We noticed neighbors around us were paying to have their lawns cut and thought it would be good to find someone to do ours. It took a bit of effort but Dennis found someone who was cutting another neighbor's lawn and asked if he could cut ours. This was last July that Dennis found Burt the mower. Burt started cutting the lawn for us. We agreed to pay $40 every two weeks to have our lawn maintained. The arrangement went fine that year and we were able to end it around end of September before the weather started to change.
This year we resumed the service starting in June but of course Burt was starting to hit me with offers to do some additional yard work for an extra fee of course. I pushed back initially but the yard has been out of control for a while. Burt made some suggestions and told me that his team could do the work, which included cutting some overgrown tree limbs for between $280 - $300. We agreed on $300.
It took almost a month before Burt's team got around to doing the work. They arrived this past Tuesday a few minutes before 10AM. I was busy working from home and Dom was home off from school. They were still working till after 3pm. I had $340 in cash and I did feel like I should give a little something extra. But I didn't have much more cash but I gave an extra $20.
The next day Dom and I were in Shipshewana enjoying the first of two concerts in the area. We went to see Il Divo who were performing in their Blue Gate theatre. Dom and I were enjoying the show when I started getting phone calls from a number I didn't recognize but later saw it was Burt. I couldn't answer the phone since we were in the concert.
I then got a text message saying "Ok you got me blocked you owe me $140 bucks." He said a whole bunch of nonsense afterwards. I was confused and was upset during what was supposed to be a fun evening. I was able to mostly block it out (after twenty minutes) but I texted Burt as soon as the concert was over and mentioned that we discussed $300 and I gave $320.
Alas that was where the rub. He then said I gave him a $20 tip and if we were going there, I should've gave him $150 (which is up from the $140 he spouted earlier). He said that he spent eight hours at our property (it was actually a little over 5 hours) taking care of it. It did wind up being a lot more work than anticipated. So what I thought was a nice gesture with the extra $20 turned out to be an insult.
He then went into a texting tirade before saying "He'll be back, he's not being an asshole". But he was an asshole.
He or someone from his team is supposed to be back on Friday to cut the grass. Even though I was upset about the tirade, from his perspective I do understand where he's coming from. Dom says I don't owe him anything else since we agreed to the $300 but if they plan to continue cutting the grass, I don't want any bad blood. So I plan to give him $150 in addition to the $40 for the lawn. Hell maybe I'll make it an even $200. But after that experience I don't want him or his team doing anything else extra for us. He was doing all this talk last Tuesday on getting grass feed to try and get the grass in the yard area growing again that was overtaken by weeds. But I don't want them to do anything else for me. I really don't want them cutting our grass anymore. But I feel like I may have to broach this situation carefully. I was scared he was going to come to our house and try something. I feel like a level of trust was broken with how he reacted.
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