This is the copy of the e-mail I sent to the Sod Farms President:
On March 21th, 2013 Sod Farms installed Bahia Grass in
our back yard as well as installing Floratam St. Augustine grass on the side
and partially in our front yard, our cost $1175.00
After watering those grasses daily for four weeks and 16
days every other day according to Pasco County rules and costing us over $300
for a month with another bill due soon, we discovered that the Bahia grass only
sprouted weeds. The Floratam, however, flourished with the same schedule
My husband, Mister Nice Guy, called Frank and asked him
to check it out, he replied he would when he was in the vicinity, after ten
days or more he hadn’t come. We drove to your business with another request and
Marie said she would come by on Tuesday which never happened. It was our impression
she was told not to come.
On Wednesday, we again went to your business on Ridge
Road and left pictures of the weeds and dead grass. Frank was not in, but the
receptionist said she would have him call which he did that evening. After
seeing our pictures, Frank called to inform us our grass was indeed dead and
from what he could see that we had sprayed it with something which had caused
it to die. We had done no spraying of any sort and I beseeched him to come to
see it in person, he said he would not. I asked him to do the right thing and
hung up in frustration as my husband continued with the conversation where
Frank told him to call our pest control company which we had postponed before
the grass was installed, saying we would for request service after everything
was in order, so he hadn’t been here in all that time.
Frank requested that our pest control service call him.
After coming and inspecting the grass, it was that person’s conclusion that the
grass was indeed dead and most of what is green is basically weeds which was
the result of bad grass. He said he could put some granules down which may help
but agreed that what we have is a disaster. His boss told him they could not
get involved in a dispute, so he couldn’t call. My husband called Frank, after
talking with three people at the pest-control company and asked him to call us
back.
In regaling this story to our son, he told of his own
dead yard which after being re-sodded needed to be redone by him and his son,
but he didn’t remember which company had done the work, but that it had refused
any compensation for their loss.
Yesterday, our
daughter-in-law stopped to deliver something to us. We showed her “The
Disaster” and she asked the name of the company which installed it. She then told
us yours was the company which installed their bad lawn and was sorry she hadn’t
known we were re-doing our lawn because she would have told us not to use you.
Today, I’ve come to the conclusion that we will never
hear from you again.
Tomorrow morning, Tuesday, we are attending the usual
monthly breakfast of our Beacon Woods Social Club which has about 200 members.
Maybe 30 or more members will be in attendance, it varies every month. After
eating, people with announcements are allowed to speak. On Wednesday of this
week, we will also attend the monthly board meeting, where we can bring issues
to the community. We also have a deed restriction office which deals basically
with bad yards. I will also speak to that employee of our experience.
(True to my word I spoke to about 55 residents at the breakfast, the next evening I spoke to the nine members of our Board of Directors after which there was a discussion on dealing with such problems and how to spread the word. I also gave a copy to the employee who handles lawn problems which she had already heard about. The Communications Director in charge of our monthly news magazine sent to all residents which is also sent to out of state owners, asked me to contribute a letter-to-the editor bout our experience.)
