I took out a silver maple and ground out the huge stump including flare and surface roots the other day and raked up and removed all the wood chips for the customer, an 80-year-old lady whose 50-ish year old son lives with her. Besides raking twice, I used the blower to blow as many of the chips out of the grass as economically feasible. I told them that a shop vac or mower with a bagger would get the rest and not to worry about the sawdust as it would simply compost into the lawn. No big deal they said - they would take it from there.
As we're loading tools, they ask if I would fill the stump for them. I tell them that I prefer that they contact a landscaping or lawn care company as I am very busy with tree work right now but they persist and I say 'ok'. After assuring them that the dirt I use is from the same supplier that the landscapers get their dirt from, they agree to a price and I return with the dirt - almost 4 cu yds worth. I get the stump filled and raked out, they pay the bill and I leave with them telling me what a good job I did.
The next day, i get a call from the distressed old lady who insists that I come over to her house. This is where it gets interesting. When I arrive, the son shows me a mop bucket with about the bottom 1 1/2" filled up with rocks varying from 1" down to pea size. Apparently, he spent two hours on his hands and knees sifting through the soils with a trowl and bucket and picking out anything that wouldn't crush into dust. He's also been out there hand-picking out every remaining wood chip out of the grass.
They inform me that the dirt I delivered (beautiful screened black topsoil) is sub-standard and that it needs to be removed and replaced. I smile, appologize for their inconvenience and assure them that the soil is just fine and that there is no need to remove it. We go around for about 15 minutes and they finally agree that the dirt can stay but they are unhappy about her son having to sift through it to remove 'all the rocks'. I again appologize for the inconvenience and, finding that it is a futile effort to try to explain to them that the removal of pea-sized rock was unnecessary, I ask what his 2 hours was worth.
The old lady says she wants her money back - the entire cost of the dirt including delivery and installation. I politely say, no and spend another 10 minutes explaining that I will gladly refund the cost of his 2 hours of labor to pick out the rock. They finally shoot me a price of $30 so I flip the son $40, we shake hands and I get the hell out of there before they get the chance to say anything else.
By this time, I've spent 30 minutes of my day to settle a $30 dispute over whether or not 'screened dirt' should or should not contain marble or pea-sized rock. As of today, I've vowed to never fill another stump again! As far as I'm concerned, the landscapers can fill the stumps and do the seeding from now on. Even when I owned my landscaping company and did lawn installation on a regular basis, I never dealt with something like this. Now, as an arborist whose focus is on tree care, I have very little patience for it at all.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
