape "contractors" here who have taken large amounts of money from homeowners and then disappeared. That's why there are licensing and insurance requirements made by the state, to protect the consumer from shenanigans that go on. (It also serves to eliminate competition from small operators that cannot come up with the money for the bonds and insurance premiums, but that's another topic). If you search this site you can probably also find similar posts to yours still hanging around.

With reference to another thread currently running and not directly connected with marlene's question, how do we raise the standard so that people like marlene do not feel ripped off? A contract that allows both parties a security governed by law? A deal where we pay or accept cash and by pass tax/workers comp/ real benefits for workers etc. Who do you (the generic you and not a confused and honest marlene)want to show up?

This may have not come to landscaping, I haven't noticed but I have noticed that in the building industry here some have been getting around some aspect of running a pyramid structure with multiple employees by "subcontracting" everything. A crew shows up and works on the house under the direction of the builder, but when you talk to them you eventually are told all the workers are actually "subcontractors". Must be a loophole that is being exploited or there just isn't any enforcement--yet. Maybe you are encountering the same thing, your "contractor", rather than being a foreman or other employee of the real contractor (the owner) as one might ordinarily expect is actually a subcontractor and thus not as subject to his direction. He has "subbed out" your project and may not even know what is (or isn't) happening there on a daily basis, unlike if they were all his employees and got grilled each day when they got back to the shop. This might also explain why he hasn't been coming out to the job site (you didn't mention him checking the work, anyway). Or, you just got hooked up with a jerk outfit.

Many contracting firms, specially those that are relatively new to the game, overbook projects and find themselves stretched very thin at this time of year. A few hours at this job, a few at that and often with days in between, as they try to keep everybody relatively happy that they are getting suitable attention and succeeding nowhere. Lack of follow-through and completion, combined with no contract, is a pretty good indication that the company is young, less than professional and biting off more than they can chew.

Call the owner and establish some mutually satisfactory deadlines that he and his crew will adhere to. With no contract (and even with one), you are well within your rights to withhold payment until the work has been completed in a timely matter and to your satisfaction and to specifications. Money talks and the threat of nonpayment (justifiably for work not done) is typically a great motivator. Both you and the contractor will have learned some valuable lessons from this experience.

The nature of contractors is not to be on time. One thing on one project that goes wrong can mess up their entire schedule. I call as many as possible to do one job. The first to show up gets the work. I stopped feeling bad a long time ago about wasting other contractors time after they wasted mine time and time again. They are accepting each and every job they recieve. Play their game and your job gets done.

A contractor I had out today to look at a project said of eight jobs he had scheduled three changed plans and loused everything up. (He showed up here on time, but I called him in the first place because we were already acquainted).

We signed a simple contract (no fancy company form) with a plumber. They did not show up, nor called until I called them. They said they will show up some other day, not sure when. A long story short - they rescheduled, but seemed uncooperative after I wanted a county inspector to inspect their work (after they would be done in the future) and after I asked them to pull a work permit. They seem not to be licensed with Residential Builder's Commission. Now they told me I must wait nearly 2 months to get my money back as they say they already bought the materials for the advance payment that I paid them. I said it's ok to refund part money and part materials for the job, but they still unhappy and they now told me the plumber went to a hospital for 1 month. I think they are liars and they just trying to keep my oney, but they don't realize how big of the trouble they got themselves into since I'm gonna file a complaint of unlicensed contractor to the State Investigations and Enforcement commission etc. I guess I hit the scammers yet again... but I know what to do: report them, they get fined, cease and desist and prison time, then sue them in Small Claims Court and go to the end until their property gets sold and I get compensated. The money they got from me is over $1000 (for buying materials). I also will write and post my story in the forums and on a blog, so their plumbing company gets really damaged and hopefully they will not get much business anymore. Once I go after someone, it's for life. Any additional suggestions or experiences?

I am what many would call a jerk of all trades. For the first 15 years I lived on a farm where if you needed hay wire to get the job done you grabbed hay wire. Then I went logging where if your 10 cord of wood was not on the yard a trucker did not roll in the Am.We were paid on production so I didn't get paid either. I went to school and got a business degree with a 3.98 average. Manager at a chain hotel 1 year "to many rules" and went back to the woods. At 27 I went to help a friend at a marine shop during mud season and the next 23 years have been there. I now manage a off shoot store (do not read sub). Some people understand if/ than but not many. I tell people if you are very lucky it will be done this day and cost x. If you are a little lucky it will cost that and be done y. If you are very unlucky it will cost z and you will have nothing. Case in point, cust. bought yard sale motor. It ran , would not Idle, came to me to rebuild carb. 95.25 parts and labor. I put in test test tank and it was not pumping water,called cust. he said put in new pump, 140.00. It was a 1972 outboard that looked new. Cust saw motor run and pump in tank. Cust ran motor 15 min. and lost spark (part no longer available) can not be fixed. He is not happy, I am not happy, sometimes no one wins.

What can be done when a lawn company planted the lawn and set up sprinklers and never comes back to follow up?

we have waited 1 month now with no followup and their equipment is here.

The owner does not return our emails or calls and unfortunately we have paid already because he wouldnt start the job without that.

what is our recourse ?

Would love some answers.

Thanks