Sparkleen House Cleaning & Maid Services

I called on a Monday and made an appointment for a deep clean (of an empty house) at 12:00 the following Tuesday. There was no mention of a thirty minute window. Tuesday I was called on my way to the house and told they would be late. A new time was made for 12:30 with still no mention of a thirty minute window. At 12:40, after they still hadn't arrived, I called Sparkleen and was told about the thirty minute window. They arrived at 12:50. All of that made me 45 minutes late to work. After they got to the house the cleaner came in without the supervisor. He asked if there was anything in particular I wanted done. I told him to pay special attention to bathrooms, baseboards, walls and some to the kitchen. I asked about the supervisor and why the supervisor was not making note of the areas needing special attetion. I also asked about payment method, prices, and how things were supposed to work in general. His response was that he didnt know, he was just an hourly worker, and I would have to talk to his manager. I asked where his manager was. He replied "in the car." The manager didnt get out of the car until I approached outside. At this point I told the manager about the coupon of $150 for a $200 clean which had been offered to be the day before. The manager said that's fine and I would only be charged $100 in addition to the $50 deposit I made Monday. We agreed I would return at 5:30. She assured me all work was guaranteed. She said they would redo anything I wanted redone. At no point did the manager ask about special attention areas. At no point did the manager indicate that the cleaner would be working unsupervised. At no point did the manager mention extra charges. I came home after work to discover that the manager had not been there through the duration of the job. The bathtubs, shower, and toilets had been spot-cleaned. There appeared to be some attention paid to the baseboards though the quality of clean did not seem thorough. When asked to redo some of the basboards the cleaner was willing. However, the cleaner did not continually rinse the sponge so the dirt seemed to spread more than anything else. Some of the baseboards went uncompleted and most of them were mediocre. The walls had almost nothing done. The kitchen sink was untouched. I asked the cleaner around 5:35 if he was getting picked up since the manager still was not there. He said he was. Around 6:00 the manager still had not arrived. I asked again about where the manager was. The cleaner indicated the manager would be there shortly. Around 6:30 the cleaner finally told me the manager's car had broke down. He said someone would be there eventually. At this point I gave the cleaner a ride to the broken down manager's car. Wednesday a charge of $130 was made to my account from Sparkleen. I called to discuss the charge as well as the overall job. I was told the additional charge was due to the cleaner being at the house longer than expected. Apparently extra charges depend upon the absent supervisor's car working properly enough to return to their job site on time. I asked why there had not been a supervisor present. I was told the absence of a supervisor was justifiable because they've been busy lately and have been spread too thin to have supervisors at every job. I was told the situation has become even more stressed since one of the vehicles had broke down the day before, of which I knew first-hand. My response to this was, while their work volume compared to their capacity and recent misfortune was a tragic story, I didn't see how that justified charging me the full price of a supervised job for an obviously unsupervised result. I was told that all the manager could do was refund the extra $30. $30 that, from my perspective, should not have happened in the first place and was such an obvious refund that it need not even be mentioned. At no point was there any offer to redo the job, even after I had mentioned the guarantee. At no point was there any consideration given to the punctuality that resulted in my being late for work. At no point was there any consideration given to the lack of reliable transportation that resulted in my time and money to deliver the cleaner to the manager. At no point was there any offer of compensation beyond what was already owed to me. After moving into the house, I realized that the worker didn't do much at all and found cigarettes all over my house.

First I scheduled an appointment a week in advance to have my house cleaned. I am a busy working single mother, and my time and sanity is extremely valuable. The day of the first appointment, no one arrived. No one even called. So I called Sparkleen. The owner, Paul, acted as if I never had an appointment. At this point I've taken a morning off of work, and gotten nothing accomplished. I reschedule for the next day. Then I'm called suddenly in the afternoon by Paul, "My cleaner's at your house and you told him to go away!" I was rather confused by the phone call, apparently he had called a wrong number. The day of my second appointment, I receive a phone call from the cleaner "technician" who is apparently male that he is running late. I was surprised, as I thought I had made it clear that I was a single mother - a statement which should have prompted the owner to ask me - Is a male cleaner ok? It's not. Not when you have no one else in the house with you - to have a perfect stranger? I called Sparkleen, and Paul answered. He was extremely rude, trying to convince me that it was ok for this man to clean my house...he didn't even offer to reschedule with a female cleaner. I was shocked, and ended the conversation. I was wrong to think that my connection to Sparkleen was over. Please listen to the .mp3 if you want to hear the owner's voice mail message to me. The .mp3 audio file is located at: http://chirb.it/sd4sAE Or better yet, write this company off. Laura