We were in the market for a new home cleaning service and found the ad on kijiji. I made an appointment for Samantha to come by and view our home and provide an estimate. She explained that the initial clean was a flat rate but that subsequent cleans would be an hourly rate. I proceeded to book the initial clean and was satisfied when it was done. I then booked a regular cleaning for every other week. The first one was a no show. She had called on the Thursday morning, the day of the appointment, to say that her son was ill and could she reschedule the cleaning for the next day, Friday. No problem I said. Friday came and went and no clean house and no phone call. I had to call repeatedly to find out why. I attempted to leave a message but the voicemail box was always full. When I finally did get to speak with Samantha, a full week after the originally scheduled appointment, she apologized and said it was not like her to not call and she explained that there were some issues around her and her son being ill. I know that these things happen so I decided to give her another chance. The next couple cleaning times were as scheduled. The cleaning was ok, not stellar but passable. Then last week she was scheduled to arrive at 9:00am on Thursday. When my son arrived home from school at noon he called me to ask when the cleaners were supposed to arrive. I called the number I had for Samantha and a gentleman answered. He said she was at work. I explained what I was calling about and he said that he would call her and find out and then call me back. He did exactly as he said. I was told that she would be there about 2:30pm. When I arrived home at 5:00pm, Samantha still had not been there. I called back and the same gentleman answered. I asked that she call me back. She didn't. I called back on Friday and again left a message with him asking for Samantha to call me. No phone call. I called again on Wednesday, 6 days after the scheduled appointment, and told him what had happened and said that I wanted to speak with Samantha. He sounded quite surprised that I hadn't been contacted. I finally did speak with her and she informed me that she couldn't get to our house last week because she had taken on more jobs than she could handle and that she was in the process of hiring a new person. She didn't offer an apology or even try to keep my business by offering a reduced rate for the next cleaning. I said that we were going to go in another direction now and that I'd like my key back. Arrangements were made for the key to be dropped off at 9:00am the next day, before her first job. At 11:30am there was no key and no phone call. I had to call again to make other arrangements for my key to be returned. I finally got my key returned after the third appointment was made. I'm very disappointed. Perhaps the carpet cleaning side of the business is better, but I won't be finding out.
