My in-laws recently moved out of their 40-year-old trilevel home into a nice retirement community condo. As I’m the only one in the family without a paying job, it fell to me to get the house cleaned up, repaired and ready for sale. This took a month, a four-day garage sale, two dumpsters, a repair crew of five and a visit from Servicemaster, known for their ability to take a house that has been severely smoke-and-water damaged from fire and turn it back into a liveable home. Mom hasn’t been able to keep up with the house over the last few years, so it was pretty bad. Lots of cobwebs, dirty carpets, etc.
Servicemaster said they’d clean all the carpets for $375 - not too bad, considering that there are 6 carpeted rooms plus a hallway and two staircases. The manager of the Servicemaster informed me that the cleaning of the house was equivalent to a “fire cleanout” in that pretty much EVERYTHING was going to need to be thoroughly cleaned. Cost for THAT was $900 - a two man crew for 6 hours at $75 per man per hour. I blanched, but he said, “Oh, but! We will clean the daylights out of this place! Dismantle light fixtures and wash them and put them back together, clean doors and doorknobs, scrub the floors, scrub the walls, everything!” I told Dad, and he said, “Hire 'em. It’s worth it.” They came over yesterday and I left them scrubbing their little hearts out in the master bathroom. One guy worked on the sink in there for TWENTY MINUTES! So you know they’re thorough, yeah?
So I go over today, anticipating walking into a sparkling clean house. First thing I notice is the hall closet doors, and the same dingey handprints around the handles. “Hmm, they must have missed that one,” I thought to myself. Then I close the front door and notice that it’s not wiped down either - still a dark smeary mess around the door knob, and oh, a smashed spider corpse halfway up the door - where I smashed it last week. I look up at the light fixture and wonder how they dismantled, cleaned and reassembled it without disturbing the cobwebs. The kitchen floor has not been swept, let alone mopped. Three bathrooms - one with four sets of mirrored, bi-fold doors - and I realize NONE of the mirrors were cleaned. AT ALL.
NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS. I have a cleaning lady who comes to my house every two weeks and washes my floors, vacuums, dusts and cleans the bathrooms for $65. And she does the floor-to-ceiling mirror, too. If I had given HER $900, that house would be in pristine, move-in condition. Needless to say, I am royally pissed.
So I called Servicemaster today and talked to the manager. He says Servicemaster stands behind their work and that a new crew will be coming out tomorrow to do the job to my satisfaction at no additional charge. I’m half-tempted to tell them I want my $900 back, and hire my cleaning lady to do it instead. Hell, for ONE hundred dollars, I could get my teenager to do it! All I ave to say is that if I have to supervise this cleaning crew to make sure it gets done right, I WILL ask for my (well, actually Dad’s) money back.
GRR!