ONE WAY TO HANDLE A FRUSTRATING PROBLEM WITH AN UNRELIABLE COMPANY

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.)