Neat Freaks Housekeeping

Avoid. Shocked by this company. Look elsewhere. Hidden charges. Inconsistent cleaning. Bad management. It’s too bad.

Amy and her crew of dedicated ladies provide consistently exceptional service. I have been a client for more than 5 years and I plan on remaining a client for years to come. Their name says it all — they are Neat Freaks! Yes, they are a tad on the higher price side, but their attention to detail and efficiency more than make up for it. They bring their own equipment and product. My home ALWAYS smells fresh, and never of harsh chemicals. There is a clean home and then there is a CLEAN home. These ladies know what they are doing and have even taught me a trick or two (or three or four)!! Love them!

Don’t try and set an appointment or have neat freaks clean your house if you have too many questions they will make the appointment and then send you and email cancelling the appointment. I have to find someone new to clean my house and apparently asked too many questions. The email statied that I needed to find someone else because I wouldn’t be satisfied with their service. I’m pretty sure they are correct after that kind of service!

Amy and her crew helped us with a move out cleaning. They were very thorough and the quoted price matched the final price, even though I know they spent more time than quoted. I will certainly use Neat Freaks services again.

We were with these guys for over 2 years. It was a slow slide from taking their time and doing it right to getting in and getting out. I will be the first to admit I don’t have an easy house to clean. 2 people work out of the house so there’s an office and we’re often home during cleaning. I would imagine it’s also a business where it’s hard to maintain good staff so they have their challenges. I do expect however that when I tell the staff things like not emptying the blue and clearly marked with a symbol recycling containers (they throw them in the trash), don’t leave the doors and screens open (every time recently that NF come’s over I end up spending the night killing 20 – 30 flies they’ve let in as we’re on a horse property and it comes with the territory) it gets passed up to «the office». The reason I would have that expectation is that it seems NF encourages their staff to solicit add on services as we’ve often gotten asked about upgrading and up-​selling what they are doing. Not by the office but by the staff. So today when I wrote them an email of goodbye I was disappointed to say the least to have the blame pushed back my way. Step up to the plate NF and just say sorry and goodbye. The email thread went something like this:
Me 1^st email:
«We’ve got issues with your service and we wish to stop doing business with you. I arrived home yesterday to find the house once again filled with flies. Apparently the ladies left the door open again after I’d instructed them last time to keep it shut. Four weeks ago I arrived home to the same situation. I happened to be here 2 weeks ago when they cleaned and came out of my office to discover the ladies standing in the driveway chatting with the door and screen propped wide open. I asked them at that time to please close the door and explained the situation. I’ve asked in the past to not empty our blue and marked recycling containers into the trash. Those were empty once again yesterday. I also found our new limestone sink in the master bath to have a chip out of it. It looks to me like a mop handle hit it but since no one said anything who’s to know for sure. These are just the big issues lately.
We’ve got too much going on in our lives to have to correct and oversee others. Please discontinue our service immediately.
Sincerely,
John»
Their reply:
«We are sad to see you go from our company after more than 3 years of a relationship. I know flies are such a nuisance as I live in a horse community too. Perhaps, if the office had been made aware of the recycling bin issues and the flies, we could have helped solve the problem. But as such, this is the first we have heard of either.
We will return your key to you next week, Amy will drop off as she lives near you.
The office staff»
To which I wrote:
«I would expect since you have your staff solicit additional services from us they should be competent enough to pass along feedback. I would also expect when I mention a $ 600.00 sink being chipped to the office it would be addressed or at least mentioned in the reply from «the office». Since both didn’t happen then what value is there in communicating with «the office». Pushing back blame simply means you want no responsibility for you or your employees actions.
«the homeowner»
I will not be back.
Edit: 1 week later and the key is still not returned nor have we heard boo as promised about returning the key this week. I went by last week when I cancelled service but the address listed on their website is not an commercial location but a house and the person there stated the keys weren’t kept at this location.

I can always count on Amy and her crew, to make my house sparkle and make me feel out from underwater! Amy is one of the most helpful, go out of her way for you business owners I’ve dealt with. I’ve used Neat Freaks on a regular basis, and on an ‘oh my gosh, I have how many days until company comes’ basis and they are wonderful. Amy steps in with out being overbearing and makes me feel like it’s all under control. I’ll never use another cleaning crew to help me in my home, as it’s so important to me and I am very particular, they really do a Neat Freak job. How great it is to have found a great, there for you, local business I can count on to really do a great job, that is so rare these days!

I’ve recently moved, but I had to write something of Amy’s past work for me! Amy and her team are the best cleaning service we have every used. We have used large ‘franchise’ cleaning services and other small or independent cleaning services and Neat Freaks by far is the best! The customer service provided and the consistency in who cleans our house and how it is cleaned make it a pleasure to do business with them. I couldn’t ask for anything more in a cleaning service. Neat Freaks comes to our house every other week, and my whole family loves ‘cleaning day’. The house is clean and smells great. Thanks Ladies! You are the best!

Amy and her staff are AMAZING! My house would be crazy dirty without them. They come once a month to do a big clean. My house smells and looks great! They personally know me and understand my circumstances. There have been a number of times I forgot they were coming, and they got started, even though I had not prepared for them. One time I completely forgot and left the house. I have two dogs, and the house was a complete mess. They handled the dogs and cleaned my house anyway. They are considerate of me and my family, and they clean my home like they would their own. I cannot say enough great things about Amy and her staff! As a mom of 3 with little or no time to do a regular deep clean, they help me to no end. Amy is always professional, and has become a friend. I would recommend them to anyone, especially busy moms!

I had a long review written up about this company but after some input from a friend who suggested that it just wasn’t worth the hassle, I’m going to go with something short and sweet:
If you do decide to work with this company, I would suggest taking pictures before they come over so that you can provide proof afterwards if the job is not done to your satisfaction, or if parts were even done at all.
If you do take issue with the quality of their work, do not be surprised if it is suggested that your home was filthy beyond belief, heroic efforts were made, and any reviews posted that suggest they did not do a good job would be responded to with public descriptions that would attempt to embarrass you.
Updated 2−26−13: I hadn’t noticed until a friend pointed out that there are four filtered reviews on this company. I definitely wouldn’t have used them if I’d seen those, since they mirror almost exactly the impression, attitude and quality I received during my experience, so just wanted to point out to people to look for the link for filtered reviews.
Updated 2−28−13 Response to Owner:
1. I never said a word about an allotted amount of time. In fact, when you sent the invoice for 6 – 8 hours, that didn’t jive with my recollection of you saying 7 – 9 hours, but OK, if you stopped at 8, that was in the middle, fine.
3. Only one area in the bathroom was, in my opinion, tremendously better. One area in the kitchen was at least noticeable The rest was indistinguishable from when I’d left that morning.
It is insanity on my part to continue to communicate any more with this company. Read the filtered reviews. I think Unilocal filtered them because they were all so similar, but my experience says that there is a reason they are all so similar.

Update: Took about a week to get our refund for the double-​charge.
Update: Response to owner’s comment:
1. I’m sorry, but the refund did NOT get sent in «24 hours». Your credit card company may have pulled the funds quickly, but it took them SIX DAYS to initiate the refund transaction (I have access to see pending transactions). In any case, the double-​charge was ridiculous.
2. I’d suggest re-​checking your notes. You reference to tile-​cutting was completely erroneous; there was no tilework being done whatsoever.
3. Regarding your suggestion that we call you back about all the missed areas: Once a business has burned us, we simply don’t go back.

I have a rental home that I recently hired Amy to clean for us to ready for the next tenants. She knew the purpose of the clean, it is a 100% empty 1900 sq foot house. She had me hook line and sinker telling me how meticulous and I believe another reviewer even said OCD’ish (she said to me as well word for word). I was excited because I felt I found the right company to do this work for me since I’m pregnant and can’t do it myself. After the job was done, I noticed that it was pretty mediocre at first glance but acceptable. After a little further inspection I found that they only did about half of each job they said they did, the ignored areas completely and did a bad once over on many others. They broke two tiles off my counter top, ruined a granite counter in a bathroom using the wrong cleaning supplies, rubbed paint off the walls in a couple areas. Amy requested that I walk through and make a list of anything that still needed addressed. I did so and when I sent my list, she argued about every point I made even though she herself never went back through the house after the job was ‘completed’. Her 24 hour call back that she offers means she’ll come back within 24 hours and address your list, AT YOUR COST. at $ 40 hourly that’s a pretty penny. I was told a door would take ‘serious time’. I went back myself and it took me all of 2.5 minutes to get it clean. I ended up paying dearly for her services and still going back and putting in 9 hours of my own time to finish the job RIGHT.