The Cleaning Authority

Had house cleaning done regularly for more than a year. But over the last several months, the quality of the cleaning was not good. Cleaning team seemed to be going through the motions without actually seeing the dirt, or areas that needed cleaning. Complacency had set in.

The first two cleans were immaculate. I was very impressed. So impressed that I wrote a great review for them and submitted to them online. I'm thinking I finally found a great cleaning company! Much to my dismay it went downhill after that.. the 3rd cleaning was obvious that not as much time was spent and that I had different cleaning crew. There was no type of organization done (straigtening of items on dressers, straigtening of dvds, etc.) and the surfaces of the furniture were not wiped down. They basically did not touch the surfaces where there was items on top of the furniture. I called them and complained. I was told numerous times "we are a cleaning company, not an organizing company". I told them i was not interested in organizing, only "straigtening". I still never got the problem resolved with wiping down the surfaces of furniture. These cleaning crews would come clean 2200 sq foot home in 1 1/2 hours and it showed. They would not move small end tables to clean underneath them so that the floors could be thoroughly cleaned. The fans were always dusty, my wood floors in my den were never thoroughly clean, even though I called and complaned and asked them several times and left notes to "please clean the floors". Stuff would be piled in the corner. They would leave me notes saying "please have the house clean ready". I would always pick up majority of the clutter the night before. So if I am paying a cleaning company to do their job, why would I have to clean it before they get there? When you call the number you always get a call center that takes their messages. I rarely called directly and got assistance. It was always a call back while I was at work, which resulted in phone tag througout the day. This company seems to just want to make a quick fast cash in an hour, if the time alotted for each home is up, then stuff gets missed or doesnt get cleaned. The one time I talked to their manager about the poor job they did, she said they would take half off the next visit, which was nice. However, the next visit came, and none of the things I complained about before were cleaned, so it didnt seem the message was received. Their website even states that if they dont do it right, then they will send someone back out the next day to fix it. They only did that the 3rd visit, but never attempted to follow up or fix it in subsequent visits. Very disappointed in the customer service of this company.

The biggest reason not to do business with this provider is there customer service and the Manager Dave. When contacted after waiting over two hours for a call back he was defensive ,argumentative and refused to listen and hung up twice on customer. This not someone you want to do business with. They cannot be trusted.

The way the cleaning authority works is that they have a detailed checklist of cleaning tasks that they are supposed to perform during every clean and, on a rotational basis, they will "detail clean" certain areas. I used the cleaning authority for a long time because they were $55 dollars less than my previous cleaning service and still seemed to do about the same quality job. The problem with the cleaning authority is that they do not perform MOST of the tasks on the cleaning list on a regular basis. This is annoying, although not a deal breaker for me. I've had to call them back to complete certain tasks maybe 10% of the time, but most of the time it's just easier for me dust the blinds or surfaces in the kitchen myself. However today I cannot overlook the error and I had to cancel the service. Today was my bathroom's "detail clean" day and the toilet, floor and certain surfaces were not touched. They are supposed to be done every clean and get "more attention" during detail clean day. This is not the first time "detail clean" areas were ignored, but it was definitely the most outrageous. My kitchen sink was not cleaned on a kitchen "detail clean" day and my guest bedroom was not cleaned for months without any explanation! It turns out the rate of $30/hour/person is not even that much lower than anyone else, so I would not recommend using this company, even if you want really cheap cleaning. The managers act responsive and nice, but somehow that has never translated into improved service.

It went very well they always do a great job. They always very polite on the phone, and easy to work with and they are flexible with scheduling.

We have a 2 story house in Ballwin. Had them take care of Kitchen, 1 half bath, Living Room, Office, Family Room, Dining Room on the Main Level, and 1 Master Bedroom, 1 Master Bath, 1 Hall Bath, and 1 Nursery. The cleaning team was nice but not once did they show up at the time we requested. They never called to notify us of schedule conflicts. After numerous calls to the corporate office and the local office we finally fired them due to the scheduling conflicts. The cleanings were not great either. One cleaning in particular they left very obvious streaks on all of our bedroom furniture. Another time we are rather certain they did not clean our tile floors at the main entrance. The most ridiculous issue we have dealt with regards a key return. We gave Dave (manager/owner) a key when he first met with us. On the first cleaning (in which they showed up roughly 5 hours later than expected) the team did not have a key. It was a good thing I was still at home. The next cleaning they still did not have a key with them. I gave the team a spare and again I'm glad I was there to open the door for them. Since then we've fired them for their lack of communication and failure to show up within a two hour window. We requested to have our keys returned, and have only received one key. I'm not sure if Dave lost the first key we gave him or what the issue is but I would highly NOT recommend this branch. We've used Cleaning Authority in the past when we lived in South County STL and that branch was significantly better. The Cleaning Authority has lost my faith and trust for good after this experience. Do yourself a favor and pick a smaller local company to do your cleaning even if it costs a bit more to do so. You won't be sorry.

I hired The Cleaning Authority (based on a good Angie's List rating) to give our new house a deep clean before we moved in. It was vacant for a long time and was VERY dirty, so we wanted professionals to really scour the place. The manager (very nice guy) gave me an estimate based on four women for three hours. On the day of the cleaning, two very nice ladies came and stayed for three hours. I wasn't in the house when they cleaned and I (stupidly) didn't check the work before I paid them. I have to say in all honesty that this was absolutely the worst house cleaning experience I have ever had. While everyone involved was very nice, the ladies left my house after "cleaning" it with the place visibly still filthy. I walked into the kitchen amazed to see tons of dirt that was not vacuumed, a pantry that was not touched, cobwebs and dead bugs in nearly every corner of every room, a bathroom that was completely missed, cabinets that were to be cleaned out had dust and dirt in all corners, window sills with dead bugs and dust and closet floors still visibly dirty with cobwebs I was in complete shock that anyone in the cleaning business could walk out of any one of the rooms and think that it was clean. I seriously thought I was in the twilight zone. Needless to say, I was very upset and called the company immediately to tell them the situation and to get someone back to the house to actually clean it. (I have had many experiences with cleaning services, some not so hot, but I have never even thought of calling any of them back before.) The woman on the phone was very nice and apologetic and called me back immediately to tell me she sent the ladies back to the house and they would re-clean it. They came back about 20 minutes later, and I walked them around the house showing them how incredibly dirty the house still was. (I was walking in bare feet, and they were getting dirty!) They seemed shocked to find all the dirt, bugs and cobwebs, and admitted that I was not exaggerating and the job was done very poorly. I appreciated that, but was amazed that they ever thought the job was done well in the first place. They did a much better job the second time, and while it still wasn't as "deep cleaned" as I hoped, it was definitely passable, and I would have never complained if the house looked like that after the first cleaning. I was hoping to be able to use this company for regular cleanings, but there is no way I would ever hire them back based on this experience. One last thing: The price I was initially quoted was for $350.00 based on four people coming. (which I felt was a fair price considering how dirty the house was) When two ladies arrived, they assumed my bill would be $350. I told them I was under the assumption that that was an estimate, and the final cost would be based on an hourly rate since the manager wasn't sure exactly how long it would take. They called to check, which I appreciated, and let me know that yes, it was hourly. (They were very nice about it, and it really wasn't a super big deal, but had I not questioned that, I would have payed double for the absolute worst house cleaning I have ever gotten.)

There were continuous scheduling problems. I finally fired them. They showed up anyway the next day. I wasn't home but my daughter (not knowing any better) let them in. They did a miserable job, went places where they won't supposed to go and left me a bill for $30 more than the agreed upon price. I didn't pay the bill and have not heard from them since.

Dave talked about their white glove treatment, but generally that wasn't what I received. They did a decent job on bathrooms and kitchen generally, but were sloppy with most other things. They never did extra work--even though their little sheet said they were. I had to ask for new cleaning teams multiple times, and the one that they said was 'best' rushed through the job, left rugs on chairs after cleaning the floors, didn't dust well, etc. The huge issues I had with them were that they consistently shut my cat in the closet, despite my specific requests to leave all closet doors open every time. One time, they shut the cat in and I didn't get back from a trip for 3 days. The cat urinated and defecated on new ski clothes. When I emailed Dave to tell him about it, he never responded nor indicated any kind of concern. The final straw was when I came home on a Friday evening after they had been in around 2:00 to find my oven clicking and extremely hot. They had left it on Broil. I was very lucky to still have a house to come home to. Dave once again didn't respond to my email firing his service while telling him about this complaint. He sent the team back in 2 weeks later as if nothing had happened, I had both called and emailed to cancel the service. He claimed his email was 'corrupted', and showed no real concern for the carelessness of his crew, nor did he offer anything to compensate me for damage at any point. It is now more than a month later, and I still have not received my key back despite multiple requests.

We had him in for a bid, he really was pursuasive about the professionalism, feedback and other areas. He especially emphasized his screened preferred providers list and how he was creating his own "Anige's List" and stood by hind the folks he affiliated with. We were impressed and told him we would get back to him but we were unwilling to commit at the moment. Two weeks later even after we called to tell them we weren't switching to him a crew of his made an unathorized entry into our home and cleaned. We contacted him immediately and he took a while to get back to us about how the crew entered the house. He then assured us it wouldn't happen again. My wife came back from droppign the kids off to work from home and found another crew of his had again made an anuthorized entrance into our home. When she confronted them the girl indicated that this type of things happens that they show up for clients that haven't subscribed. I additionally made the mistake of hiring a preferred provider to redo our driveway and it has been a mess. The man laid it at three different heights, miscut sections, multicolored conrecte. Despite he (the contractor) and David claiming they were in it to fix it and make me happy nothing has happened and now I have to sue the concrete guy because my job is a mess and has to be redone. Very unpressed with a cleaning service who breaks into your home when you're not a client and his prefered providers list. I would not recommend them to anyone.

Several problems - we had to file a complaint with BBB and when that didn't work we had to sue them. Cleaning's started out good, but then we started getting shotty work. The last straw was when they ate food out of our fridge and then left the gas on in our stove all day. We cancelled service and then requested our last cleaning service be refunded and our key returned. After a month of trying to get our phone calls returned we filed with the BBB and then waited a couple of weeks. Finally we decided to have all our locks changed and sued them for the costs and the cleaning refund. A day before our court date they tape a check to our door.

The owner was prompt in responding to our initial request and set up a time right away to come do an estimate. I appreciated the fact that he recommended ways to reduce the cost of our regular cleaning, such as treating the barely-used bathrooms as half-baths instead of full. So far, the same people have come out to clean almost every time. They do a decent job on everything and really concentrate on a particular area which rotates every visit.

The home is about 2,000 square feet. The cleaning was good and I was happy with that. Anything that was not done to my standards they were happy to correct and those issues were never repeated. Their communication, however, was terrible. My appointments were always on Monday and I would get a phone call on Friday saying they would be here between 8:30 and 9:30. They always came at 11:30 or 12:30 and say they didn?t know why I was told a different time because that?s when they were coming. I tried to work it out by calling different people and they told me they would straighten it out but they never did so I finally let them go. I let them go 6 weeks ago and I continue to receive phone calls so obviously they haven't resolved the problems.

The quality of work was not very good. It was sort of like speed cleaning instead of actually doing a good job. Their staff also kept changing, almost every week there seemed to be a different cleaner coming to my house. I was not satisfied with their work.

We have been using the Cleaning Authority for about a little more than a year. They do average work. At times, it seems they are just in a hurry to get the job done and don't really fully complete the job. Several times they have forgotten to replace trash liners, they do not fully clean the mirrors and streaks are left behind.

I met with David, the owner, and agreed to use The Cleaning Authority for weekly cleaning for $80 per week. They charged more for the first two cleanings, which I had no problem with. They work on a rotation basis, where different things are cleaned each time, and other things are (supposedly) cleaned each time. Of the approximately eight service visits, on all but two occasions, I had to call to let them know that something was not completed or was done poorly. Most typically they did a poor job on the master shower -- shower pan not clean, scum remaining on shower walls, etc. Angie, the office manager, apologized on most occasions, promising to "come out herself" to take care of the problems. Yes, corrections were made the next day, but the aggravation level of having to call and complain (being mindful to be NICE about it) far outweighed the luxury of having my house cleaned. The owner claimed in our first meeting that his company NEVER uses bleach and uses only environmentally safe products one day I came home to the reek of bleach throughout the house, including on the kitchen counters. It should have been rinsed, which I had to do before using the counters for food preparation. A few other things that were not done correctly on a regular basis: FLOORS (shoddy vacuuming -- crumbs and debris always left by the front door; poor mopping of linoleum), kitchen appliances (some were done nicely; others were completely neglected), kitchen cabinets (although on rotation, the little food splatters were NEVER removed). In theory, this company talks a good game. However, shoddy workmanship and poor communication kills the deal. There is not that much disposable income these days...I refuse to waste it on poor service. I am also filing a report with the BBB DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!

I work from home so when they showed up early I almost lost a client because it looked like I had a crazy chaotic household. I wouldn't use them again.

Although the cleaning was sometimes hit and miss, generally it was good. However, over the last 4 or 5 cleanings, something was always missed: some dusting, a room wasn't vacuumed, that sort of thing. Then the last time, April 21st, they forgot to vacuum most of the house. I called the next day and the operator took a message. No one called back (I left my office number, where my secretaries answer the phone all day, and there is an after hours answering machine, and they also have my home phone number, so it's not that I was unreachable). So 4 days later, having received no reply to my complaint, I called and canceled your their services. Since then, I have been waiting 5 weeks to get my house key back. I have called 4 times. One excuse was that they were waiting for the proper envelopes to arrive. Finally I insisted I would come by and pick it up. I was told no one was in the office, but they would drop it off that day. That was May 23rd, still no key; now 2 weeks later, they no longer answer my calls. As you can see I am not a satisfied customer. This company does not provide good customer service and I would not recommend them to anyone.

Cleaning was good the first couple of times. After that it was very spotty. We frequently had to call in for 2nd and 3rd attempts. It became more hassle than it was worth so we discontinued the service.

We have had them 4 times. First they had an estimator come to the house. He was late and lost the estimate. It took a while to get everything straitened out. Their promptness in responding to calls is poor. Each time they have come to clean, they have missed something major and do spotty work. The latest time the came out, I requested to change the original appointment, and they subsequently did not show up to the agreed upon time.

First time was OK, second time was OK, third and fourth time were poor. I even left something that was not cleaned and was supposed to be (the drip pans on the stove) until the next time to see if it would be cleaned and it never was. I was afraid to call them to come back as I did not want angry strangers running through my house. I canceled after that. I NEVER received a call after each cleaning asking how it went (as was advertised) and I made a complaint about the service when I canceled and expected to receive a follow up call about the complaint but never heard anything.

They don't go the extra mile; it's a very surface cleaning job that they do. They are reliable and show up.

Stopped using since people coming to the house were always different. I was told it would usually be the same team unless vacation or sickness but this was not the case. There wasn't enough consistency either because of this. One team did such a bad job one week I had to call to have them come back.

This is the best cleaning service in St. Louis and I've used several. They been cleaning my house for almost 2 years. I request the same ladies each week and they always comply. The one problem that I have is the company never ever returns my phone calls. Other than that, I recommend them.

They were fine the first time however the second time I hired them, they tried to come 45 minutes late and they didn't even call me. I had to call their office and track them down because I had to go to work. I ended up canceling the second service.