Devastated - can't believe my builder did this

@geekygardener

What the hell, he must have had a motive to suddenly become so efficient.

I suspect it's simply that it's taken so long to do the extension, and so long since the initial discussions/scope of works, etc., that he's just got confused with another customer who did want the entire garden clearing, and done it without checking.

I would imagine some customers would want their entire garden clearing after a big rear extension to "start again" or for a completely different garden layout, so he's probably just got himself confused.

No one would do that extend of work if he didn't think that's what the customer wanted - it's a much bigger job to clear an entire garden than it would have been just to clear his own building waste.

He really needs to be told he's made a mistake and to be told what is needed for him to rectify it.

But he must be a bit of a "cowboy" style of builder to leave a huge pile of mess/waste for so long anyway. He should have been clearing/removing periodically as he's gone along rather than make the customer suffer with a huge pile of rubbish and waste for so long. So that alone tends to suggest he has an attitude problem of not caring about the customer as he must have realised the customer didn't want a huge pile of rubbish blocking their garden for month after month, but simply didn't care!

On another note, there are lots on gardeners on Instagram who are usually very helpful when you ask for advice, so you could maybe start there, or just look there for inspiration. https://www.instagram.com/nettlesandpetals/ is on the lookout for people who want help with their gardens.

Ugh, sorry you had those experiences!

If you are employed to do X job but you do Y, it's completely irrelevant to argue "it needed doing anyway" or "it looks better this way".

That's not what you were employed to do. End of.

If tradies don't listen, communicate clearly, put things in writing and pay attention to the customer, and end up doing the wrong job, the fault is entirely on them for not clarifying.

At the end of the day what stands up legally is whatever is in a written agreement/ plan of work or invoice.

No he's not.

"Clear the garden" in that context - a builder who has left rubble/ building stuff all over the garden - obviously means get your rubbish out of the garden, not dig the whole thing up.

Legally, the builder does not have a leg to stand on if this work was not part of a written contract. He is 100% at fault. The lack of written agreement legally comes back on the builder, not OP.

He has destroyed her property without written permission to do so.

A job as big as re-landscaping a garden should have been part of a written plan and OP isn't in the wrong to assume that wasn't what he meant - it's a massive job.

Dubious verbal consent in which it was not clear what would actually be done will not hold up.

It's the builder who needed this clearly in writing to cover himself, not OP.

As you can tell from my user name I cherish my garden too. I also loved my previous homes gardens and was gutted leaving them behind when we moved. But that was by choice and I was leaving them in a lovely state. So to have this happen op I would be devastated. I have spent thousands on my garden and years of work and effort. The fruit trees and other shrubs take years and years to grow and establish. It is my sanctuary and happy place. Like you I have sentimental plants. When we had our fence done last year the builders damaged my lawn and a few plants and I admit I was shocked how careless they were and I did cry. There was no need for them to be that messy or careless. Their boss is a gardener but was not working that week, and I regret not showing him the damage. Anyway just trying to show you I understand.

I really can’t understand this at all. The builder has had enough to do and hasn’t been able to get it done even with having an extra year. Why would he take on this extra job wasting more time, especially when he hadn’t been asked to. It is really hard work to take up established trees and shrubs. What has he even done with them all? Surly he hasn’t thrown it all in a skip? I bet he has taken them for himself. He has taken so long on the job he is supposed to be doing, yet manages to rip out a whole garden in a day, including trees ! What the hell, he must have had a motive to suddenly become so efficient. Also how thick can someone be to think a person would want established plants ripping up, how thick must a grown man be not to know how much time and effort these sort of things take to grow. Even people who like plastic grass and grey decking know that a proper garden is to be cherished.

@RedRoss86

Personally I don't think losing the head gets people anywhere

I agree, you lose the battle immediately if things get heated.

Far better to be calm, composed but assertive in a respectful manner, and keep calm and assertive even if the builder gets heated himself.

Stick to the facts, stick to clearly stating how you want him to resolve his mistake.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it's always dangerous to leave builders (and other trades) alone and leave them to it. Best is to always be around and watch what they're doing, but if you can't then you need VERY regular (daily is best) detailed conversations about exactly what they're going to do that date.

Never assume anything with them.

We learned that the hard way decades ago when we bought our first home. We both worked full time with relatively long commutes leaving home 7-30 to 8-00 so rarely there before the tradesmen would turn up in the morning.

Worst was a landscaping firm we had to install a decking area and replace the back lawn. For a number of reasons, there was a long delay between him coming to quote and actually starting the work. He must have forgotten what we'd told him and hadn't bothered to check his written quote before starting the work, because when we came home, we came home to a newly laid front lawn and the back lawn untouched. He had to admit his mistake when we showed him his own quote which clearly said "replace rear lawn", but he still wouldn't relay it unless we paid for both lawns as he claimed "the front lawn needed replacing anyway" and wouldn't back down when we pointed out we were planning to widen the driveway at the front so wouldn't have needed a new lawn!

Another time was a bathroom fitter where we'd told him exactly which tiles we wanted fitting, even down to the name and number as per the catalogue. Again, we came home one evening to find two walls of the bathroom tiled in a completely different tile - wrong size, wrong colour! Again, lots of huffing and puffing and trying to blame us for telling him the wrong tile etc., but we finally established he'd got confused and had two lots of tiles in his van and we got the wrong ones he'd bought for another customer! He still wasn't happy about having to remove them and start again and kept trying to persuade us the wrong ones looked better! After we'd made him spend a day taking them off and preparing the walls again and then another day putting the right ones on that wall (so him wasting two days), we was just a real miserable unhelpful grumpy sod for the rest of the job. Even though it was all his fault!

toot sweet comes from the same root as "san fairy ann" British troups brought back french phrases they had never seen written down. It popped up again in Chitty Chitty bang bang. https://www.oed.com/dictionary/toot-sweet_adv?tl=true

Oh OP, that is devastating.
I love my garden & have fruit trees that are 6 years old & a plum tree that is giving fruit for it's first year.
I would be so sad if someone dug them up.

you need to speak with the builder about this;

• why was the entire garden cleared, Inc trees
• where were they dumped, is there any way to get them back

I would let him know how upset you are about this, that you put alot of care and work into the garden.

Relations of his being sick have no baring on this matter, this is business , you are a customer and this needs to be addressed.
Also you said about going mental at him.
Personally I don't think losing the head gets people anywhere.
I do think you need to address it though so he knows what his team did.

You won't get your garden back but he needs to know & you will feel better getting it off your chest.

I would be absolutely devastated like you!!
Have they been dug out or chopped at ground level?

I think you need to talk to the builder about it. Ask why he removed all the well established plants and trees. No one normal would have done more than clear the rubbish surely?!

I think a straightforward question as to where your plants are is reasonable even under the circumstances with the stage 4 cancer

I’d be beyond devastated. Took me years to get my dad’s hollyhocks established, I took seeds last time I spoke to him in his garden. I’m moving next year and already have seeds to take with me.

The lawn should be relatively easy to re-lay with new turf. The only positive would be having a clean slate to re-establish, but I’d be gutted re the fruit tree taken from a cutting. I’m desperate to have a few fruit trees. You should definitely tell him (not ask!) that you’re taking a grand or more off the final bill, particularly with the insane overrun.

I would not rely on AI for anything legal!

That's terrible! He should not have done that.

Just to play devil's advocate, could the plants and flowers have died in the recent heatwaves? Were you able to get to them to water them?

If replacing them yourself is the route you’re going down, it explains why the job took so long… you’re too easy to walk over. We had renovations done recently and it ended up running over deadline because they just wouldn’t turn up; they obviously had more lucrative work elsewhere. After the third no show, I made it clear what the deadline would be and that if they didn’t adhere to it, the job would be put on hold indefinitely. At this point, there were only minor snags left to do, but they wouldn’t get final payment until they were done. They didn’t stick to deadline. I refused to let them come for a few months and when they finally heard from me, they couldn’t get her quick enough. I didn’t let them treat my house like a drop-in centre.

I think it was a programme I heard on radio four this week that was talking about the rise in plant theft. People are having plants stolen from their gardens…. local community spaces are being dug up, etc. So, it may well be the case that your plants were dug up to be sold. If that’s the case, knowing how laid back you and your husband are, they’ll probably feign ignorance, you’ll end up apologising to them for even having mentioned it and you’ll move on.

When my garden was new, I sowed big swathes of Californian Poppies and Love-in-a-Mist. They were beautiful and filled a bed while other things got established. They also self-seeded. 9 years on I still get them popping up in odd places (not where I sowed them!) Verbena Bonariensis is another that self seeds readily and it won't smother other plants.

Not with the right equipment. One man could do it in a morning with a big enough digger.

I hope you have retained some of the invoice value as I would not be paying it! Why on earth would he remove everything including the hrassand why on earth was there not a skip on site

My ex used to work with his cousin and uncle doing building work. They wouldn't be allowed to remove shrubs or plants as they don't have the right qualification. If a garden was damaged (although it shouldn't be that bad) they would reduce the price. I never heard of them removing the whole garden or damaging the garden so badly it needed to be totally removed

I agree. It’s awful, I would be really unhappy about all the plants I’ve got with sentimental value (no financial value but some from parents, brothers, first house etc) but given the conversation that happened, I don’t think you will get far. To be honest, I’d be more annoyed with my partner in this circumstance (he has form for not clarifying). If someone had said to me ‘shall I clear the garden’ I’d have said ‘yes, the rubbish but leave the plants’. That question would have set warning bells off in my head. I can imagine OH just going ‘yes, fine’ and coming back to scorched earth!

I think you are well within your rights to not pay any extra and also you could just say ‘I only ever meant for the rubbish to be cleared, many of those plants were of great sentimental value, not to mention the time and money, something to bear in mind when you come to the end of a job’. But whether it will even sink in, it won’t bring the plants back. I’m sorry - I would be really upset.

Agree. You cannot trust gpt for legal citations on every occasion unless it references the source but you can use it to help you structure legal arguments and use accurate legal terminology in your letters.

OP this is devastating, I'm so so so sorry. xx