Lawn Care Salesman Insulted His Neighborhood During A Quote—So The Homeowner Showed Him The Door
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Imagine looking for a company to hire to do some landscaping and regular maintenance of your yard. What would you do if a salesperson who came out to look at your yard insulted your neighborhood? Would you hire them anyway, hire someone else, or write a scathing review online?
In this story, one homeowner is in this situation and he writes several reviews sharing the exact situation and exactly what the salesman said.
Honestly, this salesman needs to learn to think before he speaks if he wants to make it as a salesman. He sounds like he’s really bad at his job.
Keep reading for the whole story and to decide if you think the homeowner’s response was too much or just right.
Lawn care company made a classist remark, backtracked publicly, then showed up at my house to photograph it. AIO?
I live in a national builder community (think Lennar, DR Horton, Meritage style) about 10 months old. Middle class neighborhood, nothing fancy. Southeastern US so high 200k to high 300k in the neighborhood for 2500-3500 sq ft.
I put out several quote requests for lawn care this week. Full regular maintenance packages, so weed control, fertilization, aeration, mowing, the whole thing.
I also mentioned upfront that I have a large landscaping and hardscaping design project I want to quote out in the off season. So this wasn’t a small job, it was a long term relationship with significant additional work on the table.
Maybe this salesperson shouldn’t have been so honest.
One company came out and the quote was reasonable. But at the end of the conversation the salesperson told me “we usually don’t do neighborhoods like this because they’re rough.”
I said “what do you mean by rough, like the landscaping and sod is done poorly?”
He said “no I mean the neighborhood is rough, we usually only service higher end neighborhoods like [insert well known affluent neighborhood name here].”
He shared what the salesperson said in several online reviews about the company.
For context, he did walk the property and point out areas where the sod had gaps and grading issues. I’m aware he also had concerns about the lawn condition itself.
That’s not what the review is about. The review is about him confirming, when directly asked, that he meant the neighborhood and not the lawn.
I left a detailed one star review on Google, Facebook, and Yelp quoting that conversation verbatim.
The company responded publicly and reframed “rough” to mean the lawn condition, not the neighborhood, which directly contradicts what he said when I gave him the chance to clarify on the spot.
But then the company came back.
Here’s where it gets weird.
My neighbor’s door cam caught someone from the company returning to my house 4.5 hours later to photograph the property.
No notice, no contact.
I called them, recorded the call, and they admitted they came back because I had “slandered them all over the internet” and wanted proof of the lawn condition.
I updated my review with all of this.
But OP is baffled by something else.
But here’s the thing I keep coming back to.
Even if we pretend he meant the lawn and not the neighborhood, isn’t that an opportunity? Show me how you’d improve it. Upsell me on a renovation package. Prove your value. Don’t just refuse the job and insult the customer on the way out.
And if the job is genuinely too difficult or not worth it for your crew, quote me high enough to make it worth it or high enough that I’ll decline. That’s just basic business sense.
Either way, calling a customer’s property rough to their face is unprofessional regardless of what he meant. AIO for the reviews?
The salesperson may have been telling the truth, but he probably shouldn’t have said it out loud. He probably shouldn’t have even come out to look at the property and consider taking on the job. All he would’ve had to do to avoid this mess is look up the address online before scheduling the visit.
I don’t blame OP for the bad review, and the company is clearly lying to try to cover their tracks.
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Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.
This person thinks OP handled the situation appropriately.
Another person thinks it’s time to stop complaining.
I agree that the salesman never should’ve even come out to look at the yard.
If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a feud that starts between neighbors after one reports an illegal drainage issue and the other can’t let it go.
But this person thinks OP is overreacting.
The salesman wasted his time and made his company look bad. I wonder if he still has a job!
I’d be offended too if I were in the homeowner’s situation. I think it was a reasonable response to write honest reviews about what happened, but it probably is time to stop arguing with the company online.
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