Have been dealing with a customer who is desperate to get his garden re-landscaped. He is really keen, he lives in a semi detached house and it is really difficult to get into his back garden. The house is backing onto a big comprehensive school with a path running down the back of the his and his neighbours gardens. The back fence is falling down, unfortunately, it backs onto a huge comprehensive school - maybe we could approach the headmaster. The neighbour's were willing to give us access through their back garage and garden but have just changed their minds! Can't say I blame them. The only other way of access is to go over the flat roof extension on the side of the house.
The garden has an old concrete shed which has to come out with a very deep concrete base, an old concrete rockery pond which also needs dismantling, decking needs to come out and patios, bark chipping etc would all need to go in. The time scale for this job would be 5-6 weeks for us and the only other way for access to the back garden would be through the house which i don't think i would be too thrilled by if i owned the house and the customer doesn't really fancy it either.
What would you guys do? I don't want to admit defeat on this job as I already have a picture of the finished job in my mind and I know that it could look really good once it's done. The only other thing I can think of is to scale each job down into 2-3 manageable days at a time. Very frustrating as I have most of the prices for the estimates and have spent a lot of time surveying and measuring up the garden.
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School is probably the answer - phased in the holidays, cash to make it worthwhile caretaker unlocking gates to let you in, maybe a donation to the schools - couple of raised veg plots keep them happy?
Make sure there's something in it for them and most people/organisations will play ball :)
What about conveyors over the flat roof and into a skip?
I personaly would go for the school option though.