The long story is this:
Some neighbors were getting some trees taken down and a few others trimmed up by a tree service. I went up to see how much it would cost to have them take a tree down for us because the service we usually used was booked solid for several weeks out. Our tree was infested about 1/2 the way up the tree and was going to fall. The tree was better than 60' tall and it would have fallen towards our house. The price was comparable to what we paid the other tree service and they had an opening the following Tuesday as someone had canceled, which was fantastic, and the day after they were doing our neighbor's trees.
I called my wife out and told her how much and when they could do it, and she agreed we could go ahead with it. We told him we would keep the wood so they wouldn't have to haul the wood away & I joked that we would take the neighbor's wood also. The kiddos came up from building a chicken coop, and we got into a discussion about education & schooling as he was surprised to see them at home on a school day. We explained that we homeschooled, we both had backgrounds in education, our reasons for homeschooling, and the classical education we were giving our kiddos. He was also a former teacher and administrator and after he retired, bought some local businesses and started the tree service. He also said pine was terrible wood and he would bring us some soft maple and black birch instead. I said that would be fine and asked how much? He said no charge as we were doing right with our kids and educating them the right way. in fact, there would be no charge for taking the tree down either. I asked if you could, stack the wood down next to our parking area as that is where I split wood and it was safer than at the top of our property which is a very steep incline, and he said that would be fine. They'd have all the trucks and it would be easy for him to do.
Fast forward to that Tuesday, and the guy took the tree down and left it on the hillside. He also proceeded to stack the trees from our neighbor's house at the top of our property [on the steep incline] a little too close to the road. None of the trees left were soft maple or black birch. All ivy-covered, bug-infested pine.
My wifey asked him why he did that because that wasn't what I said would be done. He then got out of his truck and berated her for several minutes in front of his workers, our neighbors, and our kids. He went on about having 5 witnesses to what we had agreed upon and told her she should stick to building chicken coops and teaching kids. He also said since she didn't know about trees, she shouldn't tell him how to do his job, especially since he did the tree for nothing.
My wife tried calling me at work [in tears] but I couldn't answer because I was in a meeting and was unable to answer my phone. When I did talk to her, she explained everything to me & I explained everything that I said to her. She got the guy's address from our neighbor's. Talking to some friends of ours, that guy treated his wife much the same way and was a jerk like that to a lot of people. I wrote a letter to him explaining [nicely] what a jerk he was, and if that was how he treated people when they asked questions, & I didn't need or want his charity or free wood. I wrote a check, put it in with the letter, and mailed it to him. Likewise, we had to explain to several of our neighbors what had happened, and they said they had gotten his card for some work, but then canceled the jobs they scheduled with him. A few weeks later, the check came back to us uncashed, without the enclosed letter.
I have a friend that works for the forestry service who came out and helped me cut the trees that were too close to the road. My buddy had a chainsaw with a bar that was long enough to cut through a few of them and could better judge what was safe and what was not. Even he agreed the guy was a turd, and If I ever needed help with trees again, if he couldn't cut them down, he knew folks that could.
So, that's why I will never use that guy again.
And the tree service we usually use? They drop me off a few trees anytime they are in the area working. They just appear with it and honk as they leave.
