Lawn care & pest control
 

Looking for a company that will do lawn care and pest control.
Any recommendations?

Dean's or Massey

Lots of them. See Yellow pages

Welcome Karen !
Deans and Massey are two of the most popular in The Villages.I prefer Deans.
If you use the Search button above you will get many opinions on these two companies and many others.

Call STELLAR. They are an advertiser here & do a GREAT JOB. Call them to come over for an estimate. I've had them for almost 2 yrs. with NOT an issue with them!

I guess there's a whole lot of us lucky ones from what I've read here on TOTV over the last couple of years and from personal experience. Stellar has always come when they were scheduled to provide their services and I have quite a few of their service slips that demonstrates that to me. The only time I've had to call them is when there is a problem between scheduled services like rapid weed growth and when I've found insects like trail ants inside, and I've had no problem getting them here when I have called. Why they've even been here up to three times in a single day for different services. Sorry you're having a problem, but what you state seems to be the exception and not the rule!

sky, I've found Stellar to be very good for frogs. However, it is frequently another story for snowbirds or snowflakes. I had one house where I considered the service so poor I wanted the owner to meet me at the house to discuss the issue and let him see how bad the weeds were. He said he would just go there on his own (so far as I know, he never went to the house). So, I'm another one who is pretty dissatisfied with Stellar.

Dee, thanks for the information. I had heard what you are saying before, but I'm not sure if it was from one of your postings or somebody elses. None-the-less I still stand by my statement that the stated bad service is the exception and not the rule, which doesn't mean that I think there are no problems. I also have several neighbors, a few of which are not frogs, that also have Stellar and have not seen or heard of their having any problems with Stellar either. I almost see Stellar around here as much as I do Neighborhood Watch.

One thing for sure I can tell you about Stellar is that their service has been by far better and reliable than the first 5 lawn and landscaping service hires, or should say headaches that we tried during the nearly 2 years following our home's closing, part of which was before we became frogs.

I can also say that before we contracted with them I did questioned them about exactly what you described to a T, even though I'm no longer a snowbird or snowflake. The reply was that they were aware of it and had already identified two employees that were responsible and dismissed them from their employment.

If we had remained a snowbird or snowflake, know what I know now, and had the kinds of problems you've described, I would go to the top the second time it happens and call Marty personally. IMO, he cares about the services his company provides, would welcome feedback when his staff or crews repeatedly let's him down, especially since it's just not possible for him to personally check up on all of them all by himself.

Finally, so nobody gets the wrong idea, I want to state that I have no connection or interest in Stellar Services what-so-ever except for wanting for good service like everyone else. Matter of fact I'll go as far as to reveal that Stellar was one of the companies and we got quotes from for a 10G+ re-landscaping project last fall, and they did not get the job!

They must have hired those 2 guys back because the house behind me is (or at least was) maintained by Stellar and looks abandoned at this point. I have had to call them previously to get them out here to do something so I guess I need to do so again. No one has occupied the house in the past 2 years so the cat's been away!

Like most companies, it comes down to the skill and professionalism of their employees. Every company will have a few bad eggs and good management will eventually find them and show them the door. We have Stellar and are very pleased with their service. They always answer if we call and immediately take action to investigate and solve any problems.

Use Massey ... Found them to be good.

We use Stellar
 

Stellar has been really good at customer service side. They come when we call. We had our landscape designed and put in by another company who also gets high marks for maintenance. but we already had signed up with Stellar. They helped me bring in my grocery's one day just being helpful. That was really nice of them.

Fired Massey after a year (grass looks much worse than when we bought a year ago), have to call Stellar every few months to come take care of my absent backyard neighbor's yard, am now going to try Bates who was maintaining things when we bought and they were in tip-top shape. Why did we change??? fell for Massey's big sales pitch. Ask me in a year - if they don't work out I'm ripping out all the grass and going with rock!

lawn and pests
 

Dean does a great job

Stellar is good on the customer service side and their employees are very personable. However, their performance is not that good in terms of results. I have them for pest, lawn and shrub fertilizing. I mow my own lawn, and thus the only way to get rid of weeds or ants is to call them in between their 2 month applications. They will come out and spot weed, fungus, or spot ant control. My lawn looks bad. Most lawns except my neighbor who uses them all look better. It has root rot, weeds, spotty, brown... They have used every excuse from not enough water..(they set the sprinkler control recommendations), its summer and the hot weather causes it, and the sod used by the builder is really poor. They do not use a weed and feed since they don't want it on the concrete and the sandy soils would not work according to them. Odd that Home Depot, others sell the product though. The shrubs are also not doing that well. I have got "I don't know what it is", bad soil, etc. The yard looks worse than when it was put in and than they took over.
Btw. The additional month you get if you pay for one year is nothing. You get NO additional maintenance of their products. What you DO get is one month of calling them for fixing one of their services not performing.
Thus I doubt I would renew or recommend them highly. Again, good customer service, but...
So if there is some company out there that is very good and reasonable, I too am looking along with my neighbor and friend.