ABC Pest Control Inc (New Port Richey, FL) - Thumbs-Down Review

I'm not a fanatic about my lawn, but I do care about it and have fallen into a pattern that has rewarded me with a pretty nice yard, much better than most of my neighbors. Like, in early spring, I hit it with Weed Be Gone, once, sometimes twice. Then, if any bare spots appear, I rake them clear. If they're not too big, I can count on the surrounding grass to fill those spots in when the rains come, especially after I fertilize. That's how things were going this year. In fact, I was feeling pretty good about the lawn - it was green, there were only a couple small bare spots, and I had just applied some Scotts Turf Builder.

Then I come out of the house one day and find the bug guy going back to his truck with a spreader. "What were you spreadin'?" I ask. Without getting specific he answered fertilizer combined with some kind of insecticide. Somewhere along the line, the bug people had volunteered to be my lawn people, too. They never asked me if I wanted them to do that, they did it on their own so they could come more often and make more money off me. I told him I had just fertilized myself a few days before but that brought no reaction, even though it's possible that too much fertilizer can cause fertilizer burn. He just left his bill and took off.

Now, let me reiterate  the day I spotted him with his spreader my lawn was green. I didn't think to take any "before" pictures because, at the time, I didn't realize there was going to be an "after." Suffice it to say the overall impression one got upon looking at my lawn was this:

Green

Two weeks later, I began to notice some yellow patches appearing here and there. Three weeks later, I had a mostly dead lawn. Here's some pics:

East of the Trailer - Not Green

North Side Rear - Nope, Not Green

North Side Front - No Longer Green

West Side - Dying Fast

South - Dead

Well, to tell the truth, and I told the girl at ABC Pest Control in New Port Richey, FL, the same thing, the lawn looked like someone had sprayed it with Round-Up. "We don't use Round-Up," she replied. "I'm just telling you what it looks like," I said. Finally, she said she'd have someone come out and look at my lawn. Unfortunately, he came the morning I had a doctor's appointment and, though I got home by 9 AM, he was already in the wind. Below, find the form he left me.

Front 

Rear

Here's what he said: "Areas of drought and some winter weed dieing. (on their own) out such as carpet grass. (etc) I advise rake out and put down (Bahia Seed. Keep) watered -" Below, he added "As you Travel  Thru out the park you will see simular. In other lawns." [Misplaced periods, misused parentheses, misspellings and grammatical deficiencies have not been corrected. I'd like you to see for yourselves the quality and brain power of the dude they sent out to view my lawn.]

Of course, having been dealing with this lawn since we moved here in 2000, I had a much better idea of what was going on with my lawn than he had. Fact is, even though I had two or three different kinds of grass growing, I didn't care. It was my lawn, it was green - I was happy with it. Plus, I ride around the park on my bike every day and am perfectly aware of the sorry state of many of the lawns. The thing is, mine was fine! My was not burnt up, mine was not brown like theirs - IT WAS GREEN! Besides, I hired these guys for pest control. What in hell makes them think I want them screwing around with my lawn? I called the office and voiced my displeasure to the girl who answered the phone. She had the guy who had come out give me a call. He repeated what he had written on the form, concluding that his company had done nothing to destroy my yard. Trying to make it simple for him, I repeated my position - my lawn was green when your man spread his chemicals on it, now, it's yellow, it's brown, and totally burnt. He didn't want to hear it.

I imagine if I lived down in Trinity or some other relatively affluent community the company would have been more accommodating  But, since I reside in a 55 plus mobile home park, he couldn't care less that his company destroyed my lawn. Fine. I mean we all make snap judgments, don't we. For instance, he thinks people who live in an old fogy's trailer park have mush for brains, and I think he's a nitwit. At one point, he bragged, "I've been in this business 30 years." How embarrassing for him! You'd think in 30 years, this minion of veracity, with his ample supply of writing and verbal skills, might have made something more of himself.

ABC Pest Control

8320 Massachusetts Ave.

New Port Richey, FL 34653

May 25, 2013

Please cancel my account. I do not desire or require your services any longer.

Michael Toscano

  

Michael Toscano

No sense bogging them down with details. That would only confuse them.

Who's the Dummy? Sun Toyota Can Tell You -- It's Me!

It's been a bad week. Hell, it's been a bad year. In addition to the speeding ticket I recently wrote about, there's this thing I've got going with the Hudson Water Works. Like a dummy - yeah, I admit it - I recently reported to the girl who takes your money at the window that our last couple bills were unusually low. She said she'd send someone out to check the meter. Well, this month we get a water bill for $58, more than double any other bill we've received in the eleven years we've been living here. When I went down to the office to pay it, I just happened to let slip that this bill was double what we usually paid. Another girl informed me that they had installed a new meter, and that this bill represented an estimate based on our previous months usage. That made, and still makes, absolutely no sense, on multiple grounds. First, how can you determine the previous months usage if the meter wasn't working properly? And, secondly, if you have a new meter, why do you need an estimate. But, there's no winning with these people, so I decided to wait for the next bill and hope they don't break the bank. Meanwhile, I'm trying to forget that it was I who reported that my bills were too low.

Regarding the speeding ticket, it's true that the particular instance of speeding that led to the citation was caused by a representative of the vast Silver Mange, a disease that effects all Florida roadways but, upon reflection, I can trace the cause of the ticket back to Sun Toyota of New Port Richey, the people who sold me the p.o.s. 2009 Corolla I'm currently driving. These people are the scum of the earth. Of course, by these people, I'm referring primarily to the salesman who sold me the shit wagon, though a few others did collude in the swindle.

I know, you have to be on your toes whenever you're dealing with a used car salesman. But, it's so easy to be deceived, especially when the deceivers have carefully honed their craft through years of flagrant deceptions. For some of the signs that the salesman you're dealing with is a swindler, check out this article: The Used-Car Salesman's Training Manual: 25 Tricks They Use to Charge You More

Though many of these apply to my experience, I guess number 4, Making Friends, is the ploy that did me in. I forget what, but the salesman finally convinced me we were brothers with a lot in common. Of course, it wasn't our bad knees that bolstered our kinship. With him limping around and me insisting that I needed a cruise control to relieve the pain that invariably struck when I was driving, with the two of us thinking as one in regards to this topic, you'd have a hard time believing that we drove out of Sun Toyota in a car that didn't have cruise.

This is how my good buddy pulled this one off. After taking several test rides in different cars up and down Hwy 19, my wife spotted this black Corolla. He went over and glanced inside and, instead of shaking his head "no," and saying “no cruise,” he called into play a different strategy. When we took it for a ride, he made sure we avoided 19 and took us, instead, into a development where we couldn't go over 25 mph. One wouldn't normally think of "cruise control" at that speed. At least, I didn't.

There were other things, too. Like an extra set of keys. If you pay 12 grand for a car, you have a right to expect an extra set of keys. Well, he hemmed and hawed on the issue, letting me know he was working on it, but he never came through. Eventually, I had to have one made. It cost $100. BTW, that was the last time I returned to the dealership. They've contacted me numerous times telling me it's time to get serviced. All I can think is they have to be kidding.

And when I asked if there were any unresolved recall issues with the car, he went somewhere and checked and then came back saying there were none. Not long after I purchased the car, I started getting bombarded with recall notices. A little research showed that the actual date of the recall was January 27, 2010, several months before the purchase. Why not make the corrections  before you sold me the heap of crap?

Anyway, for the first ten and a half years here in Florida I avoided speeding by arriving at a safe speed and then applying the cruise control. I used it wherever I went. As soon as I realized I had been duped into buying a car without cruise, I knew I'd have to watch my speed. It's all too easy, if you're not vigilant, to exceed the speed limit. Tell me about it.

While I’m flinging blame around, I mustn't forget Hyundai of New Port Richey. My old car, the car I was trading in, was a 2003 Hyundai Elantra. All in all, though it didn't take bumps that well, it was a good car. It got great mileage, 34 mpg on long trips, it was fully loaded with a fantastic sound system, and it had cruise. So, we went to the Hyundai dealer first. We walked around the lot for about ten minutes without attracting one salesman. There were a couple standing around smoking cigarettes and chatting, but we didn't seem to set off their sucker alarms. So, we left. I mean, I’m not going to beg somebody to take my money. Someone who works there later informed me that it isn't their practice to automatically descend on potential customers with the sales rap. Why not? I replied. Any moron should know we were there to buy a car. Why else would I come to a car lot? Free hotdogs? Anyway, a little initiative on their part, and I would not have had to suffer at the hands of those crooks at Sun Toyota.

Speaking of the ticket, I went to the post office, got a money order, and mailed it out to the Clerk of Court the same day I received it. When I called the Clerk's office to inquire about taking the online course so I don't get any points, I was told to go online and fill out the form and send it in. I informed the girl I talked to that I was familiar with the form, but I didn't make note of the citation number which was required information. She advised me to call back in a week. But, when I called back in a week, another girl informed me that by sending in my payment I had settled the matter and, now, could not take the online course. I tried to explain what I had been told previously, but she didn't want to hear it. Finally, she handed me off to a superior who was more inclined to help me and, hopefully, straightened the matter out.

Jeez!

And, Osama thought he was having a bad week.

Seaside Cleaners, Hudson, FL: They Took US to the Cleaners, Literally

Back home, we had a dry cleaner, let's call them Lupo's Dry Cleaner. The owners, good friends of many people in town, were nice people and standup members of the community. We went to the same church and even had morning coffee at the same luncheonette. When we needed something dry cleaned, it was automatic - we went to Lupo's. And, as friends of ours, they went out of their way to give us good service.

Nowadays, on the western edge of Pasco County, things are a lot different. To tell you the truth, an experience we had several years ago caused us to lose all confidence in local dry cleaners. My wife brought something to the cleaners with pleats and they proceded to press the pleats right out of the garment. She brought the item, a jacket, back, but to no avail. She eventually had to iron in the pleats herself. Right then and there, she swore off Florida dry cleaners.

But, with the passing of several years, her resolve dissipated. We were coming out of our favorite pizzeria, Leo & Joe's, when she notice that next door in the strip mall was a cleaners, Seaside Cleaners. Dare she give them a try, she wondered. Why not, I said. So, a couple days later I brought down three of her jackets.

I picked them up this morning and set them on the bed where my wife could inspect them when she got home. Within seconds of checking them out, she came charging out of the bedroom with her just-cleaned white jacket in hand. Look at this, she said, pointing to a pattern of black marks on the front that covered an area 8 inch square. These weren't on there. Then she pointed out the dirty cuffs which were the reason she wanted to have the jacket cleaned in the first place. They were still dirty. She wanted to bring it back, right then.

So, we hopped in the car and returned to Seaside Cleaners. What would have been nice and, frankly, what we expected, was a promise to have the jacket recleaned for no charge. Unfortunately, that was not going to happen, not without a lot of perseverence, anyway.

The girl who was manning the store was very noncommital. Before a decision could be made on how to handle my wife's jacket, someone else had to inspect it and then call us up at home next week, after the weekend. Pardon me, but the jacket's not just dirty, but dirtier than when we dropped it off. Now, you expect us to suffer through some kind of insane process whereby it is confirmed that there is a problem. Don't be silly, folks, just reclean it.

Out of patience, my wife says, Forgetabout it. Just give me my money back. Not so fast. Once again, before any money can be refunded, the jacket would have to sit there over the weekend until someone in authority arrived on the scene on Monday who would determine if the refund was warranted. Give me a freakin' break! The damn thing's dirty, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that. You had your chance... and failed. Just give us our money. No, she wasn't in a position to do that. Well, call somebody who is! No, she couldn't do that either.

Finally, figuring we had already wasted enough gas, we said the hell with the $5 and took the jacket home swearing, once again, never to go to a local dry cleaner. Upon arriving home, my wife threw all three jackets into the washer because, in truth, none of them had come out very clean and in minutes they came out spotless. If your clothing is washable, I suggest you follow her lead and wash it. If it's dry clean only, then I suggest burning it, or donating it to Good Will. But, please, don't get taken to the cleaners.