Why TruGreen Chemlawn was even on my property that day.
Why Chemlawn came to my house on October 3rd, 2006 without a scheduled
appointment and their resulting lame ass excuses.
The short story: It was due to previous incompetence.
The long story I shall explain below. Customers of this wretched company,
need to know how Chemlawn operates.
The first year (1999) I signed up for the full Monty, because the salesman
insisted I needed it. They came every six weeks. It was about $1200.00 that
first year. My lawn mowing guy begged me to stop as it made the grass grow
too fast, unnecessarily. It was just a waste of money.
The perfect balance seemed to be two lawn treatments a year. A pre-emergent
weed and feed in the Spring and a post emergent in the Fall. I paid $188.00
a treatment, so $376.00 per year.
In July 2006, I noticed the far backyard right quadrant had tons of weeds
growing in the grass. The Spring Chemlawn spray guy had obviously missed
that entire area. Time went by and we went on vacation, it wasn't a big deal.
But by mid/late August, it was an out of control jungle. They also missed
along the driveway, which now for the record, they ALWAYS missed that area
and nearly every year I had to call about that.
So I called Chemlawn as they GUARANTEE their work. "Please come and
do along the driveway and the right back yard." This is known by Chemlawn
as a "Courtesy Call" to fix previous work. They told me someone would
be out on Aug. 30th.
A guy comes, I'm home, Moose inside. I show him the driveway and the right
back area. Then I go inside. I look out front window and see him do
the driveway area (only takes a minute) and then I walked away and have no
idea what he did or where he went. I did not actually see him go into or
spray the back. It can take up to 2 weeks for all the weeds to die. I just
figured he did it. and never gave it another thought.
Two weeks later, in mid September I received two pieces of mail around the
same time.
One is a postcard from
Chemlawn Corporate asking me how I liked my "Courtesy
Spray" and to please log onto their website and rate their
service.
The other is a bill for $158.00 for a full treatment from that same date,
minus a mysterious $30 dollar discount.
I called the local office to inquire why I am being billed for a "Courtesy
Spray." They had to research it as it didn't make sense to front office.
They called back and the explanation was that because it was so close to
next scheduled treatment (Sept. 12th) that they unilaterally decided to
"turn the Courtesy Call into a scheduled treatment." That's
just great. The Sprayer did not do the whole yard. He only did along driveway
and disappeared. So they were trying to charge me for the whole yard, but
he only sprayed less than 5 % of my yard. I asked about the $30 discount
and they had no idea why and I never found out why.
I remember thinking... I have to cancel these idiots, it's always some problem
with them.
So using the postcard information I logged onto Chemlawn website in mid Sept
(after that explanation phone call) and rated their service. I told them
their service SUCKS. I explained the situation. Apparently that online survey
triggered another Courtesy Spray, but NO ONE EVER CALLED FROM CHEMLAWN to
notify me of that! The guy who sprayed Moose to death came 18 days
after I did the online survey. Am I a psychic? How am I suppose to know my
honest response to their terrible service triggered a Courtesy call?
All I know is this:
It IS on file I must receive a phone call before they come to my
house!
But wait it gets better!
When the guy came on October 3rd, after I finished yelling at him about me
not being called and Moose exposed to the spray, he says sort of impatiently
"Do you have any OTHER areas you need to have sprayed?" I think he
was trying to distract me from continuing to yell at him, as I went off
on him. Seeing how Moose is dead, I had every right to be!
I screamed at him:
"MY DOG BETTER NOT GET SICK!!!!!"
More prophetic words were never spoken!
At that point I had no idea Moose would actually get sick. I was just
certainly hoping he wouldn't!
Well, remember that spray from Aug. 30th? The weeds along the driveway
were all dead, but there was still a jungle of weeds in the back, right side
yard. It appeared to have not been sprayed at all on August 30th. So after
I got over the initial shock of him being there and I was finished yelling
at him, the Chemlawn Sprayer, I and Moose, walked from
the front yard to the back, where he had not sprayed yet.
Me: "Does this area look like it was sprayed last month?"
CS: "No, it does not. I'll do it now."
Me: "Weren't you the guy who came to spray last month?
I think it was you."
CS: "No, it wasn't me. That guy doesn't work for Chemlawn
anymore".
Ok, so I let that go. After that, Moose and I went inside.
Then just last week (March 15), looking though files and papers I found the
actual receipt he left that day (8/30), which I had never looked at before...
HIS NAME WAS ON IT, IT WAS THE SAME GUY!
The Chemlawn Sprayer guy isn't evil, I don't think it was pre-meditated.
He's just incredibly, stupid, careless and negligent. Too much toxic chemicals
in his brain?
I believe that these Chemlawn employees have no respect for the company they
work for --nor for their customers. It's an "I don't give a shit about this
job", apathy.
It's a very bad attitude to have when you are responsible for dangerous
chemicals and the health, welfare and safety of others.
So after all this... the lame excuse the local Chemlawn manager told the
MDA during their four month investigation.... is that they have a "new
rule" that they don't have to notify customers if it's a "Courtesy Spray".
They just have to notify them for "scheduled sprays". I don't
get it! A safety issue is a SAFETY issue!
Furthermore, I disagree with the managers version of the "new rule". In January
2006, I received a letter from Chemlawn stating that they would be sending
out post cards with actual spray dates on it.
See that letter
here.
Well, they ALWAYS did that, so what's new? They RARELY ever came on
the dates listed on the postcards/letters.
But just to err on the side of caution, I called the local office anyway
and again insisted that I MUST BE CALLED or
I would CANCEL MY SERVICE and they ASSURED me I would CONTINUE
to RECEIVE my NOTIFICATION calls.
They didn't and now my dog is dead.
The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.
The only hand in Trugreen Chemlawn that operates with 100% efficiency is
the billing department.
See: Two more Chemlawn instances
where the service was less then stellar.
