Federico Alvarez Landscaping

I would give less than 1 STAR if it was an option.

I hired Federico Alvarez Landscaping, who sub-contracted to Brandon Castillo (AKA - Castillo Landscaping or Outdoor Digs, Newark DE). We though Brandon was his project supervisor. They never showed up first day of job, even though it was confirmed the evening before. Then when we called to find out where they were, we were told everyone was exposed to COVID-19, yet we had to call them, they never called us to explain they would not be there to start the job, seems odd that they did not know the night before. Job started 6 days late. Job was supposed to take 3 days, but took 6 days. Brandon Castillo has no clue what constitutes a full day of work. I don't care that it took 6 days, but don't complain that your guys get paid salary and it was a 6 day job when the only reason it took 6 days was due to ineffective communication, poor organization, and late starts with early departures. Brandon did not honor the contract. They entire time he was here, he was trying to find out what we were paying Christian Alvarez, this is how I found out my job was just subbed to another company. Brandon constantly said he does not due work for free. He claims he never saw the contract, but he was brought by and shown the scope of the job, provided video of the worst case scenario (hurricane Sandy footage) with our yard and driveway flooding. He did not put in the size catch basin indicated in the contract. He put one pipe in and was supposed to put in two. He did not wrap the pipe in fabric & 57 clean stone as indicated on the contract. He did not sink the basin in the ground enough but said it was fine since the water drained in the side hole from the French drain trench. We were hit with a storm before the project finished and they had to add another basin since the one they put in was not big enough, he was supposed to put in 2 more, but only added one more catch basin. He connected the second basin to the first basin, using the hole that the water from the French drain was supposed to flow through. Since the catch basin is not flush with the surface and he used the inflow to connect to the other basin, the water does not drain in that basin now. He also used a catch basin as the outlet for water, so water sits and gets stagnant and breeds insects. He originally used a pop up at the outlet and it popped right off with the first storm. He skimmed my yard the night before hurricane Isaias, exposing the opening below my deck along the length of the deck and leaving soil loose, this caused my basement to flood. We were trying to resolve water flooding my driveway, but my home has never flooded. He did not want to acknowledge that their negligence caused water to pour into my basement under the deck. If this was not bad enough, he broke the sidewalk driving on it with the tractor and left us with deep tractor treads across the grass at sidewalk, up my front lawn, up the length of my side yard and through the yard, he then seeded right over this and tried to say the tractor treads were for drainage. My yard looks like someone drove donuts in the mud. He seeded over fill dirt full of rock, never put in screened top soil. We offer for Christian to finish the job, but he complained that he has to pay Brandon and he was not making anything on the job. This is because he originally offered to finish the grading, repair the sidewalk, and seed, and deduct $2000 off the balance owed due to damages. Which we accepted as long as his crew does the work, we did not want Brandon back. Christian then said he only offered 1700.00 off and he was not going to make any money. Not my problem!!!
I am happy to provide a copy of the contract and pictures of the "completed" job.