David V.

So I asked this husband and wife team for a job that I know takes less than an hour to do because I have done it before with other handymen and literally watched them do it. She first quoted $400 for the 2 drawer fixes and a small patch job of some drywall. And then she lied and said it was that expensive to wait for the drywall patch to dry. No contractor has to sit there and wait for the patch to dry (and get paid for that wait time). So then I said well just fix the cabinets thinking that the drywall was causing the insane pricing and she came back with $250 for a 1 hour job (or less). Then I offered her a fair counter-offer to a handyman of $60 per hour + parts and she declined the job. I guess if you want an unreasonable person at outrageous prices fee free to hire them but I would live with the cabinets the way they are and crawl over broken glass with shorts on before I hired this team.

I had a local maid for many years who was independent and I did not like her very much (but my wife liked her). After we did not have her come in for a year during the pandemic, I went online to find a company to see if they would be any better. I knew they would be more expensive for sure, which is fine because I was looking for a professional and quality organization.

My first task I gave to them was a deep clean which they charged $65 per hour for per person. Now I am in favor of a living wage and benefits and I am fine with a profit margin but this seemed really high for relatively low wage workers, but I figured well it is expensive then it must be better.

So first thing that happened was they called an hour AFTER they were supposed to start and said someone was sick so they needed to re-schedule. Now I understand someone being sick but I had a specific timeline and if I were running the business I would let one of my existing clients that they do weekly have the "sick person" issue and have my new client get their house cleaned at $65 per hour. But that was not their judgement. When they finally were able to squeeze me in it was without enough time to complete all of the rooms in the house. So I got a deep cleaning of our house less 3 rooms for the bargain price roughly $900. No apologies, no we will make it up to you, basically those rooms never got deep cleaned. And if I had not followed them around and hounded them there would probably be at least 2 more rooms they would not have cleaned.

So I was quite unhappy to say the least, but I figured that I would give them a couple of regular cleanings to see if things improved. Sadly they did not. While I have no issue with the quality of the work performed when they get to the rooms they promise, the management of the resources and the communication from management is dismal. Last minute calls, changes in schedules and all for 2x what I was paying before. Frankly, I was ready to end the relationship but I was too busy so I brought them in one more time.

The last time they came, there was a minor incident with our dog that was aggressive with the maids. To my knowledge there was no actual contact between the dog and the maids. So instead of reaching out and calling me about the situation, I get an e-mail stating that they were cancelling our agreement to clean the house with no discussion and no courtesy call. I find this behavior very unprofessional and really ignorant of good business acumen. Maybe it is just me but before I sent such an e-mail I would have a phone conversation and discuss the situation and what can be done to remedy it. For all they know we would have been able to arrange for the dog to be at another house during the entire future cleanings.
The bottom line is the management team makes poor judgements and puts their interests before the customers' interests. I would scrub the floor with a toothbrush before I hired anyone associated with Merry Maids again.