Merry Maids Review

lcd2112

We hired Molly Maids to clean our 3 bedroom, 2 bath, <1,500 sq. ft. house, once a month for $153.00.  Each and every time (but 1) I had to contact the office afterwards because something was not done (blinds not dusted, furniture not vacuumed, etc.).  And each and every time they would send a cleaning crew the next day to fix whatever was not done.  The time before last the office person suggested I leave a checklist for the crew because she said the office sometimes has trouble communicating with the crew.  This was the 1 and only time I did not have an issue.  January I left the list again and when I came home it was the sloppiest job I had received so far!  The kitchen floor was spotty (REALLY SPOTTY), they had only wiped in front of the knick-knacks on the dresser and the shower stall was not cleaned, just to name a few issues.  When I called to complain the office person said she would send out a team to do a complete re-do and inspect it herself.  Needless to say, a complete re-do was not done and she meekly admitted to the shower stall not being cleaned.  I called to speak to the office manager and expressed my continued frustration with the situation and told him I would like to give him another opportunity to keep my business if he can guarantee a consistent job.  He couldn?t and so I am now in the market again for another cleaning service.  I?m interviewing the Cleaning Authority and Molly Maids this week. 

 

Is it unreasonable that I have high expectations?  Especially seeing I am willing to pay $153 for 2 hours of work.  And it?s not even hard work; I keep a clean house.  Every week I am, vacuuming, swiftering, mopping, dusting, etc.  I just need someone, once a month, to do the detail work, dust the blinds and ceiling fans, wipe down the doors and baseboards, vacuum the furniture and give everything a good once over, mop the kitchen floors, dust the furniture, etc. 

 

Anyway, just wanted to give you ladies a review in case you are in the market for a house cleaning service.  I?ll let you know how the in-home estimates go with these other 2 companies.

DG1

Is this merry maids or molly maids? Your subject line doesn't match the first sentence.


FWIW, I think all of the big box cleaning places are pretty notorious for being inconsistent. Your best bet is probably to look for a friend of a friend or something.

And $153 for 2 hours of work sounds obscene.

lilmufish

I agree, the bigger maid services cannot guarentee consistency. I'd recommend finding a friend of the family or an individual to come in and clean.  Thanks for your review, i'm sorry that you had to go through all this, it  must've been frustrating!!!

lcd2112

*ack*

Figures, I screwed it up, it's Merry Maids NOT Molly Maids. 

Fall_Bride_04

Thanks for the review.  It's a bummer you paid that much money for poor service and then for the manager to tell you he can't guarantee consistency!!

Hope things get better!

1D2CW

Sorry you had this experience. I too had bad experience with them and Cleaning Autority. Both seemed to be very inconsistant with the cleaning and the CA girls seriously smelt like pot everytime they came in the house (I stayed at home with DD and had them do the heavy cleaning). Merry maids were better, but I still had issues with things not being cleaned.

hugitout

That is a hefty price tag. But you figure those places usually have crews of 4, so if you divide the price by the time and the people, the most you are talking about is $19 an hour per person. But you also know there is no way the workers are going to keep all that between paying some sort of commission to the company and then taxes. Even if they did get that full amount though, it is still less than 40k a year BEFORE taxes. Not exactly a luxury wage. Combine that with the fact that house cleaning is pretty easy for us since we have good health care, overall good health, and are all in reasonably good shape to start with. However, most people who work for these services don't have those kinds of luxuries and are probably in bad shape/health to start with. Then they spend hours every day on their knees cleaning floors and bathtubs. The vacuum cleaners are carried on their backs. They weigh 20 lbs and have to be hauled around at all times. I'll tell you that my back would be killing me if I carried that thing around all day. As far as consistency in quality goes, the corporations have rules regarding how their employees do work. If a shelf has more than a certain number of items on it, then the cleaners are told not to remove the items but to dust around them. Many companies also tell their crews to only use one bucket of water for the whole house: bathrooms and kitchens. Gross! I would love to find a person to help in our house, but after doing some research into these companies, I have sworn never to hire one if at all possible.

closapio

I worked for Merry Maids for two weeks - that was ALL it took for me to know that I never wanted them in my house.

The crews that I was with did poor jobs to begin with (and didn't earn anywhere near the $19/hour the previous poster was saying), and would do things like eat out of the refrigerator. I was so disgusted by it that I turned my two weeks resignation in the first day - things didn't get better after that.