Excavation Back On Track

To summarize, after the two huge trees were removed weeks ago, I had an excavator scheduled to arrive the next week to remove a 6'Hx50'Lx15'W ridges covered with English ivy, poison ivy, wild grapevines, and various 3' weedy tree saplings that I have never been able to kill.

The excavation contractor came out, provided a quote for that work and raising the sunken front lawn.  I accepted their quote on the spot and we shook hands on it.  They said they would arrive the next week with a day's notice.

Near the end of that week, I called to see when they planned to show up.  They decided they were "too busy".  I think that they simply got better jobs and didn't need my smallish one.  I wrote a negative review on Angie's List (a contractor review site) and found another person who was slightly reluctant to do the job ( I was on the far edge of his work are) but agreed to to the excavation and plant removal (but not the lawn raising.  Well, I can get topsoil locally, so OK.  But it would be 2 weeks...  It bothered me that the person would not come out to provide a firm quote, but the person had an "A" rating in all categories one of which was "fair pricing". 

Meanwhile, I emailed the original excavator pointing out that they had offerred a firm proposal that I had accepted and we shook hands on it.  I expected a "sorry, we really are too busy".  Guess what?  They called yesterday afternoon and said they could come out this morning if I was still interested.

I was, and called back immediately to confirm I wanted them to do the work.  For one thing, they had come out to look at the work so they knew what was involved.  And they proposed to do the lawn-raising too.