We are 5th gen Californians.
Both my parents were famous girl and boy scout troop leaders.
My Mom has been President of the PTA so many times, also all the other associations, like the expired SJSC Faculty Wives and Investment Club getting on national tv.
Have you taught 40 years and given SJSU a $25,000 check, for them to loose , for weeks,,, and not 'thank you' for ?
Lincoln Glen would not have been such a quality neighborhood without good neighbors like the Demmies and the Wellers.
San Jose does not do enough to recognize these unpaid neighborhood leaders. The person history of sj.
That's the forward.
Our mow&blow guy, has about 40 contracts all over WG so you know who i am talking about, told Mom last Winter to turn off all her watering, no timed sprinklers, no hand watering. She did.
In one year we lost 5 trees including a gorgeous full maple tree and the front lawn. Mom is very trusting and never speaks ill of anyone, rare eh. So she took forever to fire this mow&blow guy. Damage done.
Mom hired a lawn contractor from WGbackfence.
Warning!!
She paid and then just let the 2 Mexican laborers work for a couple weeks, totally unsupervised.
Fortunately my boss in SF gave the small company the week off, so i drove down and 'watched' all day for 4 days. We had had another bad experience from a landscape contractor in WG who never visited the work site and the many Mexican laborers didn't even use a level to level the flagstone the birdbath is on in the backyard !!
First they chopped up the ugly remains of the front lawn. Then dug up the ends of the old black pipe sprinklers, intending to put in a new full network of plastic white pipe out front. I asked if they were going to dig out the shallow old black plastic pipe disconnected. "No." Ok, i will do it.
"No, we will do it, if you want."
So glitch #1, they planned on leaving all that old unused water pipe in the shallow dirt, like a garbage dump. Interferes with future digging and planting. Sloppy.
There were all these small and large,2 my arm size, roots in the parking strip. I spent an entire day bent over and digging up, axing, and pulling roots out of the parking strip. Very hard work.
Then they got out the medium size rototiller. The hard dry, sticky when wet Silicon Valley clay soil is infamous for letting rain water run off instead of soak in. I asked if they planned on spreading any fertilizer or brown gypsum from Pacific Turf near Fry's. "No to fertilizer or soil amendments." So i drove over west to Campbell and bought 6 bags of the professional gypsum, $8 for 50# of the smooth tiny pellets that a hand spreader(they have a great red box one)disperses. Forget about white gypsum as it will take forever to dissolve. I also let them use my full bag of balanced with iron lawn fertilizer, bought seasonally at Pacific Turf. They only used half of 50# on the entire front lawn. I used the red box spreader to spread the 6 bags of brown tiny pellet gypsum, great gardening find. I did it, not them.
I noticed they were very sloppy.
They left wire flags and bits of white plastic pipe and 3"nails and 3"screws all over the compacted dirt. So i went around on my hands and knees and tried to pick it , the dangerous litter and trash, all up.
They would show up and leave without any notice. So obviously they were doing multiple jobs at the same time in WG. I never saw the white guy owner out here once. And my dear Mom and sisters never looked or supervised for even an hour. Not once. Maybe i should hire out at a laborer supervisor; You have some trades stranger visit your Home, outside or inside, and i can watch them EVERY MINUTE. No trades people should be trusted , especially rug cleaners!!
Fair warning.
The sod looked dark green and long.
But local mow&blow guys told me "The best sod comes from Sacramento or Stockton. That Morgan Hill stuff is cheaper and closer. But only 90min to Stockton or Sac.."
Oops, Mom got the Morgan Hill sod.
Our sprinkler timer controller was turned off, so i watered by hand with a wide fine spray fitting lightly morning and night to make sure the sod rooted.
And i still picked up litter from the job, like 3 long screws !!
I phoned the owner at his shop and asked a routine question. "Oh, you are the complainer."
So i gave him a 'one star' on Google Map.
I will say it again, never ever trust any trades person inside your Home, or even on your property. All must be supervised to protect your assets and liability. We had one guy show up to botch "gluing the kitchen floor linoleum down", with a metal strip eyesore. He found the 12ft ladder out and up on the front lawn as i had been pruning. So he climbs to the very top step, verboten on ladder label, and says "See me, if i fall from here i can sue you !" Let's just say this WG handyman was the worst ever seen. I told him to stop and come down and he laughed. There are a lot of scary people out there.
Mom paid ,probably i guess, over $4k.
I worked all day, 4 days, for free.
Then they got out the medium size rototiller. The hard dry, sticky when wet Silicon Valley clay soil is infamous for letting rain water run off instead of soak in. I asked if they planned on spreading any fertilizer or brown gypsum from Pacific Turf near Fry's. "No to fertilizer or soil amendments." So i drove over west to Campbell and bought 6 bags of the professional gypsum, $8 for 50# of the smooth tiny pellets that a hand spreader(they have a great red box one)disperses. Forget about white gypsum as it will take forever to dissolve. I also let them use my full bag of balanced with iron lawn fertilizer, bought seasonally at Pacific Turf. They only used half of 50# on the entire front lawn. I used the red box spreader to spread the 6 bags of brown tiny pellet gypsum, great gardening find. I did it, not them.
I noticed they were very sloppy.
They left wire flags and bits of white plastic pipe and 3"nails and 3"screws all over the compacted dirt. So i went around on my hands and knees and tried to pick it , the dangerous litter and trash, all up.
They would show up and leave without any notice. So obviously they were doing multiple jobs at the same time in WG. I never saw the white guy owner out here once. And my dear Mom and sisters never looked or supervised for even an hour. Not once. Maybe i should hire out at a laborer supervisor; You have some trades stranger visit your Home, outside or inside, and i can watch them EVERY MINUTE. No trades people should be trusted , especially rug cleaners!!
Fair warning.
The sod looked dark green and long.
But local mow&blow guys told me "The best sod comes from Sacramento or Stockton. That Morgan Hill stuff is cheaper and closer. But only 90min to Stockton or Sac.."
Oops, Mom got the Morgan Hill sod.
Our sprinkler timer controller was turned off, so i watered by hand with a wide fine spray fitting lightly morning and night to make sure the sod rooted.
And i still picked up litter from the job, like 3 long screws !!
I phoned the owner at his shop and asked a routine question. "Oh, you are the complainer."
So i gave him a 'one star' on Google Map.
I will say it again, never ever trust any trades person inside your Home, or even on your property. All must be supervised to protect your assets and liability. We had one guy show up to botch "gluing the kitchen floor linoleum down", with a metal strip eyesore. He found the 12ft ladder out and up on the front lawn as i had been pruning. So he climbs to the very top step, verboten on ladder label, and says "See me, if i fall from here i can sue you !" Let's just say this WG handyman was the worst ever seen. I told him to stop and come down and he laughed. There are a lot of scary people out there.
Mom paid ,probably i guess, over $4k.
I worked all day, 4 days, for free.
