It did not go well with Creech's. I feel they had good intentions but the end result was a very dissatisfied customer that will recommend that people STAY AWAY from Creech's. They did do a fine job with the irrigation system but I certainly would not recommend them for landscape work even though they came back numerous times to try and resolve the issues.\r
The end result was a lousy job and a dead lawn that is being completely renovated AGAIN in 2013 just a year and a half after the initial work was done.\r
I did take them to small claims court where I lost my case. I feel the case was lost because they had a lawyer representing them AND half of my evidence was not able to be presented. (My computer broke in the courtroom. I was going to show a video of the results of their work. Also, because I have never been through a trial process, I was probably not as prepared as I could have been, nor did I anticipate what their attorney was going to present.)\r
Creech's lawyer's presentation mainly was based on the following:\r
1. There was no implied warranty of their work. (There is no statement of warranty on any of their documents. HOWEVER, the front page of their web site (currently) states ""When it comes to your property - ""We don't leave it until you love it!"""" That is a direct quote! (It did not occur to me to present this to the court at the time of trial...my fault.)\r
2. We had a very hot and dry six week period in early summer of 2012. That was true...and they blamed me for cutting the grass too short and not watering the lawn enough.\r
Two things that I did not present in my court case:\r
a. Their testimony stated that during this hot and dry period that the grass should not have been cut lower than 4 inches. I was cutting at 2.5 to 3 inches. ( I did not present the document http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/4000/4029.html.That web page presented by the Horticulture and Crop Science department at Ohio State University states minimum length to cut is 2.53 inches during periods of heat and drought.)\r
b. Creech's installed a complete irrigation system. I was watering the lawn a minimum of 3 to 4 times per week, twice per day. My water bill during the two periods from April through June and July through September 2012 totaled $1018.00 (Average of $509.00 per billing period.) The average water bill over the past 3 years for my home is $307.00 per period, including the April through September 2012 period. In other words, it cost about 65% more to water during that hot and dry period. Creech's claimed I was under-watering the lawn during that period.\r
Creech's was hired to renovate my lawn. When they first came out to quote the work, I pointed out that I had many rocks in my lawn. Part of the renovation included removing the rocks from my yard. However, once the grass started dying, I discovered there were many large rocks that were not removed before planting new grass. (One of the rocks was over 5 feet in diameter that was as little as 3 inches from the surface.)\r
The bottom line is, I paid Creech's around $4,000.00 to renovate my lawn. A year after that work was done, the lawn needs to be renovated again. During negotiations with Creech's, after the lawsuit was filed, they offered to refund about a third of what I paid them for the lawn renovation. While I would not accept their offer, I did ask them if they wanted to re-do the work that they had done previously. (I even offered to pay an additional $2,000 worth of top soil to be brought in, which is something that, in retrospect, should have been done in the first place.) They turned down my offer and said they would see me in court.\r
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Yes...they won in court, but they sure didn't win me over with their work\r
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