At Your Service Drain Cleaning

Today I read 2 reviews regarding Patrick and «At Your Service Drain Cleaning». I was quite surprised as I had the opposite experience.
October 2013 my renter complained of water back-​up in basement. Tree roots I’m sure as I had Roto-​Rooter in February 2012 clean out sewer for $ 953.00. I was expecting to get about the same. Talked to Patrick and he had cleaned the sewer in less than a hour and I was charged $ 222.00. He even checked other side of duplex to make sure all was okay. Maybe he had the other guy before me and wanted to make things right. I will call him next time for drain cleaning and I will mention these reviews. But I was completely satisfied.
I do know Roto-​Rooter and Roger the Plumber ($ 880.00 and another story) ARE THE MOST EXPENSIVE guys to call. Especially Roger!

I had a terrible experience with At Your Service Drain Cleaning, Inc. I was referred to Patrick (At Your Service owner) by Roger The Plumber. Patrick was not up front about anything, his services cost me over $ 400, by the time he left I was worse off than when he started, and he attempted to get me to pay for $ 1600 to excavate for something that was his fault (by my interpretation).
SUMMARY OF MY COMPLAINTS:
1. At Your Service got their plumbing snake stuck in our sewage line
2. At Your Service tried to rush the job — this was why they got stuck
— I called Roto-​Rooter to finish the job, and they did not get stuck
3. At Your Service charged me for a job that was not completed
4. At Your Service claimed the juncture where they got stuck was «not structurally sound»
— I dug up the line myself, and the juncture was functional and serviceable though we still replaced it as it was over 25 years old
5. At Your Service charged me for a video and locate that was incorrect, which led me to dig a trench in the wrong location.
ACCOUNT OF EVENTS:
We had washing machine effluent backing up into our bath tub and toilet, indicative of a main line clog. Tree roots were getting into our line. Patrick and one of his employees came out, assessed the situation and, after determining there was an issue, proceeded to begin cleaning the line. I left them to do their job as I took care of some things around the house, and checked back periodically.
After about 45 minutes of cleaning, we tried the washing machine and nothing backed up, so he started wrapping things up and pulling his plumbing snake out of the line. Everything seemed fine until HE GOT HIS PLUMBING SNAKE STUCK IN OUR SEWAGE LINE at a junction between the original clay & cast iron pipe (~50 yrs old) and a more recent addition PVC pipe (~25 yrs + old).
They tried to pull the snake out first by hand, then using a come-​along, then they broke for lunch, and came back with a bigger truck, more equipment and a second come-​along. After a couple hours of trying, they determined it could not be pulled out and that the pipe would need to be dug up.
Patrick put a camera down the pipe to try to see what was going on, and to locate his tool, which was a $ 250 charge that I stupidly agreed to. The camera could not see anything at the juncture where the snake was stuck because it was full of water. He said he had an excavator that he usually worked closely with, he called his excavator buddy, and said I would get a call from them in an hour.
I paid Patrick $ 150 for 1 hr of drain cleaning, and $ 250 for the video service. I asked him how much I could expect to be charged for excavation, and he would not give me a straight answer. He left with the promise that once the excavators dug up the line and removed his tool, he would come back, video the rest of the sewage line, and install a new joint for an additional cost.
The excavator called a few hours later and told me that the minimum he would be able to charge just to come out was $ 1600. He suggested that 4 ft. was not very deep and I agreed, so I told him thanks but no thanks, got a shovel and started digging myself.
The next day my dad, the home-​owner (I am renting from him), returned from a trip. By this time the sewage line was backing up again and I had dug a trench about 3 ft. deep. Once I explained the situation to him, he immediately recognized that Patrick had taken what should have been his problem, and made it my problem. He called Patrick, yelled and demanded that he come remove his tool from the sewage line. Patrick came out, and successfully yanked his tool out with two come-​alongs while doing some damage to our clean-​out vent. After this he left with his tool, leaving the line still clogged, and me having paid $ 400+ for a service that was not rendered.
Throughout all of this Patrick claimed that the connection was «not structurally sound,» an that «this would have happened to anybody.» None of this was true. The line was still backed up so I called Roto-​Rooter to come out and finish the job. The Roto-​Rooter technician successfully opened the line to allow flow and did not get his tool stuck.
I ended up digging the line up anyway, to take a look at it myself (I held off on writing reviews until I could look at the joint first-​hand). The joint was NOT IDEAL BUT IT WAS STRUCTURALLY SOUND AND SERVICEABLE. It had been functional for 25+ years and had been cleaned several times that I know of. In addition, the roots were getting through one of the original joints in the clay pipe. Because of this we replaced a stretch of pipe along with the joint and installed an additional clean-​out vent at the juncture. Even after Roto-​Rooter and At Your Service «cleaned» the line, I still pulled out a HUGE pile of roots.
Patrick maintained that he was «trying to work with me.» Which was not the case at all. «I just don’t do digging» he also said.