Complaint Review: Maid Brigade - Irvine California

When I bought a house in Dana Point, my realtor kindly contracted a cleaning service to clean up the mess the former owners had left behind. She chose Maid Brigade because the market themselves as detail and customer service oriented.

I was visited first by Larry Miller, the owner of this particular franchise, who went through the house with me detailing what I wanted done. He told me that cleaning window sashes and dusting baseboards (among other things) were standard for his company.

His crew showed up late. No one spoke English. The work was incomplete; cabinets that were to be wiped out were never opened. A fireplace was not cleaned. No window sashes were cleaned. Some kind of cleaning solvent left a build-up in decorative ceramic tile in my kitchen.

Both I and the realtor left messages for Larry (the work was done on a Friday), but no one called us back. My realtor recontacted Maid Brigade at noon on Monday, and they finally called me that same day at 4 p.m. Our contact there, Carol, indicated to both of us that we were remiss in not spotting the issues in question before the cleaners left, and that their cleaners reported that all work was completed, including the fireplace. (They were so thorough, then, that they put the ashes back in after they cleaned it.)

My realtor paid them with a personal check, and the bill was tremendous, especially considering the pathetic quality of the work. She was not given a receipt. She had to request one, and finally got one faxed to her several days later.

Rather than send a crew to rectify the problem, Carol determined she would, a week after the work was orginally to be completed, send an "Account Manager" to check on the incompleteness of the work. I'm trying to move into this place in the meantime and am apparently not to put any items in the uncleaned cabinets nor am I to clean any of the leftover filth myself.

When the Account Manager didn't show, my realtor, who came by for each event, called Maid Brigade and left a message. Larry called her back and claimed that he didn't send the account manager because he was unable to contact me that day to confirm the appointment. No one told me at any time that I needed to confirm an appointment I'd already made.

I spoke with Larry myself. He told me repeatedly that his crew claimed to have completed the work, that I was wrong when I told him he was "putting me off," and wanted to simply make another appointment for the Account Manager to come through.

I told him I wanted another crew to come in and complete the work. He promised to have a crew at my home at noon the following day.

The following day at 12:30 I called Larry to let him know that his crew had not arrived. He told me that he had promised the crew with be there AFTER noon, not at noon. He did not know that he had been on speakerphone, and that I was not the only person to whom he had been speaking.

He told me the crew would arrive at 4 p.m. They arrived at 4:30, did a minimal touch-up (while swearing about us in Spanish; little did they know my realtor is trilingual) and left.

They left behind a receipt that showed the original amount the realtor paid for their services as $225...well below the amount she actually paid.

What a nightmare! They market that the difference between them and everyone else is their customer service...yeah, it is; theirs SUCKS! Get ANYONE ELSE to clean your home but these people. They totally misrepresent themselves as reputable and reliable when they are actually thieves and liars.

Barbara

Dana Point, California
U.S.A.