I recently had to move my father from his own house to an assisted living facility. I had to clean out his rented house and get it cleaned. I called MerryMaids and got a quote of $456.00 to clean "from the top down" as the rep told me. They were supposed to wipe down all the window blinds, clean all the ceiling fan blades, wipe off all the cobwebs, sanitize the kitchen and bathroom. In essence she was telling me what I would get instead of me telling her what I needed. She also told me that I would have to make sure that everything was picked up off the floor for them to vacuum. She also told me that the product they used to clean would tarnish the gold toned fixtures in the bathroom so they would not be able to scrub the bathtub. I needed the cleaning done as soon as possible as I was turning the keys back to the landlord the next day. I had tried to get them to come earlier in the week but they were all booked up. The rep had warned me about the lock-out fee so I gave her a key (since the house was empty I saw no harm) and told her to have the cleaners drop in the locked mail box when they were done. This was a Friday - I expected them to start the work first thing in the morning. We drove past Friday evening about 5:00PM to take a look and make sure everything was ship shape - the cleaners were still there. We drove past again around 8:00PM only to see that they were still there - I did not have a good feeling about this. The next morning my husband went over to the house to finish up some last minute hauling and he called me to say the bathroom was still filthy. I gathered up cleaning supplies and went over to the house and within about 45 minutes I had scrubbed everything down mostly just using hot water and a sponge - also Kaboom bathroom cleaner works pretty well. Note: I suffer with a bad back, hips, and knees so this was extremely painful for me - that's why I hired MerryMaids. My husband in the meantime had checked out the kitchen and found that while they had cleaned the stove top fairly well (the inside would have cost extra), they had not put the burner bibs back. He found them in one of the drawers still wet.

On Monday I called and voice my displeasure and was connected with the customer complaint department. When I told the woman that the bathroom had not even been touched she told me that it was not requested. I told her that I had specifically requested both the kitchen and bathroom sanitization packages. She put me on hold and found the original handwritten estimate and then apologized for missing the item. I don't mean to be ugly but why would anyone leave out the bathroom when the rest of the house is being cleaned - wouldn't a normal person ask questions. She offered to have someone come back that day to clean and I told her it was too late I needed it done last week. I was pleasantly surprised when she offered to refund the amount that was estimated for cleaning the bathroom $62.00 - while I don't think the refund was adequate it did come through. However, I will never use MerryMaids again, nor recommend them to anybody.