CLEANING SERVICES

After Larry calling and rescheduling 4 times. I called him 40 minutes after he was supposed to be here and he said, he was on the way. From there, no one ever showed up or called.

For the first cleaning, the owner's sister came out. Arrival time was about 30 minutes late and she explained that traffic was worse than expected on Rockville Road. OK - first time out and all, but not the best first impression. She spent a lot of time on the house and mostly used her own cleaners (we supplied some CLR to help with hard water deposits in a toilet and her vacuum wasn't doing well with pet hair so I encouraged her to use our Dyson). She was fairly thorough, but no baseboards. This initial cleaning cost $100. The second cleaning was 4 weeks later. The person who came was a different worker this time. We had a 9:00 or 9:30 appointment (8:00am was "too early" for him - "ha ha"), but she did not show up until after 11. This worker cleaned for a bit less than 3 hours with similar results, but no trash was emptied and there were some places that did not get dusted. The ceiling fans were never cleaned by either worker. Since we still needed help with the fur, we were willing to overlook some of the detailed cleaning. I emailed Larry to say that we were generally pleased, but really needed people to be on time so I could get other things done. We scheduled our next cleaning for September 2 at 9:30AM. I emailed Larry at 11:30 when no one had showed up and I would like attach the full email exchange: Larry, It is 11:30 and you have not showed up. I'll assume you are no longer interested in cleaning our home. It would have been nice if you called or emailed so I was not wasting my time (again) today. We'll find someone more dependable. For our first 2 appointments, your workers were late and the third you no-showed (you said in the email below that you were coming personally). -Don** Did your wife check her email? {My wife has scoured her email accounts including spam/junk folders - nothing there from Larry} If so, she would have told you that I was going to have to come this afternoon if it was to be myself. I wanted to be there personally so that I could see how bad your house really is. Both times that I have sent one of my workers they have complained about the nastiness. You have haggled with me about the price and my workers complain about the gross working conditions, so actually I'm glad that I don't have to witness it for myself. Good luck finding someone to do that much for that price! Larry*** 1. I'll make sure to mention this to Angie's List. 2. My wife has been out of town since Friday last week. You need to email me (the person you're meeting) if you have to reschedule. Calling works too. 3. I agreed with your price once you explained it, I never haggled and you never changed the price. There are several others willing to work for us at $40/hr. 4. We have pets, so we have pet hair. Big friggin' deal... It was why we wanted help.

I did not feel real positive about this situation. The company had just been bought out by the son and his wife from the son's mother, and I felt the son and his wife were in a start-up phase, even though the retired mother had had the company for some time. They were friendly and eager, but I really needed a seasoned company to do the work, so I opted not to hire them.

They did not finish the job in that they only cleaned 2 of 3 bathrooms, and they did not dust in the master bedroom. The reason they said they didn't finish the job is that the wife had a car accident the previous day and they only had one car, so they had to leave early to go pick up their daughter from school. Larry did call to inform me of this and said he'd credit me $20 dollars on the next job (which was estimated at $85 not including the credit). He said he'd call back to set up an appointment, but never did. I called him and he apologized, stating that they were dealing with family illness. At that time we set a date for him to come clean again (Nov. 30, 2006), but he was a no call/no show. I called him that evening, but he never returned my call. They still have a key to my house. They didn't attend to finer details, such as vacuuming at the base of furniture (which requires a small attachment), or dusting the crevices of the stairway. They don't know I took pictures.

The Berkowitz come as a couple. I expected the normal cleaning dusting, vacuuming, bathroom, and mopping. They were so thorough I was extremely pleased and surprised. Fast and efficient. They used commercial products.