Jennifer in Old Toronto

We met Loukas the head of Northshore Landscapes in 2016 and he did good work for us in our backyard for an extensive stone work hardscape. He was also very personable and helpful with suggestions. That is why we hired him the following year in 2017 to continue the stone work in our driveway ( concrete and stone). Loukas was once again very helpful, especially when his guys made a mistake during the job. He got them to fix the problem. However, the other problems arose a year after the stone work was done (with a 5 year warranty) several stones cracked and there was a drainage problem - water collected around our gate. Further, the driveway job (after only 1 winter and not even a full year) looked very shabby with cracks in the concrete along the entire driveway. Also, a stone at the foot of the driveway came loose from the grout. Further, all the grout became chipped – all less than a year later. Loukas came to take a look at the problem early spring 2018 and promised to fix everything. Ironically he expressed surprise when we pointed out it was only a year on that job - the conditions were that surprising. With the backyard stone work he agreed he would replace the 4 broken stones. With the drainage issue, he revealed that he should have placed the drain on the inside of the fence. His proposed fix was to put a second drain in the right spot and that would tie into the existing drain. He promised to fix everything as soon as possible and get us a quote on some of the material - we were willing to cover that side of things. Then a couple of months passed by and we did not hear from him. We reached out once again. Nothing. My assistant called. My husband called. Nothing. We knew he was a busy guy with lots of new contracts and we liked him a lot so we let things slide. It was by October of 2018 that it dawned on us that Loukas was not coming back to do this work. I sent him an email saying how surprised we were and asking if he was coming to fix the problems. Nothing. Winter came and went and we emailed him March 2019 detailing what he had committed to. No response. A follow up email alerted him that we would be reviewing his company negatively and possibly take court action. Nothing. I am shocked and saddened by this situation. It’s made worse because we recommended Northshore to neighbours who hired him (and they complained to us that while he was doing their job he went missing, etc). We defended him. They weren’t happy and we have lost some credibility with that neighbour. But at this point all we can say is that North Shore Hardscapes is not a trustworthy company. Some of the work was very good, but they were unwilling to fix shoddy work, regardless of warranties and personal commitment to fixing the problems. I would ABSOLUTELY NOT RECOMMEND Northscape because what was initially a positive experience has soured and we are left having to hire another company to fix all the problems with their work.