Charlie 'the tree guy" took advantage of me during the chaos and needs arising from the icestorm. During the icestorm, I needed immediate help as some heavy limbs from my tree needed to be taken down to the "y" of the tree-to immediately remove the danger. As one limb had already fallen on my car, I couldn't take the whole tree down at that time because I had no extra money after buying a replacement car. The rest would have to be done later. Charlie gave me a reasonable quote to remove the limbs to the 'y'. His was the middle of 5 quotes-not the highest, nor the lowest. Quoted me $1400.00. I asked if a bucket would be necessary as the limbs were quite high and they hung quite precariously over my house and my neighbour's. He said no and since he said he had 17 yrs experience, I figured he knew his business. It took him 2 weeks and many pleading phone calls (high winds-fear of limbs falling) to get him back here. A little way into the job, he admitted he needed a bucket (no surprise) and so I gave him $1000.00 which he said would 'go a long way to paying for one' and that I owed nothing more than the other $400 when the job was finished as 'he stood by his quotes' and that 'the mistake was his'. That sounded fair, so I gave him the $1000.00 for the little bit that he had done. The work was neat so far, but nowhere near done.The limbs were still in danger of falling. He said that he was calling in some friends in the business with a bucket who 'owed him'. Many days later , they finally arrived. Again, after much pleading and fear-filled phone calls. (high winds, "homicidal" tree) The friends-Davey Tree Services-did a half-*--* job- very little of the limbs had been removed, and they had left a mess on my neighbour's front lawn. She had to jump over a pile of logs to get out of her yard. This time though, Charlie was very quick to call for his final $400. When I told him about the job not finished and the mess, he was angry-at them. He came over, spoke to the neighbour, removed the mess-and put it onto my yard, picked up his $400 and told me that in his eyes, "the job was not finished' and "that he'd come back". Since then, (almost 3 months ago), he has not returned, nor has he returned any phone calls or emails (all of them were polite with no anger expressed, just pleas to come back and finish). So in sum, while he was always polite, it took him forever to come to do the work the first time, he never finished the job he was paid in full for and now he's skipped out on his own admitted responsibility. He's speaks politely and gives out his cell number, but don't be fooled. In short, DON'T USE HIS SERVICES!!
