What do you expect from a cleaning service?

LauraMax

LauraMax

Cathlete
Maybe it's just me, but I'm getting ready to fire my second service in the past year.

I expect them to clean. I expect them to look around them, see what's dirty, & clean it up. I mean, I have a 2 BR house that's probably >1000 sq. ft. minus the basement & attic. It's a 4 person cleaning crew. How long could it possibly take to really CLEAN my house?

Basically all they do is surface stuff. They wipe down tables, etc. They vaccuum. They take anything they perceive to be clutter & stuff it in drawers & cabinets. They use my kitchen sponge & dishtowels to clean even after repeated requests for them to use rags & old sponges. They go thru an entire roll of paper towels each visit--why are they using so many paper towels? What happened to old fashioned sponges (of which there are many under my kitchen sink). They move my furniture, drapes, knicknacks, etc. & don't put them back. Usually by the time they leave the place is a mess & I spend 20 minutes when I get home cleaning up after my cleaning service. x( All this for $75 a visit.

This weekend I was on my hands & knees scrubbing my bathroom floor b/c it clearly hadn't been cleaned for months. I spilled something in my bedroom & left it there on purpose to "test" them. It's been there for two months.

I'm curious about others' experiences. Has anyone ever had a cleaning service that actually did a really good job? Or maybe a better question is: is the purpose of the cleaning service just to do the surface stuff & I do all the down & dirty work, or is it (as I'd originally thought) for them to do the really down & dirty work & for me to do the surface stuff?
 
Hi Laura,
The purpose of a cleaning crew needs to be defined to them--tell them what you expect and want. It's YOUR money--which means they do what YOU want. IMO (and experience) the cleaning crew should scrub the bathrooms (tubs, showers, sinks, toilets), vaccum (thoroughly), mop the floors, and dust. I have never had them move my nick-nacks. Actually, now that I think about it, I always dust--I don't have them do it. They may do some surface dusting, but not heavy dusting. I don't want anything broken or misplaced or put back where it doesn't go. I don't have them clean up clutter or anything like that. The day before they come, I will usually dust and remove any clutter so that they have a clear space to work. They also clean the fronts of major appliances--i.e. refrigerator, dishwasher, stove (it's stainless steel, so they clean the fingerprints off and stuff).

They use my mops, vaccums, cleaning supplies, etc. I guess I've lucked out because they have never overused my sponges, papertowels, or rags. I feel for you though. It's so frustrating to shell out money for inadequate work. Good luck and I suggest you find another cleaning service! Happy hunting!

Allison
 
I was NEVER lucky with any cleaning services. It was so bad the crumbs were still under the dining room table one time. I think your best bet is to find an individual old fashioned cleaning lady. I have one for about 6 years now and I could not be happier. She comes once a week and the house is spotless. She - not every time though - cleans windows, the fridge, etc. $60 for visits. Go by personal recommendation. Mari
 
Yeah I did that. I spent a good 30 minutes w/the woman when I first hired her. We went thru the house, I explained to her that I was rarely home & the pets were always home, so the vast majority of her work should be below a two feet benchmark. Meaning vaccuuming & mopping the floors EVERY SINGLE TIME. I told her not to do the same exact thing every time (my last service cleaned my windows every visit--WTH? As if my windows get really dirty in 2 weeks?).

Now I'm wondering if they ever mop at all. My house has been up for sale so I've been doing a lot of stuff on my own for the last month or two. But I'm tired of being annoyed every time I come home after they've been there. This is supposed to help me, not frustrate me.
 
That's funny Laura, I was just going to post about the same thing.

I haven't been very lucky with my cleaning services either. The first few times everything is ok and they do a good job and then things slip through the cracks.

The first one kept making out-of-country phone calls from my phone, while she was charging me by the hour. She had the audacity to deny it even after I showed her the phone records. I certainly wasn't calling to Croatia.

The next one just did a little bit of surface cleaning, cleaned "around" everything, half of it was still dirty and charged me big bucks. I don't mind to pay but I want to have the things done that I ask for, not wiping over what I have already wiped off. I kinda would like to have the crumbs from underneath my rug vacuumed up, just lift the edges of the damn thing!

The last one started out well and then they started slacking off. So things weren't wiped off, like switch plates and doors, and it was obvious that it was dirty. They just ignored it, although I asked them numerous times to do it. Then their visits became shorter and shorter, less things got done, while they were still charging me the same amount.

I don't mind paying a fixed amount and I really don't care how long it takes them, if they are done in an hour and everything is done, GREAT, BUT I want it DONE. I don't want to have to clean up after them. Defies the whole purpose in my book!

I am with you on that one Laura, I always thought the cleaning service is supposed to do the down and dirty work. I don't need anyone surface clean and stuff things in drawers. I want the stuff done that I usually don't have time to do - AND don't like to do.

So I haven't had a cleaning service for several months and just started to look for a new one. Maybe 4 times is a charm :)

How is your house selling going? Bet you are stressed out over that too. We will put our house on the market in a few weeks and I am already stressing.

Take care,

Carola
 
Don't get me started on cleaning people. I have YET to find one that is exactly as I want. I am currently in the process of switching from an individual to a service. The first time the service came, they did hands down a better job than the individual had been doing, and charged me HALF the price.

Still.... there is always something not done. It's usually obvious stuff too... like dust on the baseboards, or a TV that wasn't touched with the dust rag. Ugghh!

I have a 4200 square foot house, and I NEED someone who is willing to do a great job. I am willing to pay good money, but can't seem to find someone willing to work for it.
 
OMG, you actually had a service clean your switchplates & doors? That's pretty good--mine have yet to even dust off my blinds. What really pi$$es me off is I live alone. Dirt is minimal. I'm down to one dog who's crated all day. What on earth are they doing that costs $75, besides wiping all the mirros & other glass with paper towels? Maybe my "clean" standards are too high but I feel like they're taking advantage of me.

The house selling is a disaster! I have never seen such a ridiculous real estate market--it's more my specific area b/c I live in NJ, an NYC suburb, & it's a commuter town (we have a train line that goes into midtown in about 20 minutes). Everything I've looked at in my price range has sold within a week, usually over asking price. A 2 BR I was hoping for listed @ $425K last Tuesday & sold for $500K on Friday. A 2 BR for $500K!!!!!!!!! Insanity I tell you!

In the meantime my place has been sitting for 2 mos. It's one of the cheapest properties in town & certainly the nicest in its price range. I live in the downtown so I guess it's too busy for some, but the lack of a driveway (even tho there's a parking lot 2 houses away) is just killing me.

Hopefully you'll have more success than me. Location of course has everything to do with it. And the rates are down so I'd suggest getting your place on the market ASAP (as in TOMORROW!) before they start creeping up again (which I think is happening as we type).
 
Laura...

I clean houses part time besides working at a preschool, and i make more money working 10hours cleanning than 35 hours at the school every week. All because I decided doing the old fashioned way. All my clients dropped their cleanning companies for my services and my rates are $120 and up/visit and they still tip me!!!! The reason for that is cleanning companies pay their employes $6 bucks/hour or so and they have to clean as much as 6-10 houses a day in order to make a proffit. So people don't care! It's the same thing if you hire somebody that does not work with a company but has a big schedule of houses (the easiest way to find that out is to ask if they have a helper) I was a helper and worked with a lady for 1 year we cleaned up to 6 houses/day she would make me crazy telling me to hurry up! So I decided to start doing it by myself and I refuse to hire help or clean more than 4 houses/week. I have 7 clients and they're pretty happy with me.Your best bet is interview people who are starting (it takes a while to build a schedule)or somebody like me who does it part time to save $ fast (I'm saving for college

:7 ). Ask your friends and neighbours... (all my clients are either neighbours or related!).

Hope this helps....

Alini
 
>Everything I've looked at in my price range has sold within a
>week, usually over asking price. A 2 BR I was hoping for
>listed @ $425K last Tuesday & sold for $500K on Friday. A 2
>BR for $500K!!!!!!!!! Insanity I tell you!
>
Wow, I didn't know there were still areas that sold over asking price. No such thing here, I can tell you.

My house value has dropped from $ 355k to $ 290k (if we are lucky), just in the last few months. But since we are upgrading to a bigger house, I am hoping that the prices for our new home will drop by the same percentage, so we get a bigger price break on the new house.

We looked at a few houses but most sellers are still thinking it is a market like 2 years ago and ask for the same or higher prices.

It pi$$es me off though, because we put in probably close to $ 80k in upgrades in our house, there is noooooo way, I am getting this back or anywhere close, oh well, at least we enjoyed it :)

I'd love to put my house on the market tomorrow, but the dogs have kind of wrecked the backyard, we'll need to get the grass growing before we put the house up, especially in this lousy market.

Hope your house will sell fast now, it's kind of a drag having your house in showing condition for months at a time, especially when you have pets.

Carola
 
It's the train. There are about 8-10 towns here that have that Midtown Direct line & it makes the real estate market SO unpredictable.

I'm in a similar situation--I've put about $20K into my house in the last year or two (a lot when you think about the size of it--it's really just like a townhouse). I think I'm gonna make a decent profit, it's just waiting for the right buyer. But I am frustrated. The only think that gives me hope is that at some point my house will be the only one left for sale in town that's not a dump.

I say forget the grass & put it on the market now. What could it hurt? When the rates start going up you'll start losing buyers. I understand the whole "curb appeal" thing but I don't necessarily subscribe to it. I put most of my money into my interior b/c that's where people spend most of their time.

Besides, if you try to fix up your yard, won't your dogs undo everything you try to do? ;-)
 
>>
>Besides, if you try to fix up your yard, won't your dogs undo
>everything you try to do? ;-)

Good point, Laura I knew you were gonna say that :)I think they have become a lot better over the past couple of months, so we have less holes in the yard now. So there maybe hope :D But a lot of our plants died a few weeks ago when temperatures went to freezing (who would have thought to have that happen in Arizona).


It's just the market is so competitive here and I am competing against two houses with a pool at $ 285k and $ 280k, if I want $ 290k, that backyard better look immaculate.

I may have to bite the bullet and buy a new house before we sell this one, but it kind of freaks me out. But then again try and show a house with 4 dogs anyway, I am sure dreading that.

Time to win the lottery :+

Carola
 
The summer between my junior and senior years at college, I worked for a maid service (worst job of my life!). We rotated who did what at each house. There was a team of 4, and we'd have 4 houses a day.

One would vacuum, one would dust, one did kitchen and the other did the bathrooms. The floors that weren't carpeted were washed on your hands and knees.

We wouldn't clean up clutter, that was against the rules. I think it had to do with liability issues. We brought our own cleaning supplies and rags.

I would say the purpose is for you to do the surface stuff (cleaning up the clutter) and have them do the scrubbing, dusting and vacuuming. We didn't do windows either.

I really hated that job!
 
One of my employees cleans houses in her spare time, only 3 or 4 a week...She charges $12.50 an hour, uses my supplies and throws her rags in the washer before she leaves...In the 2 hours a week she's here, she sweeps/mops, bathrooms, kitchen, waters plants, cleans catbox, vaccums and dusts (roughly 1300 sq ft)...She plays bingo the last Saturday of every month, so to help her pay for that :) there's always a "special" project for an extra hour or so the last week of the month...Cleaning windows/screens, shampooing 2 rooms, weeding the garden, etc...She does a bang up job, and hubby doesn't even know I've hired anyone...But he sure thinks I'm superwoman!

MJ in MN
 
Lauramax,

You haven't read, "Nickeled and Dimed" which besides talking about how impossible it to be working poor in America, gives some great information into how Merry Maids and the like clean. Basically, it is all surface cleaning without much use of water. I used a "service" like this once and my husband (the cleaner in our house) fired them after one visit.

We found a person who cleans houses and that has been a thousand times better. She is a college kid and and its just her. The thing is she knows how to clean and gets all the money from the cleaning she does so she is motivated to do a good job. Also, I can leave a note for her about anything I notice that I want done. She a doll and we recommended she basically spends two complete days a week on our street.

Regarding the surface or down and dirty. I explained to my cleaning person that I wanted her to do down and dirty and that I can straighten my own mail into neat piles. Actually, we pre-clean before she comes so she can focus on mopping and real cleaning and not putting away anything.

My sister just does a list ever week for her cleaning lady so it can be checked off.


KIM
 
The last time I hired a cleaning service, it was a private individual from my neighborhood and I thought it would just be...her. Each time she showed up, it was with a slew of non-english speaking people, who I just knew were illegal aliens, because I live in an area where that can be a problem. Each time, it was a different group of gals, total strangers. I let her go, they did a decent job though, it was definitely clean. But I just don't want to be part of the illegal alien problem in this country.

I had recently decided that the next time I'd go with a big name like Merry Maids, at least they will have legal hiring practices. I just got a flier with what they say they do, and it includes mopping, all the floors, etc. I would think it would be better than what I had before.

Jen
 
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