Decks and Daylilies

A few years back I planted what at the time was supposed to be the tallest, yellow daylilies on the market. This is what a guy at Daylilies of North Carolina says about the variety: “Here we have a true giant in the daylily world. A flower that begs you to stand next to and have your picture taken with it. And you do not have to squat, or stand in a hole, or use a funny camera angle to show the height of this daylily. Modesty dictates that I register this beauty at 68" but I have measured scapes at 74". What's half a foot when we are talking about ‘reaching new heights?’ I would rather tell you that it has wonderful fragrance, and 7 ½" blooms, and fabulous mounds of foliage.... and it sets pods!” 

On my kitchen counter is a bouquet of 25-30 stems of my daylilies. Normally, I wouldn’t cut them and bring them in the house, but I have a guy here prepping my deck for staining it and putting new lattice around the bottom and the lilies will get trampled. I had no choice, but to bring them in if I wanted to stretch their beauty out a few more days. In the meantime they’re filling up the house with sickeningly sweet fragrance. If someone I know were here he'd say, “Something smells like a well perfumed whore on a Saturday night” and I suspect before all the blooms are gone the bouquet will end up in the garage if it keeps reminding me of ladies of the night.

I don’t know about this guy doing my deck work. He didn’t come about because I thoroughly vetted him or he came highly recommended or has done deck work for me in the past. I happened to ask my lawn care guy if he knew anyone who stains decks and replaces lattice skirting and he said, “I do. I do it all.” So I told him to write up an estimate and the next thing I know I came home to find a power washer sitting in my back yard. Since he was the first person I asked about the deck, I knew it was his. I called him up and left a message that he needed to get something down in a contract because we hadn’t agreed on a price or the product or method of applying it. Yadda, yadda, yadda. 

He called me back and long story short, he’d already bought the stain and the plastic lattice and he claimed I told him I wanted the lattice painted gray to match the decking and he was just getting ready to start doing it in his garage. I was shocked. “Painting it gray wouldn’t have occurred to me in a 100 years!” I said. “It’s always been white. It comes white. White lattice matches the trim on the house.” And I was racking my brain to try to remember what I could have possibility said to make him think he had the job in the bag before he’d even given me an estimate of the cost involved. The word 'dementia' occurred to me during this exchange and I wasn't sure if that label should be smacked on his forehead or mine. Either way I clearly lost control of the deck job I'd planned on getting a couple of estimates on. And that makes me feel old and unsure of what's really going on.

I bluntly told him, “I did not agree to this job and won’t until you put it in writing so we both know we’re on the same page.” The contract he gave me had exactly twenty words in it. I’d proof read enough of my husband’s contracts and I’ve seen enough Judge Judy shows to know what should be in a contract and this guy didn't even include the name of the person---his live-in girlfriend---who he always has me write the checks to when lawn care payments are due. Without a canceled check made out to him, I’d have no way to prove I paid for the extensive deck work should things go bad and we ended up in court. I've never sued anyone in my life but there's a first time for everything.

One of his helpers told me he does the check thing because he owes his x-wife a bunch of back child support and she comes after any money that goes in his bank account. He’s a likeable guy but as the summer has gone by he’s gotten increasing too eager to spend my money. He wanted to power wash my house one time. “No, thanks.” "Are you, sure? It needs it." No it doesn't. “Your shrubs need trimming. I’ve got my trimmer in the truck.” “Wrong season to do it in.” But I wanted to say, “I’m the home owner, I DECIDE when I schedule what.” Ohmygod, I miss my nephew! He took such good care of my yard and even though he charged more than Avoiding-Child-Support Guy, my nephew was worth every penny…and he paid taxes on his income like all good little foot soldiers in this world do and he knew how to write a contract. But I can’t fire this guy because there's a shortage of lawn care services in town and I was lucky to get him last spring after calling nearly a dozen who weren't taking on anymore customers.

I’m not looking forward to next week when the deck gets its makeover. He’s bringing his live-in girlfriend with him to help stain the 191 spindles and her son to do the lattice work. I’ve got a huge deck that wraps two sides of the house and deck staining alone---without the lattice work---has always been a huge, three day production and I’m crossing my fingers Avoiding-Child-Support-Guy knows what he’s doing. I will be watching like a hawk. I've told him before signing the stupid contract that "neatness counts" and he just laughed which made me feel like a controlling old lady. I did get him to cross off his name and write his girlfriend's name where it said, "payable to...." She's got to be ten ways to dimwitted to allow herself to be used that way.

On the good side, this week I did learn something about daylilies, having them in the house. The flowers really do only last a day---sun up to sun down even under artificial lights---and when they die they are so wet they 'cry tears' like babies needing their mamas. They don't drink a lot of water like gladiolas and other large flowers do. Where does all the water they drip come from?  ©

The Know-it-All

Who would have thought after living in a house for eighteen years and having a great lawn care company go out of business that I’d have a hard time finding another. Other years they’ve flooded my mailbox with fliers and I started looking for them by mid-February. None showed up. Finally, I did an internet search of lawn care services in the area, called all seven listed but none were taking new customers. One big company that’s been around forever would take me if I was willing to pay a surcharge the first year bringing the weekly cuts up from an estimated $40 a week to $65. “But then the following year you’d be in our system and the price would drop back down. That’s just for the cuts,” she went on, “the weed and feed treatments are extra.”

I don’t need the weed and feed, I told her, “l’ve already contracted for that.” You would have thought I said I contracted a hit-man to kill the postman. “You can’t do that!” she said with great indignation. ”They need to be tied to your cuts.” She was such a snippy know it-all that I had a hard time not hanging up on her but I hadn’t decided, yet, if I’d have to let her extort a surcharge out of me. I was running out of options so I politely told her I’ve been contracting feed and weed separately for eighteen years and it’s always worked out fine. I didn’t tell her my weed and feed company uses all organic-based, earth friendly products, the only company in the area that does and if I’m going to pay extra for a service, I’d pick them every time. Weed, feed and bug control is their only business---not a cheap service either---and they run fifty trucks. Obviously, I’m not the only one who commits the Cardinal Sin of not tying weed and feed treatments in with their mowing. How gullible does she think people are? 

It must have been a slow day at the office because ‘chatty’ seemed to be her default mode. She asked who I’d been using for lawn care. I told her and before she could badmouth him, I added that he is also my nephew and he went out of business. She said the reason everyone is full already is because six companies in town did the same thing. “We know everyone,” she says, and “no one is taking new clients.” Clients? Lawyers have ‘clients’ people who cut grass have ‘customers.’ Then she goes on to say that the remaining companies all got together in February “to kind of set the prices”---OOPS! It was almost fun listening to her backpedal on price fixing. She rushed to explain how low bid people always go out of business after bleeding their customers away and I said, “Ya, I know all about low bids. We were in the commercial snowplowing business for decades.” And while she was sucking on that tidbit of information I took the opportunity to ask again, “Are you sure you don’t know anyone who is still writing contracts?” She gave me a phone number.

I was almost afraid to take a recommendation from Ms. Know-it-All who talks-too-much but I called and within two hours a laid-back guy came over, walked the yard, gave me a price and as we talked I felt comfortable enough to write him a check for half the season. It seems he plows snow in the winter for Chatty Know-it-All's company and they tried to subcontract him to mow this summer. He turned them down but told them: “If you want to throw me a bone, I can handle a couple more lawns.” So now the surcharge makes sense. If this big company can subcontract guys like him who have their own small companies, they could collect the extra money to do the billing, then poach the customer away from the subcontractor the following year with no one being the wiser as to who really did the actual work. 

My sister-in-law who passed away a couple of years ago used to say she was ready to go to a nursing home because it was too hard to keep her yard up. And at the time I didn’t understand why anyone would say that. “What’s the big deal?” I’d ask. “All we do is make a few phone calls and write a few checks.” If I could, I’d go back and tell her I’m sorry I didn’t understand why her lawn care was wearing her down. I was stressed out this year thinking I’d be living in a hay field with township violation notices decorating my front door like mini flags waving along a parade route. Heck, I'll be stressed out until the new guy shows up to do the first cut of the season. He is doing my cuts for a bargain rate of $30 a week so when I'm finished worrying about him taking my check and disappearing off the earth, I'll start worrying about him being so cheap he’ll let me down before fall. He looks like a guy who loves his sweets so I might have to start baking on Thursdays to keep him happy and make him feel guilty if he even thinks about stranding an elderly woman before the season is over. ©