♥ms.pacman♥
08-04-2011, 09:49 PM
ok i am getting somewhat frustrated with our cleaning service as of late. it's a national chain (i think) and we pay $250 every 4 weeks, for a housecleaning every 2 weeks. my house is 3,300 sq ft and has 3.5 bath.
at first everything seemed super-professional and the cleaners who came seemed really nice/friendly, and did a pretty good job. i think we've had them for six months or so (i know we had them when i was still preg with DD). usually a team of 2 (sometimes 3) people would come, and they'd usually spend about 3 hrs here. i think maybe there's like a dozen local cleaners and the teams that come to our house are different people each time (but sometimes i the same people every 2-3 times).
anyway, they are supposed to come every other Monday. well, this Monday, they didn't show up. no phone call, no notice at all. was annoying since DH and I spent at least half an hour the night before decluttering, putting toys away etc so the floor would be free of anything and it would be easier for them to vaccuum etc. Also, i took the kids by myself to Costco around the time that the cleaning ppl usually come, just so they would be out of the way and i would haven't to deal with playing musical chairs with moving 2 babies around.
So i called the local office early Tuesday morning and told them the situation (that cleaners were supposed to come the day before and they did not). The receptionist who answered looked up my name & address and told me that they had me down for my next cleaning on the 15th. Well I told them, i'm supposed to have the house cleaned every 2 weeks, and Monday was the 1st and they didn't come. They just told me that a manager would call me back, so I left it at that.
Well, no one called me back that day. So Wed morn i call the office again and tell them that situation. I said I really need to have my house cleaned this week because I have guests coming this weekend and I had expected it to be cleaned. This time, someone (i think she's the regional manager) calls me back. She tells me that the cleaners did come on Monday but that they said I didn't want the cleaning. WTF? I told her no, either DH or I was here all day Monday and no one even came to the door. Besides, why the frack would I say that? That makes NO sense. She then apologized and said, maybe the cleaners went to the wrong house. She admitted that has happened before in the past, where the cleaners go to the wrong house and some random person's house gets cleaned, or that the person answering turns them away. I thought it was strange how this could happen, but given that a lot of the cleaner's English isn't that great I figured wahtever.
Anyway, so the manager says she will send a cleaning team to come on Thursday (today). Then this morning at 8am, i get a call from the manager saying that the cleaning team is at my house but no one is answering. However I go to the door and no one is there. I say that I'm here, but no one is at the door and they say "oh, they must have gotten the wrong house." and tell me they will send them over.
So 10 mins later the cleaning service finally shows up. It's only one person. I recognize her as she's cleaned our place a couple times before. It boggles my mind is to how she could get the wrong house on Monday AND today, especially if she's been to my house before!!! Anyway, to make a long story short, she cleaned the place i think she ended up doing a really half-ass job this time. She was only here for like 2 hrs 45 min. I'm sorry but I don't see how it's possible for one person to do an adequate, professional job cleaning a 3300 sq ft house with 4 bathrooms in less than 3hrs. If it was possible I would be doing it myself. Like I said before, usually it's at least 2 people who come and they spend at least 3 hours here, so it's at least 6+ man-hours.
And by half-assed job, I mean, in the playroom, instead of picking up the toys and putting them into bins so the whole floor is clear to be vaccumed (this is what usually done), she just sort of pushed all the toys in a pile on one half of the room. So, only about 1/3 of the room got vaccumed..when i looked today there were whole raisins, large crumbs etc still there. yes, this proves what slobs were are (or how messy DS is), but also that they didn't clean jack squat in some parts.
Anyway, i'm really frustrated about this, and not sure what else I should do. DH is offering to call them up and ask for a refund or at least for them to clean the house again (which says a lot..my DH never never ever complains about ANYTHING). Do you think this is reasonable? We are just annoyed to be paying so much and have to deal with so much nonsense. I am still pretty shocked at about the whole going to the wrong house thing. I mean, what the frack. That just seems so odd and makes no sense. DH says that maybe some of the cleaning people use that as an excuse to not have to clean a house that day or something. I don't know. has this happened to anyone before??
eta: i should add, this is not the first time that the cleaning service forgot to come. there was another time maybe a couple months ago, where they didn't show up one day, and i called and they said that for some reason they were not scheduled to come that day, or some other snafu happened.
at first everything seemed super-professional and the cleaners who came seemed really nice/friendly, and did a pretty good job. i think we've had them for six months or so (i know we had them when i was still preg with DD). usually a team of 2 (sometimes 3) people would come, and they'd usually spend about 3 hrs here. i think maybe there's like a dozen local cleaners and the teams that come to our house are different people each time (but sometimes i the same people every 2-3 times).
anyway, they are supposed to come every other Monday. well, this Monday, they didn't show up. no phone call, no notice at all. was annoying since DH and I spent at least half an hour the night before decluttering, putting toys away etc so the floor would be free of anything and it would be easier for them to vaccuum etc. Also, i took the kids by myself to Costco around the time that the cleaning ppl usually come, just so they would be out of the way and i would haven't to deal with playing musical chairs with moving 2 babies around.
So i called the local office early Tuesday morning and told them the situation (that cleaners were supposed to come the day before and they did not). The receptionist who answered looked up my name & address and told me that they had me down for my next cleaning on the 15th. Well I told them, i'm supposed to have the house cleaned every 2 weeks, and Monday was the 1st and they didn't come. They just told me that a manager would call me back, so I left it at that.
Well, no one called me back that day. So Wed morn i call the office again and tell them that situation. I said I really need to have my house cleaned this week because I have guests coming this weekend and I had expected it to be cleaned. This time, someone (i think she's the regional manager) calls me back. She tells me that the cleaners did come on Monday but that they said I didn't want the cleaning. WTF? I told her no, either DH or I was here all day Monday and no one even came to the door. Besides, why the frack would I say that? That makes NO sense. She then apologized and said, maybe the cleaners went to the wrong house. She admitted that has happened before in the past, where the cleaners go to the wrong house and some random person's house gets cleaned, or that the person answering turns them away. I thought it was strange how this could happen, but given that a lot of the cleaner's English isn't that great I figured wahtever.
Anyway, so the manager says she will send a cleaning team to come on Thursday (today). Then this morning at 8am, i get a call from the manager saying that the cleaning team is at my house but no one is answering. However I go to the door and no one is there. I say that I'm here, but no one is at the door and they say "oh, they must have gotten the wrong house." and tell me they will send them over.
So 10 mins later the cleaning service finally shows up. It's only one person. I recognize her as she's cleaned our place a couple times before. It boggles my mind is to how she could get the wrong house on Monday AND today, especially if she's been to my house before!!! Anyway, to make a long story short, she cleaned the place i think she ended up doing a really half-ass job this time. She was only here for like 2 hrs 45 min. I'm sorry but I don't see how it's possible for one person to do an adequate, professional job cleaning a 3300 sq ft house with 4 bathrooms in less than 3hrs. If it was possible I would be doing it myself. Like I said before, usually it's at least 2 people who come and they spend at least 3 hours here, so it's at least 6+ man-hours.
And by half-assed job, I mean, in the playroom, instead of picking up the toys and putting them into bins so the whole floor is clear to be vaccumed (this is what usually done), she just sort of pushed all the toys in a pile on one half of the room. So, only about 1/3 of the room got vaccumed..when i looked today there were whole raisins, large crumbs etc still there. yes, this proves what slobs were are (or how messy DS is), but also that they didn't clean jack squat in some parts.
Anyway, i'm really frustrated about this, and not sure what else I should do. DH is offering to call them up and ask for a refund or at least for them to clean the house again (which says a lot..my DH never never ever complains about ANYTHING). Do you think this is reasonable? We are just annoyed to be paying so much and have to deal with so much nonsense. I am still pretty shocked at about the whole going to the wrong house thing. I mean, what the frack. That just seems so odd and makes no sense. DH says that maybe some of the cleaning people use that as an excuse to not have to clean a house that day or something. I don't know. has this happened to anyone before??
eta: i should add, this is not the first time that the cleaning service forgot to come. there was another time maybe a couple months ago, where they didn't show up one day, and i called and they said that for some reason they were not scheduled to come that day, or some other snafu happened.