Mike's Landscaping & General Contracting Co., Inc.

Mike's Landscaping has been doing hardscape and lawn work out of Malden since 1981 — the company says Mike started mowing lawns as a kid and built the business as neighborhood demand grew — and for most of that run, the reviews describe genuinely skilled work: cobblestone-edged plantings called works of art, a collapsing driveway dug down three feet and rebuilt with proper drainage, patios and sod installs customers say transformed their yards. That's the story through 2022. Since then the record gets harder to read. Two reviews dated within a day of each other in April 2023 — one on Houzz, one on Google — describe the same kind of ordeal: an onsite estimate, a $1,850 deposit, then two months of excuses and no work at all, followed by a refusal to refund and, in one account, a threat of an additional $1,000 cancellation fee. A 2024 review describes a separate struggle just to get someone out for an estimate, citing a disorganized office and a canceled request the company logged inaccurately. And in the past six months, two Google reviewers — including one who admits they'd meant to call a landscaper in a different state — both describe a phone rep who was rude and uninterested in new business. A 2016 Houzz review, further back, describes a similar breakdown: after service ended, the office wouldn't respond to a request for a billing summary. None of this describes the on-site crews poorly — when the work actually happens, reviewers over the years consistently call it careful and professional, and several clients say they used Mike's for five-plus years running. The pattern instead sits with the office: getting a call back, getting a deposit refunded, getting a straight answer. BBB rates the company A+, though it isn't an accredited business and shows no complaint history on that page. Before signing anything, get the contract terms on cancellation and refunds in writing, and don't be surprised if the first phone call sets the tone — several recent reviewers describe exactly that as the sticking point. For established landscaping, hardscape and small excavation work, this is a company with real, demonstrated skill on the ground; the risk here is administrative, not artistic.