It seems like people either have a great or terrible experience with Apolo. Working with him was…read morevery stressful for me. For a job that would normally take 6 weeks, it ended up taking more than 6 months to finish. Not only did he not know how to do many aspects of the job, I had to constantly remind him of everything. He also tried to hide things from me or plainly lie to me.
On the very first day of the job, he told me that there was a lot of traffic on US101 and he could not make it. Indeed, there was a bad accident there. Most people work a partial day when they hit bad traffic, but I said he can start the next day.
On the second day of the job, he came to demolish my existing yard. I specifically told him to keep one tree at the center of my yard, and an hour later, his guys chopped it off. Rather than being upfront with me about it, *I* had to confront him about it. He apologized, and I said okay.
I showed Apolo that I have a major gas line running through my yard and asked him to be VERY careful to not hit my gas line, and guess what, one of his guys specifically dug in that area and hit my gas line! *face palm* [1 star off]
At this point, it was clear to me that he cannot keep a competent crew and the transient guys he hires do not care one bit about my yard, or their safety apparently. I talked to Apolo about my expectations if he were to continue to work for me, and he reassured me that he will improve.
I told Apolo that the decking board we needed must be ordered right away because of COVID supply chain issues. He told me he did, but when I looked at his order date, it was not ordered until months later. At that point, the price also went up. (Hey, it's not my fault. If he ordered early like I told him, this would not have been a problem.) This oversight added several extra months to our project. [1 star off]
When Apolo started building my deck, he looked confused. At first, he told me his decking guy quit so no one can work. I told him I will hire someone else, but he insisted on the job. After a few weeks, he hired someone from Craigslist. Okay, so build me a deck. It was still not built. I kept telling him I will hire someone else, but he kept on insisting he will do it (probably because he already paid for the higher priced decking boards). He actually then had to consult someone else about building the deck. After multiple re-sawing and re-anchoring, his crew pieced together something that resembled a deck. However, I noticed that the wrong edge pieces were used. I confronted him about it, and at first he said "I noticed that too" and then he said "Home Depot broke it when I picked it up, so I put another board there, but Home Depot said they will replace it." Which one is it -- that his guys installed the wrong pieces by mistake or Home Depot broke it when he picked it up? I looked at his replacement order, and it was a new order dated *after* I had confronted him, not a replacement order. [1 star off]
Furthermore, Apolo was supposed to pave bluestone for me. The bluestones are manufactured square or rectangular in shape, but for some reason, his guys kept re-sawing them and I ended up with various tiny pieces...not the clean-cut pattern I instructed at all. He blamed the bluestones for not being perfect squares or rectangles.
Regarding a new irrigation system, I made it very clear initially that my neighborhood has low water pressure, and he needs to design many more stations than normal. After he put in the irrigation system, he realized my water pressure was too low (I already said this at the very beginning!), and had to re-do some lines to add another station, charging me more money. [1 star off]
Lastly, I told him I wanted certain fruit trees planted, one of which is an old-fashioned lemon tree. He plants me a sweet Meyer lemon tree with diseased leaves. I told him I wanted a healthy, regular, old-fashioned, tart Eureka lemon tree. He gave me a convoluted story about how a nursery in L.A. carries it, but there is a minimum order to ship it, and he has to pair it with some other order to make it worthwhile. After listening to that story, I went to a nursery 5 minutes from my house and bought an Eureka lemon tree and planted it myself.
Toward the end of 6 months, there were still parts of the job that were unfinished, but Apolo was reluctant to return to finish things up. He even argued with me about how he did not want to pay for another lawn edge piece for $70 or a decking screw for $5. I paid him tens of thousands of dollars by the way. Anyway, I just did not want to work with him anymore. It was faster if I did things myself. I still gave him a generous final payment more than what I should have, because I wanted to part on amicable terms.
This is not a 0-star review because the shrubs he planted at the back of my yard look quite nice. That is the only part of the job that went right.