Photo: Middleton Lawn serviced by WeedMan Lawncare

I used weedman too. They were terrible and ruined our lawn. I can't believe they told you it was drought! WHAT A BAD COMPANY!

I had problems with them too. When I called their office and spoke to the lady who answered the phone she was the rudest person I ever spoke to in my entire life. Then I asked to talk to a manager and she said she was the manager. I called back later on that day and some guy answered the phone and gave me the name of the her manager. I found out she was only the office manager and she was rude as heck. They did little to help me and told me it was because my lawn was diseased and I had to do all this work on my own...blah blah blah. They did little to help.

This looks like a disease or possible fungal issues. Did it look like this at all before weedman treated it?

Hello, Thanks for the comments everyone! Chris - no, our lawn was lush and green, just like the 3 surrounding neighbor's lawns. Weedman applied the fertilizer and two days later, the entire lawn turned brown at once! I had an expert come out and he thinks Weedman burned my lawn by using too much fertilizer on a hot day without water. I told this to weedman and they scoffed at the idea. I got estimates from 3 different companies to repair what weedman did to our lawn, and it ranges from $10,000 -$20,000 to repair it!

My name is Andy Kurth and I am the General Manager and a co-owner of Weed Man Lawn Care in Middleton, WI. I feel the need to interject into this discussion as there are a number of mistruths stated Mr. Kitchell. Our number one priority at Weed Man is to make sure we do the best we can at giving our customers a quality experience with our company with our #1 reputation in the greater Madison area. This was an extremely unfortunate incident for Mr. Kitchell and his home lawn. However, Weed Man took all the necessary investigative steps to make sure that if it was indeed our responsibility we would rectify the issue. Fortunately this type situation with a customer occurs about once every ten years. We contacted the OJ Noer Turf Center (a University of Wisconsin research site and unbiased source) in regards to the issue. Paul Koch, who runs the turf plant pathology lab there, visited Mr. Kitchell's lawn and determined the problem was due to extreme slope causing above normal heat stress/drought, Mr Kitchell mowing too low and poor root systems that we inherited from previous substandard efforts before we took on the care of his lawn. Unfortunately, for Mr. Kitchell, it was the perfect storm. To blame us, which is human nature to do in many cases, in this case is not only unfounded but it is unfair after hearing from unbiased experts. In fact, we treated the neighbor's lawn right across the street the same day as Mr. Kitchell's by the same applicator with the same quality granular fertilizer and liquid weed control and their lawn looks fabulous. Mr. Kitchell, not liking the response he received from Paul Koch the plant pathologist, contacted the Dept. of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) as he didn't see Paul Koch's response as enough evidence. After a lengthy investigation by Mark McCloskey (with DATCP) he found that Weed Man was not responsible in anyway. Again, we at Weed Man have broad shoulders and we take responsibility for our actions. Unfortunately, Mr. Kitchell expected us to play God and we cannot do that. Even though we were not at fault for the condition of the lawn we did offer Mr. Kitchell well over $200 worth of services for free to start help the recovery process. His response or lack thereof, was to not return our phone call.

I personally called Weedman in Middleton several times to discuss the issue. Mr. Terry Kurth's statements above are untrue, the owner Terry Kurth refused to assist us in any way to repair the damage his company Weedman of Middleton did to our lawn. Our lawn was treated twice for weeds, not once as the neighbor's lawn across the street was. The second application was weeks later and in three short days our lush, beautiful lawn turned brown and died. Amazingly, the damage Kurth claims as Mother Nature's fault is only on our property line, which eliminates the possibility of drought or slope (see photo). Our neighbor's son mows our lawn with the same lawn mower, at the same height as their lawn which also eliminates the accusation that we trimmed our lawn too short (see photo).

If anyone is interested in having Weedman of Middleton provide services for your lawn, please do your research on Terry Kurth. Terry made a statement in an article published by the Greater Madison Chamber in July 2005 that clearly makes Paul Koch's so-called evidence false (Volume 35, Issue 07 of Business Beat) "that a soil test costs just $20 to $25, according to Peterson. However, cautions Terry Kurth, president of lawn care company Weed Man of Madison, soil tests may not always be accurate." In this published statement, he discredits his own sources which he tried to use against us. The estimates to fix or lawn that Weedman of Middleton blatently ruined is between $12,000 and $20,000 so the $200 discount he offered is just offensive and won't even put a dent into repairing the damage Terry Kurth's company did. As a consumer, you may also want to look into the previous companies he owned and the many lawns all over Madison and the surrounding areas that he destroyed. You can continue to open up new companies Mr. Kurth to hide your mistakes but the truth will always find you.

It is very upsetting to see false accusations being spread in forums like this. Our business integrity is very well intact with a very high degree of goodwill. We are a past overall state winner for the Blue Chip Enterprise Award for giving outstanding service. The application in question by the homeowner was in fact done the same day as a neighboring customer with the same products. This is proven through GPS coordinates as well as paper documentation that were verified by the Dept. of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP), who incidentally found us to not be at fault. The condition of the homeowner’s turf was not a ‘lush, beautiful lawn’ that was stated above. Rather, it was heavily infested with many broad leaf weeds in a very sloped, compacted and poor soil. Paul Koch, who is a plant pathologist at the University of WI-Madison, did not use soil testing to verify that the lawn conditions were not due to our products. He took tissue samples and also made key observations about certain turf plants that went unaffected. No one here at Weed Man is contradicting themselves regarding soil testing or any other matter. We stand by our work, and so do the thousands of happy Weed Man customers.

We hired 3 independent landscape companies to come out and look at the damage done to our lawn - including the Bruce Company. All three companies said that it was OBVIOUSLY a chemical burn. The fact that Weedman Lawncare of Middleton serviced another property on the same day is irrelevant they said. What Weedman failed to do was to take into account the fact that our lawn is full sun and the neighbor's lawn is mostly shaded. Since the temperature on the day Weedman applied the product started out cold, and then got fairly hot, means they mixed the ratios for the product incorrectly. All three companies said they had accidentally done the same thing to a lawn at one time or another in the past when they ignored the temperature changes and inadvertantly "nuked" a lawn. All 3 companies couldn't believe Weedman was claiming it was drought.

Apparently this isn't the first time Terry Kurth of Weedman Lawncare in Middleton, WI ruined a lawn. Apparently, he used to own a company called Barefoot Grass, and back in the 90's they accidentally "nuked" 25 lawns in a single day. Back then, he stood by his word and repaired most of the lawns, however, it caused his company to go under. Starting out with a new company, Kurth is probably trying to make sure that his past performance doesn't make a repeat appearance. I can uderstand his fears - but that doesn't make it right to not own up to what are obviously Weedman's mistakes.

This is getting ridiculous with the way the people in the Kitchell household deal with facts. The lawns damaged in '88, back when we had a Barefoot franchise were due to product received from a supplier that had atrazine (kills grass, used in corn fields)accidentally still in the conveyor system at the bagging facility. We had a UW researcher confirm the atrazine damage, had Lesco, the supplier pay for all repairs on all the lawns damaged. We even inspected all the lawns that had this particular product put on them even before most customers knew a problem was evident. We kept 95% of them as customers. We even had one, an exec w/Oscar Mayer, write a letter congratulating the way we handled this situation (we were truly the victims)was exemplary, "and that it should be taught in business schools how to handle a crisis." When we eventually sold in 1997 (due to franchisor being bought out by TruGreen) our goodwill was such that we got over twice the normal selling price for a lawn care company in our market. Credibility issues lie with Kitchell.

OK Terry...Then you take a look at the 4 new untouched photos posted above and tell me how it's possible that the damage is exactly on my property. This is your chance to look at the slope and the grass before you applied the product and make a reasonable determination about the outcome that ocurred 3 days after your application.

This is all very amusing. All I no is that I would never use weed man!

In response to Mr Andy Kurth from Weed Man Lawn Care in Middleton, WI:

I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent person. I am no rocket scientist, but I wasn't born yesterday. Listening to your ridiculous theories about what killed this customer's grass honestly make me sick to my stomach.

Have you even looked at these photos? Are you suggesting the photos are fakes? Unless you either think the photos are fakes, or you are mentally ill, you need to fess up and admit what you did!

Geez!

Whats ridiculous is Weedman won't admit they ruined this person's lawn and just pay for the damages. You should sue dude!

Balh Blah Blah. As far as I can tell this lawncare company is a buch of liars!! I know I will never use them. They should fix this familys lawn for free. They obviously screwed it up.

No doubt! You should call the newspaper or the local news and see if you can get a story done on them. Thats criminal yo!

sounds like all the conditions were wrong to have them spray (extreme slope, drought, mowing too low) did they mention any of these before spraying? I guess i dont understand what they do. do they analyze your lawn before spraying or do they just come out and spray?

SAWYER: Thank you for your post! I want to clarify that Weed Man of Middleton, WI is the only one citing "extreme slope", "drought" and "mowing too low" as reasons for the dead lawn. In reality - the photos above show my neighbor's lawn behind ours -

A. His son mows our lawn the same as their lawn and at the same height.
B. Their lawn is nearly flat (no slope), just like our lawn.
C. There was no drought to blame. Our neighbor waters his lawn weekly (behind ours) and his sprinkler has a round shaped overlap of about 11 feet. We watered our lawn once per week with over an inch of water every time - s odrought was not a factor.

To answer your other question, no, I do not believe they analyzed our lawn prior to applying product. They rang our doorbell in April and asked if we would like to have our lawn as lush and green as our neighbors (they were tryin gto drum up more business). We said sure. They said by August, our lawn would be green and lush. The photos show what happened.

A funny side note is that Andy and Terry Kurth from Weed Man in Middleton, WI keep sending out more employees to see if we want to use them again! Twice in the last month, a representative has stopped out and asked us if we would like a lush green lawn, and wanted to know if we wanted to sign up for Weedman! They obviously have no clue.

My brother in law used Weedman lawn care in Middleton too. They burned the heck out of his grass last year in a few long strips and said it was lack of rain. But the rest of the lawn was green! Do I sense a pattern? These guys suck.

I'm curious why Terry Kurth and Andy Kurth of Weed man Lawn Care in Middleton, WI have chosen to not respond to the challenge of examining the photos of the lawn (See Friday March 27th posting above).

Perhaps in the face of these photos, their ridiculous excuses as to why the grass died seem inadequate.

Hey Andykruth, if what you say is true can you support that by posting your documentation here for the world to see?