Out of all of your accounts past and present, which one would you consider to be your all-time most dreaded account that you would have to go to, and why???
Here's one that I will be dumping this year as soon as she returns my call. About 2/3 of an acre, mostly flat, but divided into 7 areas by chain link fence. The very front of the property is a hill that climbs about 8 feet in a 6 foot span. Too steep for any of my larger mowers, so I do the whole 60 feet with a 22" lawnboy pushing from the sidewalk below. Homeowner has no clue about landscaping (thinks dandelions are pretty) so she just puts "neat " plants all over the place. No defined beds, just stuff to try to avoid. Its a freakin obstacle course. To top it all off, she only wants me to mow once a month. Up till now I've done it for her because she lives next door to my uncle so I have known her since I was like 12, and her husband passed away a couple years ago. The biggest bummer is what I get for doing the place.....$25. I kinda feel bad dropping her, but the property is way outta my way, and I just don't want to dread going there any more.
The will you do this and will you do that account. Old lady on fixed budget wanting everything for free. No No No . Mow and go unless you want to pay more. I thought with the 25 every two weeks was enough to trim my 5 million feet of shrubs and take some garbage to the dump. Heck NO. Dumped her and won't even go close to her house cause when she sees my truck, any where in town, she will stop and try to talk my head off. She would walk behind a closed gate that I was parked in frount of if she heard the mower running. Crazzzzzzy Lady.
Had one guy in particular that the he wanted the height changed every week we came. And then he would watch from the windows. He only wanted the lawn bagged, and no striping. Only certain mowers on the lawns at certain times. Sometimes switching the mowers to different parts of the lawn. All of stuff added 15-30 mins to the time and he refused to pay the extra amount.
Many moons ago I mowed this appartment complex. Bidded for weekly, but when they called conferming they wanted every 10 days. Beeing new and stupid I said OK . Second time mowing manager lady comes out and asks if I could cut lower. Beeing new and stupid I said OK . Third time mowing manager lady comes out and asks if I could cut even lower still. Beeing new and stupid I said OK . Fourth time------ well you get the picture. Now here I am trying to cut 6" tall grass down to 2" and unsuccesfully trying to make it look good. I got a lot of pleasure telling her to find a new lawncare guy after her second or third complaint about grass clumping. Was a good learning experience for me though. All PITA's are good learning experiences
i don't mow much anymore, but when i did... there was this one lady that would talk my head off everytime she could. 15-20 minutes after every mow that she could catch me. you know, i knew it was coming, it was like a game. i would try to arrange it so i could finish in the corner of the lawn near the truck so i could make a quick getaway. sometimes it worked, sometimes not. i would stand there for 20 minutes with a backpack blower on, looking at the crew in the truck, thinking about how much this was actually costing me while she droned on and on.
I have an account in an affluent neighborhood and the owners continuously plant these hideous small flowers everywhere, not in a flower bed but right in the middle, or wherever, in the grass areas, and then mark them with bright orange marking flags...,last year there were at least forty of these things all over the lawn areas..........Its a beautiful lawn too, what would normally take about 45 minutes on the ZTR takes about an hour and a half just dodging these flags and then even more time trimming around them...........Whenver we see that happen anywhere else we say "they must have gone to the "customer's name here" school of flower planting and landscape design school"...........
Worse one tuff call but I'm going to go with one my ex boss had on the river. Front yard is just shrubs and woods and very narrow grass pathways. You get to the back and the lay out was 125 across and 60 feet of lawn to you get to the marsh the entire back was roughly 40-60 degree grade changing though out it has dips and valleys then in the middle it has a rail tie stair case that was a test of strength to get the mower across to do the other side which was completely cut off. They had grass growing though out their shrubs so they wanted that weed wacked each week as well some 2000 square feet of them. Hehehhe it gets better just wait. Now the marsh was the real kicker one day they came out (god I hate liberals) and asked my boss at the time if he could cut the cattails down but not harm the marsh grass meaning turn your weed wacker sideways and surgically remove the cattails rather then swinging the weed wacker side to side the area in question was 125 feet wide and about 175 to the river with all sorts of hollow water features some 6 feet deep if you were to step in them. Took 3 guys on weed wackers 30-45 mins and you would all get bit to hell from mosquitoes when you were out there he had one guy quit on the spot when asked to do that. This went on for years and they got bolder each year went from 2-3 times a year to finally they wanted it ever 2 weeks thank god I was in charge and one day said NO we were mercifully fired hehehe. No way I will ever do a marsh for any one I would rather kill them on the spot then take that job.
Had a property that was ok to mow. A big drainage and kinda steep slope, but ok. Set a price with the owner. Mow it like he said, grat job, so I thought. Next visit, the owner's wife is there. She says "Oh, well the proerty line goes to there" (adding about 1/4 acre). I said "Well, Mr. -- told me it goes to there, but I'l take care of that for ya", thinking I was such a nice guy and really taking care of my customer, right. No big deal. Next week Husband is back and adds even more. Now I know they are playing me. Meantime, the shop part of their store gets a big job and requires extended use of a saw (one that uses lots of water like a concrete saw), which creates a swamp on the prop. The place starts severely holding water. Told the owner I'd be happy to weedwack the parts I can't get to with the mower, for xxx amount more. He says "don't worry about it. It's not too high, mow it next week when the water dries up". The water never dried up. After about the fifth cut, knowing the whole time I am getting screwed from their miscommunication act, I'm getting pi**ed, now the grass is about 3 feet high in the water part. Then one day I had a sudden change in schedule, so I dropped them. Darn, just when the water part was really getting outta control and they wouldn't pay extra. Funny how things happen. Must've cost 'em a fortune to get it bush hogged once it dried. I hope the bush hogger got the money out of them that they played me for.
