Lisa Gordon

United States

I found this company online and sent a request form for a deep clean. I spoke to the charming Jon who sounded like the world’s most trustworthy man. I explained that the house was 7000 sq. feet and was surprised when Jon sent a quote for two cleaners for two days - I had imagined it would need a team of cleaners - but as he was the world’s most trustworthy man I assumed he knew what he was doing. The quote was for £990 which was what I’d imagined a job of that size would cost so I said yes please and signed the contract. On our Ring app we saw the two cleaners arrive on Monday morning at 9am and leave at 5pm the same day. On Tuesday we saw them arrive at 9am and at lunchtime I got a call from a man called Darren, sounding very agitated and chippy. He’d been to see the property and there was no way, he said, that the team of two would be able to complete the job in the allotted time, mainly it transpired because they’d spent half the day cleaning the plantation shutters that were not on the list of things I’d said needed to be cleaned. I assumed that Darren would be in touch again later that day to offer a solution. Instead, we watched the cleaners leave the property at 1.30pm, load their van and drive off. I visited the property the next day and was shocked by how incomplete and dreadful the quality of the work was –. I sent multiple photos of the dead insects, dust, fluff, cobwebs, dirt and dead leaves to Chippy Darren on WhatsApp and waited to find out how he wanted to deal with the situation. I waited quite some time. He studiously ignored all my WhatsApp messages for a week. So I eventually went back to Lovely Jon who apologised profusely and within a day I had a date for the cleaners to return to finish their work. The new cleaners arrived three hours late, at 3pm instead of the promised 12pm. The original cleaners had been sacked, apparently, for cleaning the plantation shutters when they weren’t supposed to. My husband was at the property at the time and spoke to the cleaners. They said it was crazy that only two of them had been sent to do a job of that size. They said they didn’t think they’d be able to finish in the allotted time. They stayed until 7pm, having done as much as they could and then they said goodbye to my husband and left. I inspected the clean a few days later and decided that it was fine. It was not by any stretch a ‘floor to ceiling deep clean’ as per the contract I’d signed. But it was as much as I could reasonably have expected two people to do over the course of two days. I was happy to pay a decent amount for the job I’d been given, but not the full £990. I waited to hear from Lovely Jon so that we could have a conversation about what had gone wrong and how we could rectify it so that everyone was happy. That call came a few days later. Lovely Jon said, ‘it's time for the conversation’ and I thought that that was what he meant – I thought we were going to talk, nice and civilised, about what I should pay for a job that clearly had not been done properly, in a timely fashion or as per the description in the contract. I felt very relaxed at this point. Little did I know what was heading my way. I said, ‘well, it's not really a £990 job, in my opinion’ and started to explain my reasoning. Before I could say another word, Lovely Jon said, ‘I’m just going to pass you to my colleague.’ The ‘colleague’ turned out to be Chippy Darren. Chippy Darren who by this point was Rude Aggressive Really Quite Scary Darren. He said he was ‘shocked’ by my questioning of the £990 bill. I would have been happy to have had a £100 knocked off to be honest, just to show willing. But no, I was ‘shocking’. Darren was shocked by me. The conversation got very loud and very shouty very quickly. Apparently, I had ‘kept them waiting for payment’ even though nobody had been in touch to ask for payment. Darren was so aggressive that my adrenaline was pumping. He said, with much malice, ‘if you don’t pay this invoice in full, I will come to your door and make sure I get my money’. I am a woman, by the way, I feel it is worth pointing out here. That is what a charmer Darren is. I hung up on Darren because he was becoming more and more obnoxious and aggressive. I was shaking from head to toe. When I calmed down, I decided, somewhat belatedly, to check their reviews on the internet. Within three minutes I realised that I’d been played for a mug. These guys do this repeatedly. They don’t treat their cleaners properly, they don’t clean people’s properties properly, they charge too much for not cleaning properly and then Darren shouts and threatens and acts abusively when anyone complains. I paid them the £990, just to get these awful people out of my life, but I told Lovely Jon that I would be leaving a terrible review for them on the internet. And so here it is. Do not touch these dreadful people with a bargepole. Please.