How many of you guys cut lawns in your immediate neighborhood?

[syzer]

Do you guys cut the grass for anyone in your neighborhood? Does it present any problems maybe with customers coming over your house? I would like to get my neighborhood about to hit it now with flyers. Not sure if there are any disadvantages to this though they seem to be about 30 - 35$ a cut lawns. I would like to get a couple in a rom make things nice and easy. Anything I should keep an eye out for?

Thanks,

Chris

Precision Landscaping

[awm]

Money is money.But i would prefer not to be responcible
to my neighbors.

[Groundcover Solutions]

I mow some of my neighbors lawns. But not the ones that are right across the street or next door I make sure they are a few houses down. So they don’t see my lawn it is not the best in the world I don’t have time to do it. I think I might higher someone else and give them lots of problems!! LOL

[Fantasy Lawns]

I cut 3 on my street ....one right across from me ....after talking him into remove this hugh oak his front yard has filled in nicely .....but we are real good friends & I'd never do the ones right next to me ...just to keep the peace

[1MajorTom]

When you say your neighborhood, do you mean people that live in a one or two block area of your home? Because if that is the case, I wouldn't recommend it.

Our first year we cut for our neighbors. Both neighbors next door to us, a neighbor on the corner, a neighbor on the other corner, you get the picture... Well it became a hassle. We felt we didn't bid the jobs right because we felt uncomfortable charging people that we knew. You say they are in the range of $30.00-$35.00. If you do cut them, just make sure you get the price that is good for you. Don't end up doing charity work, which is what it felt like we were doing.

Well when we moved, I told Matt, No more neighbors!!!
It just isn't profitable, at least for us it wasn't.

Now the only neighbor we cut for is a the guy right next to us. We cut his when we cut ours. He's a nice guy, in his eighties. We intially tried to cut it for free, but he insisted on paying us, a nice amount I might add.

So for us, we stay away from our immediate neighborhood.

[Jason Pallas]

We do a lot around the neighborhood. We also do a few immediate neighbors. This can present a real problem. I had to send one to collection, another still owes $300 from last year and now I've got to sue the bag of crap that lives across the street for $350 from 2 years ago! My neighbors seem to be some of the biggest deadbeats around! I don't like to cause problems in the 'hood, but I can't also let them stiff me and live with myself having to look at their deadbeat, no bill paying butts every day! Doing immediate neighbors can present some unusual problems.

[jcoat]

I market my neighborhood; however, I will not do immediate (read next-door and/or neighbor behind me) neighbors even though they're senior citizens and I'm on a first name basis w/ them. I'm sure there are guys on the forum who say their neighbors are worth their weight in gold OR who say they are worthless customers who take advantage/don't pay. I guess it's a hit-and-miss subject.
Bottom-line: I guess it's @ your discretion. Use your best judgment.

[syzer]

Well we moved into this house in June of last year. Our neighbors are pretty much far from friendly and one has a Harley he likes to start on the weekends at like 7:30 and leave running for like an hour always waking me up. I would like to jump his *ss. I wouldn't want to do say my immediate neighbors start about a block around my house in all directions and go from there. Its a relatively new development and it has some decent opportunities I think. I just wanted a general consensus of what you guys thought. I wouldn't dream of doing my immediate neighbors now, even if they asked!


Chris
Precision Landscaping

[lsylvain]

I did my next door neighbor last year. Never again
Just a big hassle. I could never get any of my house chores done. If I was outside doing something to my garden, here comes my neighbor wondering if I could do his yard, or till his garden, etc.
I like to keep my customers at least out of sight of my place. When I get home in the evening I want to be home and spend time with my family not work on the neighbors flower beds.

even if the guy is paying you a reasonable price it always comes out to be more work.

[VLM]

I do several in my neighborhood and am trying to get more. I've never had any problem with them. As for aoiding the bad debt situation, I have a long standing policy that no residential customers get more than $200 dollars in credit. If their bill ever exceeds that and payment has not been made then service is stopped until they cough it up and then I cancel them. "Screw me once, shame on you, screw me twice, shame on me."

[Turfclippings]

i ;ive in a redidential subdivision with 95 houses. I do mine and 2 right across the street, 1 over from them and then skip 4 over and 1 more. I hit 5 stops in a bout and hours time and leave the trailer at my house, makes for a nice morning, and no complaints from nobody. Plan on flyers aain in acople of weeks. We do the snow for the addition also. I aerate 10 yards in arow in the fall, 5 on each side of the street, thats real nice. So i dont see anything wrong with neighbors. Been in the neighborhood since 92.

[mdb landscaping]

i currently do three yards on my street and im taking a few more on this year. i have had no trouble getting them to pay. the only problem i get is more work. customers keep reffering me, so im getting decent work out of it.

[Charles]

I do alot of my neighbors yards. 2 this past year accross the street. I do admit though that one of them if he sees me outside will make sure i know his needs doing or if he need any other type of work. Sometimes this can be a pain. But most of the time I feel good about it because i charge all my neighbors top dollar no matter how long I have known them. You have to be able to seperate business from family and from friendship and when in doubt get it in writing.

[TJLC]

I do a few in my neighborhood also. I think if you keep in on a professional level it's ok. I think friends and neighbors feel they should get a "discount" because they know you. NOT. I do the same quality job for them as I would for any other customer so I feel I should be paid the same. We are lucky to have mostly very good neighbors.But no neighborhood is perfect, I guess.

[Grassman]

I work for 7 of my neighbors, 5 for the last 8yrs and treat them to the same professional service and PRICE as the rest of my customers. They are a little smaller than the residentials on the rest of my route but since I don't have the driving involved I turn a pretty good profit. Never had one pay late, in fact 2 are from up north and pay me for the summer in advance. Just treat them like the rest of your customers, kindly and professionally. Russ

[Runner]

Wow! i didn't realize so many people had trouble collecting right in their neighborhood. About 80% of my residential work is in the two subdivisions that are connected right across from where I live. These subdivisions are occupied mostly by black people but it is a upper middle class, nicely kept area. These people are ALL some of the best payers you could ask for. As a matter of fact, some who like to pay every week even go out of their way to make sure they are paid up. They are always grateful of the work too. The only time I might have trouble with payment being slow is when I put off the billing and let it build up. I learned that most people don't really like this practice. I have gained a high respect and reputation in that area and everyone knows me by my first name. Sure, I'm known to be a bit on the expensive side as lawn services go, but most still choose to go with me. Occasionally, I'll see another service back in this area, and I have gotten to know them, and have become friends with two of them. Hopefully, this year, Lawn Monkey will help with that. I have the demo on the way.

[bob]

Related link, http://www.lawnsite.com/showthread.php?threadid=4074

[moonarrow]

I've done 6 houses in my neighborhood, all within site of my front door, for the last 2 years and will be doing them again this year. There has never been a problem I don't even pull the trailer up to their house I start mowing my house and continue mowing till all six are mowed and then do the same thing trimming and blowing. My customers have no complaints nor do I

[GLM]

I cut three with in 200 feet of my house. All are Elderly and I started mowing them when I first started and they have been great. I do it for almost free and it pays off because they are good neighbors and they know alot of people and have nothing but good things to say about me, lots of referals!

[Mowman]

I cut two lawns in my neighborhood. It works out real well. I cut theirs at the same time I cut my own. They NOTICED the way my lawn always looked and ask if I would be interested in taking care of their lawn. So far so good. I've also got other jobs because the way my lawn looks.
Hey, people do NOTICE if you do a excellent job.
Good Luck,
Mowman

[slplow]

I do six lawns on my street. Been doing them for 5 yrs with no problems and keeps them from complaining aboat my trucks.

[BUSHMASTER]

I love money like the next guy But....i don't want to be that coveinent to a customer..i see it know sunday afternoon
working on my model train set and someone knocks on my door
and i haved to try and make them understand that its my day off and i am playing with my toys....but i do help out my close neighbors when i can for free...

[DMC300]

WOW,I just realized how lucky I am.I live in a small town,and all of my customers are my neighboors.I do around 70 different properties,mostly within a 5 mile radius of my house!My farthest account is about 12 miles away. To answer the question...no problems with mowing the neighboors lawns.

[guntruck]

So im guessing its safe to say that if you do your immediate neighbors there is a good possibilty some problems may arise in the future. We will try and keep it like a block from our house as a rule of thumb for our business. =)

[npalomba]

I live in a small town also but I try not to market my direct neighbors for lawn service; I do have a few who ask and I will do if asked but for me it's kind of like doing business with friends, I try to stay away. I plow more of my neighbors than I cut there lawns.

I just seem to be the only game in town (or in my direct neighborhood) for that.

[David Hickerson]

You mean I have other neighborhoods around mine LOL

I mow my neighbors yard, She works for TG and is very informative to any and all qestions I give her. This is the first year I have expanded my advertising to other neighborhoods.

Houston

[John DiMartino]

The only problem i had was that my neighbors thought i was going to do them for free or cheap,I knocked 5 bucks off the price-since i didnt need to traier it or anything-they still looked at me like i was to high-rather not do than give it away.

[Redmowers]

I do a neighbor across the street from me, Its great no loading the equipment on the trailer .I just drive across the street ,I gave him a good price on his rental property because of no travel and picked his house also.Real easy money,I have never had a problem with neighbors yet.

[65hoss]

I've done leaf jobs for about 6 neighbors. I have 2 diffenent sets of #'s when doing leaves. For my existing customers I base my bid off a slightly lower per hour fee. Non regular customers I use a higher hourly rate to come up with charge. My neighbors I will give the lower of the two rates since it has no drive time involved.

[BUSHMASTER]

I am sorry but thats just another reason not to do neighbors
Why give a lower price it still cost the same to run the equiptment and your time is still worth the same not less, see so what if you have no travewl expense on that job whats travel cost for account to account if you route it right the cost is kinda low and we don't slash prices on them or do we .i guess they were right "you don't mix bizz with pleasure"

[65hoss]

I didn't say what my #'s were. My low side is very very good. My high side is also very very good. My low side is what most people in my area get normally.