SHODDY LANDSCAPING by Jason Moore of Moore Landscaping of Clearfield, PA.
http://www.moorelandcaping.net
It has come to my attention that Jason Moore has put up a website advertising his landscaping business. On this website, he has used pictures of work that he did for us in March, April and May of 2008 without our permission. Specifically, the picture of the walkway and steps in the dark blue header of this page:
http://moorelandscaping.net/about_us
Would you like to hear the rest of the story? Read on:
We hired Mr. Moore in January of 2008 to pour a sidewalk, build a retaining wall coming out of our basement, and to install a yard for us at our brand new home in Kylertown, PA. Mr. Moore started in March of 2008 by pouring a sidewalk for us, which to date has been fine.
Next he started the wall and stairs project that you see in the above link. Please reference the pictures below:
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It quickly became evident after the first hard rain that we had problems. The walkway was not "pitched" correctly and we had puddles as big as lakes laying on the walkway. To make matters worse, the area in front of the door (bottom of the picture) was now a puddle and the water was funneled under the door jam into the basement. Every time we had a hard rain, we had to run for towels and blankets to sop up the river that ran under the basement door. We had not had any water in the basement at all prior to the installation of this wall. By this time, Mr. Moore had moved on to other clients and just didn't want to be bothered with us anymore. It was next to impossible to get Mr. Moore to come back and fix this problem. My husband made numerous phone calls, and when we finally did get Mr. Moore to come back to address the problem, his response was to smear gray caulk all over our brown walls and use the yellow spray insulation on parts of the walls. |
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This is a lovely example of the caulk job that he did on our retaining wall. Looks great, doesn't it? |
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Mr. Moore seems to be terribly proud of the circle kit and Versa-lock stairs that he did for us on this page: but a closer look reveals the shoddy and unprofessional cuts that were made on this circle kit. When questioned about this by my husband, Mr. Moore replied "Oh don't worry about it-- you fill the cracks with sand and you'll never notice it." Obviously to anyone with a set of eyes and three brain cells, this is not the case. In addition, on this picture you can see the mud that washed down from behind the wall and onto the bricks because it was not backfilled properly. I don't know whether to laugh or cry that he thinks it's okay to use pictures of the job that he did for us on his website when he clearly didn't care about the quality of his work or the end result. |
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A decision was made during the building of the wall to extend it and curve it somewhat. Instead of tying the blocks in together the way Versa-lock suggests on their website, Mr. Moore simply started at the end of the wall with a new row of bricks. Thus, we are left with this lovely "weak spot" and unsightly starting-over point in our retaining wall. After we decided on the extension of the wall, my husband specifically asked him if he would tear out part and rebuild it so that the blocks would be tied in and interlocked and Mr. Moore said yes. Guess this is his idea of "tied-in and inter-locked". |
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Another example of his "fake it 'til you make it" installation skills. Note the thin brick that runs alongside the gray rounded pavers. When he gets to a point where he can't fit them in anymore, he simply stops using them and fills the cracks with masonry sand. Incidentally, he used so much of this sand trying to cover up his lousy cuts and flaws that it is now laying in big dirty piles in all of the corners of the walkway. |
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Because Mr. Moore didn't bother to anticipate the need for topsoil when he made our yard, we are left with PVC pipe sticking out all over the place. |
When he first started working for us, we were his best customers. When he got a few more clients, he couldn't get us done fast enough and get out of here and I think the quality of his haste is pretty evident in the above pictures.
I'm not going to even get into how much he screwed up making our yard. We have .75 of an acre, and we kept telling him "You need to go completely to the edges of the property." He was in such a hurry to dump us and get to his other jobs that this was not done, and needless to say, in 2009 we are looking at putting approximately $8,000 additional dollars into having the walkway re-laid so that the water drains away and our yard finished and reseeded.
We sued Mr. Moore in the Fall of 2008 to try to recoup some of the money that we needed to have additional work done, and we won our case. Mr. Moore then felt the need to leave a cryptic, somewhat threatening message on my husband's cell phone that we retain to this day.
Nearly every other landscape professional that we have had come to our property to quote a cleanup is aghast at Mr. Moore's poor workmanship. One landscaper even turned his name and pictures of our walkway into the local Versa-lock dealer so that he would quit recommending him for jobs in this area.
5/26/2009-We have currently hired Landcape One from DuBois, PA to clean up Mr. Moore's mess. They have fixed the walkway, and after the hard rain that we had all day today, I am PLEASED to say that we have no water in the basement. The cuts that they made to go around the half circle kit just outside the door are professional and absolutely top-notch.
July 21, 2009- This morning I recieved an email from Mr. Moore requesting that I take this website down, or if I won't take it down (his words): " if ur going to leave it up there tell them how my uncle came and wired your garage for nothing"
Our garage was fully wired by Fine Line when we moved into our house, and the lights worked fine. My husband was trying to separate the outside front porch lights from turning on with the outside garage lights and was having trouble figuring out how to accomplish this. He mentioned this to Mr. Moore and, without my husband having asked, Mr. Moore returned with his uncle, who was an electrician.
Today I answered Mr. Moore with an email in which I stated: " Gordon was trying to separate the outside lights to turn on with different switches, and you brought your uncle without being asked to do so. He was there for about ten minutes telling him how to do it, but never touched a thing."
I stand corrected.
My husband informs me that: " The wires were already run and I just could not figure how they should be jumped to make the three-way switch work. So, yes, the guy was there, I only mentioned to Jason about my trouble. He brought the guy and he fixed it in about 10 minutes."
Standard electrician rates are about $40 an hour. We would be happy to deduct this amount from the judgement that Mr. Moore owes us to pay his uncle for the electrical work.