Instyle Maintenance

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Reviews (1)

• Cairns G

  Oneflare review

  17 Oct 2015

  I wish to share our experience, the honest truth about this company and its owner, Mr Shane Tyrell. We first engaged Shayne when he was working in Cairns to maintain our garden at our holiday house, based on a recommendation from another maintenance company that were unavailable at the time. We are currently working overseas and could not get back regularly (at most twice a year) and as such we really needed someone to take responsibility to look after our garden. Shayne made promises he would not let us down and we entrusted Shayne with the keys to the property which included the house keys and alarm access code given we had a detailed rooftop garden that was part of our maintenance deal with Shayne. Things seemed to go well for about a year, Shayne invoiced us regularly and we paid these invoices pretty much immediately to show our faith in his services. Then we started to get emails from our cleaning contractors telling us it looked like the garden had not been serviced for some time. Emails to Shayne were nor replied to, and his phone seemed switched off. I then took a trip to the house and found the garden in a woeful state. The grass was 6 inches high, garden completely overgrown with palm fonds and debris lying everywhere, the irrigation system had not been checked and many of our plants in the rooftop garden had perished. It was a shocking sight. I tried and finally got hold hold of Shayne and he agreed to meet me on the property. He was clearly contrite and explained he’d had personal issues with a separation from his defacto partner and had neglected communications. He was clearly contrite and with my help (Shayne was not employing any help at the time) we managed to get most of the overgrowth cut back while I had to replace most of the rooftop plants myself. Shayne also promised he would continue the maintenance and would not let me down again. I was there for a short stay had no time to find another gardener so gave him the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately after that point communication was limited and after a while he ceased replying to my sms texts and would not answer emails nor pick up my calls. I returned in anguish to the property 3 months later to find the garden again in the same neglected state that it was in my previous visit. Yes, he’d let us down again and abused the trust we placed in him. I tried in vain to call, this time to ask him to return my keys. Because he can recognise my number, my calls were not answered. I had to ask my brother who is interstate to call him from his phone to which he did pick up, and only then did I find out he had shifted his business to Brisbane with no advice to me, no email, no call, nothing. I have constantly requested to have my keys returned but this simple request has been ignored. Unbelievable that someone could let us down like this and is shameful to the least. I’ve since found a larger company to take care of our property and will never put my trust in a solo contractor to protect an asset like this again. Mr Shayne Tyrell is a one man band and therefore you rely on trust that he performs whatever works you contract for. In our case we were severely let down. I would seriously consider the way we were treated before engaging Shayne or his company (Instyle) in any services that he offers.