CHARLES PAULOS-HOME ELEGANCE

He is great. He cleans out my gutters and blows all the leaves off my deck to leave everything clean. He comes out twice a year and if he hasn't heard from us, he will call to check. He is really responsive.

We started using Charles a couple of years ago when we moved into our house, in ~August 2008, on the recommendation of a next-door neighbor. He gave us a estimate of ~$160 or ~$180 (I don't recall) over the phone, he came at the agreed-upon time, and did a perfect job of cleaning the gutters and cleaning up after himself. The only way to tell that he has been here is to look out of the upstairs windows and see the clean gutters! On Charles's first visit, I upped what I paid him to $200 (my decision, not his request), as when he provided the estimate he based it on like houses on our street - it turns out that we have the biggest house with some very high gutters, and I paid more because, well, fair is fair. We've stuck with $200 per visit twice a year since then; he's come 4 times so far. Charles can work formally or informally. For one appointment, he was coming to the neighbor's house anyway, and suggested we have our gutters done as well. I told him I'd leave him a check taped to the back door, and he suggested we just mail it to him afterward to be sure we were satisfied. Very flexible, and he's sure to call every 6 months or so to set up appointments so we don't have to track it. LOVE it. I one time suggested 3x a year, and he actually turned me down, saying that would be excessive for our house; if we wanted it, fine, but he's honest enough to turn down additional work for the sake of money. The integrity is impressive.