Devastated - can't believe my builder did this

[INFJismyvibe]

Bit of backstory - we've been having an extension done on the house, it's taken well over the agreed time (almost a year over) but we've been mainly patient about it. Builders have been dumping stuff in our garden, making it unusable for the most part. Everything was overgrown as I've been unable to mow the lawn or trim down the bushes, but I've been OK with that. I knew that once they cleared their crap from the garden, I could get back to gardening and sort it out. My garden had some beautiful, well established plants and fruit trees, and some taller bushes that worked as an extra privacy screen, which we really need from our neighbours. Without those, the neighbours can see into my kitchen.

Some of the plants were of sentimental value, gifts from my mum, a plum tree growing from a cutting that my aunt gave me, from my grandma's garden, etc.

The building work has meant I've been unable to use my garden - which was my sanctuary - this summer and last summer.

Anyway, on to current day.
I've been away on holiday with my (older) kids. Dh stayed home for various reasons.

Builder has been in, finishing up on the house. His dad came along (he sometimes helps builder out on projects) and asked Dh if he's OK to clear the garden. Dh naturally assumed he meant all their builder's mess - bags of cement, wood palettes, etc etc. I've been saying for a while that I can't wait for all that to go so that I can tidy up the garden and even be able to access the washing line again.
So Dh said yes please clear it up, and then left for work.

The guy brought in a team of men and they removed everything. Every single plant, bush, tree. Completely removed the lawn (which, to be fair, was riddled with weeds and needed returfing anyway).

But it's completely bare.

All my beautiful beautiful plants, my sentimental ones, my privacy ones. All gone.

Dh didn't tell me until the car journey home as he didn't want to ruin my holiday. But i've just returned home a couple of hours ago, and I'm absolutely devastated. Don't even care about the rest of the work thats been done while I was gone. Struggling to even talk to Dh about holiday or anything else. Completely ruined my return home.

I know some may say, ah it's just plants.... But they cost so much money and effort and time, and can't be replaced just like that. I'm going to have to spend hundreds to fill it up again, and it's going to take years for them to establish. And it needs so much extra work and attention now.

Gutted. Aibu for feeling this way.

Any advice? What do I say to the builder? Dh didn't say anything at the time as he hates confrontation but wtaf?!! And now the builder will think I'm being unreasonable. But it was my sanctuary, my space, my privacy.

Ps please forgive any spelling errors, I've barely slept.
.

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.

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

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!

@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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

@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!

I have seen some crazy stuff on here but this is totally bonkers! I am so sorry OP just total miscommunication all round but no builder would do garden work without being paid.
I would try and talk to the gardener calmly and rationally, explain the situation and see if any of the plants can be retrieved.
I would be devastated.

I would be devastated if I came back to my garden looking like that!
You don't need to go ballistic at the builder but just explain when he asked your husband if it was ok to clear the garden, he thought he was going to clear his rubbish and not your plants, some of which were sentimental. I'd ask him what happened to the shrubs and other plants, maybe he could give them back.

@Badbadbunny 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!

Yes, he should have been clearing up periodically and he would have done if he was working on my property. If you let builders take the piss most of them will walk all over you.

James Wong was on the radio this week saying that there’s a market for stolen plants/shrubs and that plant theft is on the rise.

I would be absolutely devastated. Your DH's dad and the builder need to attempt to put it right in the way that you want - new grass, new mature trees and shrubs etc. at their own expense. It won't make up for the sentimental loss but it's the best thing that can happen now.
I would make it very clear to them how upset I was.

It's 'obvious' to you but, obviously (!) isn't obvious to everybody. 'Clear the garden' is an ambiguous phrase. There should have been a more detailed discussion as to what that entailed.

Oh OP I can quite understand how you feel. Plants have meaning, especially gifted ones and cuttings.

Firstly have they really cleared all the roots? If they used a digger then they probably have. If they have cut down the shrubs then you may well still have a healthy root ball and the chance for the plants to send out new shoots (like the Sycamore gap tree is doing).

Give the ground a bit of time to recover and enough time for any new shoots to show. They will be tiny to start with but your shrubs might still survive this.

Sure. Just seeking accuracy in tedious troll-hunting posts.

The contract was with you and not your father. The builder had no right to ask your father for changes and your father had no right to instruct on your behalf.
The builder must replace what he took away and I would inform him in writing.

Are you sure they didn't rip them out to plant in someone else's garden for profit? Is him mum's cancer not a sob story to explain the long delay?

I'd absolutely demand to be compensated. While the plants may not have been expensive, the real cost lies in the amount of labour and time spent on them.

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

God, there really are some complete arsholes on here today. OP is obviously very upset as I would be of this happened to my garden. Why the need to stick the boot in and accuse her of lying, blaming her husband etc. If you dont beleive a post then report it. Troll hunting is against Mumsnet rules.

Where did you get 'father' from? It was DH who spoke to the builder so maybe he was part of the contract.

Is it actually legal for them to uproot the whole garden without council consent? I do live in a conservation area so things may be different, but I know I needed consent to remove trees in my garden when the builders came in. I think councils are quite protective of trees, nowadays. Might be worth an anonymous phone call to the council to find out - and of course if it proves illegal, the builders will have to refund you quite a lot of money to reinstate....

Wtf. I would go ballistic. I would expect them to pay to put it right and pretty quickly.

My father has got nothing to do with this. The builder's father ripped out the garden.

"clear the garden (of building materials)"
vs
"clear the garden (completely to a blank slate)"

These are so different.

I have deep sympathy for you - I had a lovely garden once that workmen had been specifically told in writing (part of a council scheme) to avoid completely and not damage anything.
So of course they absolutely destroyed it.
They were presented with clear planting plans and guidance on plant replacements for the entire thing and in fairness they did sort it out. I suspect they budgeted for it.

However I would allow yourself some steam-letting as otherwise it'll fester. You might be best going and shouting at the garden and the emptiness rather than a person.