Shabby Job and Poor Customer Service
Louay and his crew did my landscaping last August (2019). The workmanship of the job is very poor. My front porch stairs are uneven with a variance of 4 inches between the highest and lowest step. After feeling unsafe on the stairs, I checked with the Brampton Buildings department and an inspector confirmed that my stairs were a safety hazard and were not meeting building code. Louay refused to fix my stairs to code and was only willing to change the caps to lower each stair, which according to the inspector would improve the situation but not fix the problem. Louay claimed that this happens all the time in the industry and that I would "just have to live with it."
Louay also messed up my water feature and flower bed. The back of our yard is considered a waterbed and his sales rep Mark assured us that they could fix this by applying a gravel bed and installing a weeper pipe to drain the water. None of this was done, even though we were charged for a weeper pipe and have never been reimbursed. Now every time it rains, we have a flood in our backyard and all the dirt is also running into my waterfall, which was not properly elevated to avoid this from happening. In addition, he left all of the electrical cords and controller for the waterfall laying on dirt under a rock causing the waterfall to constantly short. We had to have our electrician build a box and attach it to the fence (something that was actually recommended in the instructional manual for the waterfall). I'm almost certain that all plants will be dead this season due to their roots drowning in the swamp land (see pics).
When I talked to Louay about my stairs after researching the code and getting second opinions, he yelled at me that I had insulted him by going over his head, so he didn’t care about me or what I thought or wanted. All we wanted was a professional job including safe stairs!
His sales representative Mark was super nice at first and even spent extra time working out the details of our job. However, he is clearly a puppet on a string because as soon as Louay was refusing to be reasonable, I was no longer able to reach Mark. I had to call him on a different number in order to get him and then he brushed me off, stating that he didn't know what was going on and would have to talk to Louay and would get back to me. Eight months later, no call from Mark.
You might also want to know that Louay's warranty only covers a problem once, so if there is a particular problem with his work, he will only come back to fix it once and after that it’s your problem (just ask to see the fine print on the back of the contract and don’t believe Mark when he says that this is not true because it is Louay's words not Mark's that holds any weight).
There were many other issues with this job; however, I think I’ve made my point. I found Burloak Landscaping on Homestars, but I made the mistake of not sorting the reviews from the Lowest to Highest review. If you do that, you will see that Louay is not so nice as soon as anyone questions/challenges his work.
In short, this has been a horrible experience and we have paid a lot of money for a very shabby job. I would not recommend this company to anyone.
Addendum to my initial review: I see that Louay has completely changed his response to a more customer service friendly one after I pointed out his attitude elsewhere. That's great! I feel that I need to stand up for myself as he continues to state things that are not true. I have never tried to get an upgrade for free. I simply requested that the stairs be made safe with whatever materials would work. Also, the uploaded pictures were taken in the fall, not the winter. All the leaves were probably starting to fall off because of the season change and/or maybe the roots were dying from all the pooled water.
At this point, why would I contact you for any work when you swore and yelled at me, told me you don't care about me or what I think and accused me of trying to "suck your company dry." After I requested that you fix my stairs to code, you stated that you didn't get the final cash payment, which was not true. You already also said no to correcting the weeper pipe/drainage problem and stated that I would get a minimal credit back since you already "excavated the area." I note however, that no credit has ever come my way. I hope that you are able to take this as a learning experience on how NOT to treat your customers.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $50,000.00
- Company Response
Hello Lynn. Thank you for uploading photos. It gives me an opportunity to address the issue. When we offered to change the caps to a thinner cap it will help of set those figures you uploaded int he photo. the current cap you have is 3.75" thick and if we choose a different black cap that is 2 1/4" thick you will decrease the height of each step by 1.5". this will make the last step you have close to 6" and the rest will be fairly close to that number. The offer still stands for us to change it. Your offer of us replacing these steps with natural armour stone steps will incur a price increase. As we have mentioned before, should you want to change to natural stone steps that will incur a charge. Otherwise we can do exactly what i have mentioned above and that will solve the problem in our eyes. The offer still stands, as it did the last time we spoke. Please send us an e-mail when you make up your mind.
This whole issue stems from the fact that when you saw this issue arise, you used it as an opportunity to upgrade your materials and design. We can accept that every project has its difficulties and we are willing to problem solve those issues. But what we won't accept is the notion that because we ran into a small problem, that we should be obligated to give you something that was never discussed for free. I am sure you can understand why we had to draw a line.
In regards to your photo's of water pooling. The photo's where taken in the winter, you can tell form the lack of leaves on the plants. That is not an accurate portrayal of poor water drainage. Please reach out to us int he summer if the problem persists and we will rectify this issue.
We wish you a great and safe summer holiday. And hope you get the use of the fireplace and everything else we built for you in your back yard. Thank you and best of luck.