I think he didn't let the TruGreen folks to do service for his lawn. He just invited them to have a look at it. Honestly, I told him to apply corn meal the other day. I'm glad that he is asking me more what he can do to fix the problem. Here is what I noticed on his lawn. His dead brown blades/patches are darker brown as compared to the dried grass clippings we normally see after 1 week. Last month, I saw small(variable in size) white pebbles scattered on this walkway, driveway, sidewalk. I think, those are fertilizer. How would a lawn look like when it gets too much fertilizer? Also, he told me that he applied a grub control last week. I don't know if it's liquid or in dry form. However, I have no idea if it's really grub.

That is definitely step 1 - figure out why the old grass died. It doesn't make any sense to plug ahead if you have a problem that is going to kill the new grass too. Also, what do you mean by "large" area. ie in square ft or acres. CA people tend to have a drastically different idea of a large lawn than midwesterners. If it is a couple hundred sq ft, the easiest fix is usually skimming the dead grass off with a shovel, leveling and laying sod. If the area is larger than that, you are usually better off killing the existing grass with herbicide, cutting it very short, raking up the debris, and then seeding and fertilizing.

there are ways to improve a hard and lumpy lawn. Yours sounds like a very compacted lawn. One method I would recommend is to aerate the soil and there are devices out there to make this an easy task. One that comes to mind it the equipment that pulls 'plugs' of lawn out. I did this the hardway though. Took a pitchfork and punched in holes all over the yard. This is so that there will be room for grass to spread and allow us to add soil to the existing lawn. Also it allows creatures like earthworms to move in and about. Earth worms are very effective in aerating soils. So next, I took a mix of topsoil and sand and spread it all over the lawn, afterwhich I seeded the lawn. -- So basically you are improving the lawn with top soil and then re-seeding to revitalize the grass. The effect is incredible. Try adding top soil a couple of times a year(plus aerating it) and in no time you will have a great looking lawn.

I wouldn't do anything to it until spring, not sure what type turf grass you have, but, it looks like it was quite thick before it went dormant. At least I think it's dormant. In Michigan our Kentucky bluegrass lawns look the same way in July and early August. September I HAVE no mow twice a week. What do your neighbors lawns look like?