JACKSONVILLE, Fla — It is not the view Joyce Hodges wants of her yard - a bare Magnolia tree standing just feet from her front door.
"I made a really bad mistake," she said. "Hopefully I'll know better next time."
The 92-year-old Hodges said she was talked into removing the tree by an employee of East Coast Tree Pros. She said she paid more than $3,000 up front before Thanksgiving and now, more than six weeks later, she is left with a tree without its limbs and a pile of debris next to her driveway.
"I made phone calls and friends made phone calls and they said 'we are going to get back out there and finish it.' That's all I ever got," she said.
First Coast News called East Coast Tree Pros and spoke with the owner who said it was an employee who did the initial tree cutting and took the money while never returning to complete the job.
"It's just one of those things that I am going to have to bite the bullet and go get it took care of," owner Kenny Sims said.
Sims said there's about a day's left of work to do and he plans to reach out to Hodges Wednesday. She said she has not heard from him since Thanksgiving and doesn't want him back. But Sims said he wants to make things right.
"This particular gentleman, whenever he got paid up-front, I said I don't care if we lose money, I don't care what it takes, I am not about leaving jobs. I said I will stay here and lose money before that situation comes up," he said.
For Hodges, who's 92 and has lived in the home since the 1950's, it's too little too late.
"I thought I was more intelligent than being taken like that. But, not so," she said.