How much should I pay for lawn care--Raleigh

[Matt Rothwell]

I own a property in the Sunset Hills Area of Raleigh. Its a duplex, sharing a front yard, with separate, fenced in backyards with a total acreage of 0.4. I lived in one side and rented out the other, and it was a nice little house hack.  When I moved away from Raleigh last summer, I decided that I would try "self managing" for a while, and just visit the property every few months since we still have a lot of friends in the area. 

For the most part, its actually worked out pretty well.  I have a decent network of people I've used for repairs when I lived on one side, so when I've had minor maintenance problems I've been able to just call them and set up the service.  However, the one thing I haven't been able to get right is lawn care, since I just did it myself when I lived there.  

I had a guy that I was paying to come 2x month to mow, trim the hedges, and weed-eat the edges. He also only charged $100/month.  The price was nice, but he did a terrible job, killing all of the grass I worked so hard to grow when I lived there.  Oh and also, he never trimmed any of the bushes and finally one of my tenants complained that the bushes were blocking her windows.  Oops.  Well I fired that guy and now have a guy that will mow for $160 month.  He does an okay job, but never does the hedges either, he wants $125/session to do that, which seems pricey.  For a summer month, I'd be looking at almost $300/month for just lawn care, which seems super high.  I think he's going to get fired too.  

So anyways, for the people here that have services do their lawncare, how much are you spending?  I would have a tenant do it if it was a single family, but I'm trying to defuse any potential conflicts between tenants if the "designated tenant" decides to be lazy and not mow for a month or two.