I'm A Little Annoyed...

[kakn7294]

There are 2 guys currently sitting in a pickup truck outside of my house right now. They have dug 4 holes in my yard, all in the name of replacing the Comcast cable wires to 4 homes in my neighborhood. I understand if the cables need replaced and I have no problem with that. What has me so annoyed are these 2 things: First, the cable company never notified us that they intended to do this. Little colorful flags just showed up in my yard last week and I had to find out from the Verizon phone guy who was marking his lines that Comcast was replacing their lines. And second, these 2 guys are out there in 15º weather HAND-DIGGING 4 huge holes in my yard (where the ground is horrible to dig on a good day) while the trencher machine sits on the flatbed behind the pickup truck. They've actually spent more time sitting in the cab of the truck than working and what they have done has made a mess of my yard. I've seen the nice little line that trencher leaves and it's nothing like the 3 ft square section of grass that they dug up - I guess the positive is that it will grow back someday.

[Tinkermom]

AT&T did this in our side yard in the fall. The hole they dug was about 4 feet deep! A huge area of grass was dug up. We also knew nothing of it until they started. Once they were done they filled in the hole so now we had a huge area of mud. The good news is that they fixed it all afterwards with nice new sod which was nicer than what we started with. It took about a month before anyone came out to put in the sod. Here's hoping the same happens for you. Of course they may not be able to do much for the grass until the spring.

[Ian]

Verizon did this in our yard, too, when they originally ran their fiber optics and I was more than a little irritated myself. They made a huge mess.

Like you, I was a lot more angry that no one notified us it was going to happen. I also have to say that I don't really get how they're allowed to just come on your private property and tear it all up without first getting permission.

I assume there is some sort of universal utility easement they can get but still ... a courtesy call would be nice!

[SBETigg]

Wow, that is annoying. I hope they fix the yard.

[meldan98]

We had something similar. We had AT&T for our local phone coverage years ago. When we had issues with a line coming into our house, they had to call PacBell to replace the lines. AT&T dug the hole, discovered the problem, they called PacBell to fix it, but once they fixed it, they never filled in the hole. 5 months went by. 12 phone calls later and PacBell finally came out and filled the hole. It was so frustrating because they didn't want to deal with it since I wasn't their customer.

[lightyearfan]

what else do you expect it's crummy Comcast!!
my parents have cablevision and they get treated so much better then us comcast cust. they offer more and there prices are better, i would call comcast and complain , but that will probably get you know where, it happened to us too.
sorry your annoyed

Victor

[kakn7294]

Well, they're gone. They did replace the "sod" - they tramped the patches of grass they dug up back down so now I have flat muddy grass and a really muddy blacktop driveway where they burrowed beneath it. For a long time, they had my driveway blocked with the large coil of cable - good thing I didn't need to go anywhere until after they were done. They finally did fire up the trencher and used it for most of the line but there are still 4 large areas where they dug by hand. Right after I wrote my original post, I called Comcast to verify that's who these guys were working for - the woman on the phone told me to go ask them, she didn't know and it would take at least a day to find out - I let her know that was NOT an acceptable answer. Finally, after they were long gone, a manager called me back and left a message saying that it was indeed contractors working for Comcast and they would be back to fix the grass in the spring. I wouldn't have been nearly so annoyed if only they had informed us of what was going on in the first place and these guys would have had some sort of ID saying they were working for Comcast. Oh yeah, they also cleaned up most of the little flags. There are still 2 little yellow ones blowing in the breeze - or maybe they're considered black 'n gold - go Steelers???

[murphy1]

Hey Kathy, have nothing to add, glad they replace the trouncing...men, ugh. LOL Thanks so much for the beautiful card of the girls, I love their beautiful hair I have been so busy with life stuff. Glad you are well. Black and gold is a good sign. I wish I was in my hometown right now, Superbowl time is fun in Tampa, so is Gasparilla.

[crazypoohbear]

I would go out now and take pictures of what was done, so when you call looking for them to fix the mess in the spring they can't come back and say "oh, that was taken care of when the work was done."
Picture, document the phone call and the names of the people you spoke with or at least the times.

[kakn7294]

Originally Posted by crazypoohbear

I would go out now and take pictures of what was done, so when you call looking for them to fix the mess in the spring they can't come back and say "oh, that was taken care of when the work was done."
Picture, document the phone call and the names of the people you spoke with or at least the times.

Already did that. And I called the supervisor back since they left the main cable box between my house and the next-door neighbor's house open. It's right where the kids wait for the bus in the mornings. I did finally find out that all this was because the next-door neighbor on the other side of me (away from the box) needed his line replaced. They broke 2 trenchers trying to dig beneath the driveways to get there from the box 2 houses away so they gave up on that and went through my yard and under my driveway. I also expressed to the supervisor that I thought it was totally unprofessional and rude to not inform us of what they had planned - I had to find out from the phone company guy. I understand the need to replace the line but a little courtesy call or note would have been appreciated. He never apologized...

[Hammer]

Kathy, as I wrote to you in my PM, don't let this go. Take note of every person you spoke with, including date and time. I also think you should get it in writing that they will come back in the spring (a bit vague) to fix your lawn. Call and go up the ladder until you get it. They will lose record of their promises. As you can see, this has happened to others regardless of the company, so protect yourself.

[SBETigg]

Are you on Twitter, Kathy? I ask because I had a problem with Comcast not too long ago. I wrote an email to customer service which never got a response. I was so annoyed that I blogged about it at my blog, and then I updated my Twitter status with a comment on Comcast. About five minutes after that, I got a response from Kevin from Comcast at Twitter to email him privately. I was skeptical, thinking it was some nut playing with me, but I wrote anyway. He was legit. My problem was resolved almost immediately, and he arranged for forty dollars off my cable bill. I got a back-up call to make sure I was a happy customer afterwards. I can't say enough about how hard they tried to make me happy after this got attention at Twitter. This man's job is to monitor Twitter for any mention of Comcast and to apparently make sure they improve their reputation. It certainly changed my mind about Comcast. So if you have a Comcast complaint, don't bother with their standard customer service. Go online and make some noise. Tweet about it.

[brownie]

You'd have to look at your property survey to find out where the easements are. I'd assume that they would need to notify you and get your permission first if they were working in area outside of the easements.

[kakn7294]

Hey Sherri, I don't belong to Twitter so that's not an option but thanks for the suggestion. If this keeps up, I might just join to see what kind of response I'd get there.

To update: the digging is apparently done - and has to be for now as we are under more snow and ice! The cable access box that lies between my property and the neighbor's is still open, now 4 days after the intial work was done and 3 phone calls later. The neighbor that the work was being completed for had no idea that they were even doing this. All he wanted was his package rebundled - they told him that he couldn't continue his old bundle because his modem was outdated. When they brought the new modem, they told him he needed a new line installed. This was in November and he thought all the work was done and he never notified otherwise. As far as the work being done on easements, they worked in my yard about 6 - 8 feet back from the road to dig under my driveway and acrossed my yard and around the tree. The access box is definately on an easement but I'm not sure about how far into my yard is really mine. Where the other utilities marked their lines was no more than 3 feet into the yard.

[gueli]

Hi Kathy,
Just another cable guy here. (and no i do not work for comcast).

1st off- about your complaints- always complain to the highest person in the company (the owner or ceo). Write them a letter- generally a 'corporate complaint' will get quick & decisive action.
if this does not work- contact your public service commison- in new york 1 call to them will even have verizon respond by the next day (as opposed to telling my 6 month pregnant wife, at the time, that its too bad you dont have phone service- we will be there in 7 to 10days).

2nd- Easment rights are a very complicated thing. basically utility & cable companies have a right to maintain their equipment, even if it is on your 'private' property (I put the private in quotes as around us it is the 1st 8 feet from the road that is considered common property, unless a driveway needs to be crossed than local towns have specific codes for where you can do this). The worst is the backyard poles.

3rd- If you were unsure who they were- contact your local (non-emergency phone number) police. There is no need to put yourself at any kind of risk, the police would have verified who they were and spoken to you afterwords. You also could have voiced your concern about them blocking your driveway.

Last- Often when I am at work, the people in the call centers have no idea who is working where. Especially my department which monitors and maintains thousands of miles of cable.
Sorry they were , well, not as polite as they could have been. Even though they were not from my company- I hate to see when people get upset when all it would have taken was a little courtisy.
Good luck.
Have a bright and cheerful day.
Hope your team wins the big game.

PS the little yellow flags- um- gold flags , are probably gas main markouts. and you can get rid of them whenever you want.

[moodringer10]

they came and did that to our front yard..the spot they dug finally grew back ..its been a while

[DisneyDog]

They've been working their way through my neighborhood. Little flags magically appeared on my front lawn too. I'm not sure if they will be tearing up my lawn or not, as I have Directv. But, I won't be too happy if they do, especially since I don't subscribe to their service. To me, it's bad enough when they spray paint everything. The digging is super annoying. Oh, and they don't care if there is snow and ice on the ground. They will dig anyway.

[kakn7294]

They finally came back and closed the access box - after 4 phone calls. I just wish that all the phone reps didn't give me all that attitude (and not just at Comcast - it's everywhere). In my job, I have to bend over backwards to be nice no matter how rude the patients (aka - the customer) are to us. I've kept the supervisor's name and phone number so if they don't come back and "fix" my lawn in the spring, he'll be hearing from me again. They left some significant ruts alongside my driveway.