First Choice Maids

I would like to be able to speak to the quality of the work, but alas, in spite of scheduling through their online tool, both of my appointments were cancelled and evidently cannot be rescheduled due to… I have no idea. Communication just goes dead if you can’t take the first alternative they offer. I won’t be bothering to try again. I suggest you move along as well.

PROCEED WITH CAUTION. I think the other reviews get into the details, so I’ll highlight the main issues. They rescheduled my appointment while I was travelling, then sent the cleaner without receiving confirmation the new time worked. My roommate let the person in. I returned to find that almost nothing had been done and certainly nothing listed in their «Spring Cleaning» check list. In trying to work with the company, I received snippy and blaming responses via email because no one would pick up the phone.

He is not willing to refund me my money and is threatening me with legal action for slander, liable, and business loss because of my opinion reviews on sites like this one.
It’s clear from the forums and my posts that my comments inferred my opinion is that their service is a scam. The contexts of the mediums solely exist for people to express their opinion. Further an opinion that cause business harm cannot be considered slander or libel. In fact this happens all the time in the course of regular business. Written comments cannot be consider slander (libel perhaps), and also, Mel, the term is writ not wit, a mistake a lawyer would have not made. Furthermore I refer you this point which is generally accepted WRIT… A defense recognized in most jurisdictions is «opinion». If the person makes a statement of opinion as opposed to fact, the statement may not support a cause of action for defamation.
In fact, the threats he has made regarding contacting my employer are in bad taste (again this is my opinion, since they are not involved in this situation). More importantly, any harm done to me in this manner would be a more accurate representation of what constitutes slander. Also, it seems as though he has written posts regarding his own business from the 1^st or 3^rd party while representing that he was another party are good examples of consumer abuse and anti competitive behavior both classifications that can be litigated and which I am happy to add to my OPINION posts.

I am genuinely surprised that there are negative reviews here… I have bought the Amazon and Facebook deals, the employees were on time and every time that I have used their service, it has been fantastic. Give them a shot and put more than 10 data points on their reviews, Unilocalers!
Also, take a look at the Pacific Cleaning Group site… 32 reviews @ 4 stars!

One star is too many. These maids will take your money in advance and not show up, here’s a better idea… throw your money off the golden gate bridge before you consider this company

I guess I should have read these reviews before wasting my money on six sessions! Oh well. My first session was with a husband and wife team. They were very polite. They showed up thirty minutes late because they said they got lost. The lady did the bathrooms and the man started the kitchen. The bathrooms were pretty clean — nothing I couldn’t have done myself. The kitchen was also ok — nothing was deep cleaned. They did not vacuum the rugs in my living room. He told us he uses water on hardwood floors — unacceptable, so we gave him our wood cleaner. None of the beedrooms were cleaned. The experience was awful. We spoke with the manager who told us he couldn’t refund our money but that he would add on an extra 30 minutes of cleaning on our next service.
Service two happened last weekend. I requested a different person to come. The lady that came was nice — a little gangster looking — lots of tattoos. not that I didn’t trust her, but I also wanted to stick around and make sure everything would be ok. She really worked hard. I gave her a detailed list of everything I wanted cleaned. But it still didn’t feel like it was such a deep clean. She couldn’t get through all of the stuff in three hours. And quite frankly after watching her use our swiffer sweeper as a wet mop I decided it would be best for her to leave.
Don’t waste on your money on this.

So, I bought the amazon deal– It was $ 59 for three hours which I think is a pretty smoking deal. I bought the deal back in December but didn’t use it ’till a couple weeks ago when I moved out of my apartment. Being 8.5 months preggers and just finishing a move the last thing I wanted to do was clean my old apartment. So it was pretty easy to schedule online, which was cool.
Unfortunately, they rescheduled with me the night before which was kinda lame– changing my 9am appt to a 3:30…but whatever, I was on maternity leave so not that big of a deal.
The house cleaner arrived on time (well actually she was like 20min early and I arrived on time which meant the poor lady was sitting outside my apartment building with all her cleaning gear and I felt like a total asshole but whatever, she was mellow and friendly when I arrived). She did bring all her own cleaning stuff, but not a vacuum I don’t think. Maybe she just didn’t bring the vacuum up because I told her to use mine… I dunno… I had all my cleaning supplies ready for her but she said I was the only client she’s ever had supply their own stuff.
She was very friendly and I basically told her I needed everything vacuumed, floors mopped, kitchen and bathroom cleaned. This was basically a move-​out clean– I didn’t have any furniture in the house but I hadn’t vacuumed (I have a cat– so there was a lot of pet hair) or wiped down any of the counter tops, or mopped the floors and the fridge and microwave were pretty nasty. I just told her to do as much cleaning as she could in the three hours. She vacuumed the whole place (900 sq foot loft), scrubbed the range, did a pretty good shower clean, wiped down all my counter tops and left the fridge and microwave sparkling. I thought she did a pretty good job. Granted, I’ve never had a house cleaner before so I have nothing to compare it to but she seemed to work her ass off for the full three hours.
Based on the other reviews I think I would specifically request her next time. Too bad I forgot her name. :(
Other than that, the company did seem a little goofy– the last minute reschedule coulda been a total bummer, also when my husband went to give her the voucher she was like, oh I don’t take the payment. Also, when she arrived she asked me how long she was booked for– I mean, they didn’t tell her? That’s weird. I coulda just made anything up and never paid.

I second that the company should be renamed «Worst Choice Maids.» First of all, do people even use the word «maid» anymore? That should have been my first clue. Well, as a newish working mom, I thought I would indulge in professional cleaning services when I saw how reasonable the Amazon Local deal was: $ 59 for 3 hours. I actually bought two and didn’t bother to research the company first, because I figured cleaning isn’t really subjective. Au Contraire, mon frère!
The 1 star is for arriving on time and for the congenial interaction. They were both really nice, so I hate that I have to write this review, but nice doesn’t clean the house. They asked me what I wanted done, and I stated the obvious… dusting, surfaces, sinks, floors. That’s pretty standard, right? I have a small one bedroom apartment and it was tidy so 3 hours of professional cleaning (or 1.5 hours since there were 2 of them) would have added noticeable sparkle and shine. To start, the supplies looked a little on the homely side, so I offered to let them use my vacuum but they declined. I also supplied them with my preferred wood cleaner (for dusting) and asked them if they had wood floor cleaner. The gentleman said that in his experience, «water» was the best cleaner for wood floors. Huh? I have a freaking toddler. Do you know what’s been on my floor? I didn’t verbally say that, but my face must’ve conveyed it, because he said that he would use mine if I wanted him to and I replied by telling him, «Yes, it’s under the sink.» My toddler and I went outside to play for most of their 1.5 hours but we came back about 10 minutes early to start some lunch.
I noticed he was spraying his «water cleaner» on the floor and wiping it with a towel. He lied to me! The lady wasn’t doing anything and started playing with my son. That’s sweet, but I didn’t pay for a babysitter. I wanted you to clean my house, so I can play with my kid! As I looked around the kitchen I noticed there were still crumbs on the stove and our 1 counter top! I asked, «Did you do anything in the kitchen?» She replied that she cleaned the stove, counters, and sink. She lied to my face! I had also stressed that I wanted ALL of the floors cleaned. At least she didn’t lie and tell me she cleaned the kitchen floor. At one point she went in the bathroom to brush debris off the rug. Umm… didn’t you vacuum? I think she cleaned the toilet, sink, and tub, but I can’t be sure. It seemed like they used «water-​cleaner» for everything! About ¾ of our surfaces were dusted, and again, there’s not that many. None of the floors were actually clean, and he only moved 1 of 2 area rugs. Overall, I think the quality was about as good as when I did chores for my allowance at age 12, but probably worse! To exacerbate my already rock-​bottom impression of this company, they are having people from San Diego (location of their flagship company) with one or two reviews under their belt, post 5-​star reviews. Can you say shady?
Thank you Amazon for refunding my money!

After my experience in December — they added insult to injury by NOT removing the credit card charge for the time I had purchased as an add-​on to the original Coupon. I am now forced to go through an additional hassle of disputing that charge on my credit card — even though I never received a service. (Thank Goodness I did not use a debit card for this…)

First choice maids is more like worst choice maids. I bought an Amazon voucher for 3 hours of cleaning, so I book an appointment for 8:30 — 11:30 am. Setting up the appointment was easy enough.
But they arrive at around 7:50 am and then tell me that they will only be staying for 1.5 hours, since a voucher for 3-​hours of cleaning is only 1.5 hours if 2 people show up. Of course, nowhere on the voucher does it say this and no one told me this either at the time I booked my appointment or when I called and spoke with someone. I have to leave my apartment at 9:15, thinking that they would be here until 11:30 am but of course that’s now not the case and they end up doing an hour’s worth of cleaning.
I ask them to vacuum as a priority and they ask me if I have a vacuum, which I do not. So they come back with some janky vacuum cleaner and after they leave my rugs are still dirty.
If the normal price of this 1.5 hour job is $ 158 (they assert it’s an extra $ 69 because they include refrigerator cleaning (which they didn’t do, by the way), so really the actual time they will clean your apartment is about an hour and 10 minutes), then the company is a complete ripoff. The voucher for 1.5 hours of cleaning was $ 59 and even that is ridiculous given the extent of the cleaning. I have never paid more than $ 150 for 3 hours of cleaning for 2 people and even that was on the high end given the size of my apartment – and the job I received for $ 150 was far superior, i.e., professional and thorough. So really the voucher of $ 59 is basically them trying to charge standard rates for substandard services under the guise of some discount.
If you ordered an Amazon voucher, I suggest you get a refund. After the (lack of) service I received, I called Amazon to complain and they gave me a full refund.

DO NOT USE THIS BUSINESS. If you purchased a living social/​amazon local deal I strongly encourage you to cancel your appointment and get your money refunded.
This company is based in San Diego (you can see the only reviews they have on Unilocal here:
I am beyond upset with my experience with this business.
FCM sent me multiple confirmations for my apt 12 – 3 on friday, then the day before my appointment I got an email saying they had moved me to 530pm-​830pm, ON A FRIDAY NIGHT, i might add
They said I was notified so late was because i had not left a phone number, though they clearly had my email address.
Then they called stating that the woman whose was going to be cleaning had to cancel because of a death in her family — that she had already known about apparently.
**I want to be clear that i have the utmost compassion for this woman and the tragedy she was experiencing, and i made that very well known to First Choice Maids **
I told them that I was not available at the time they rescheduled me for (without checking with me first), and that they should call me in the morning with a list of times that they could come by — either friday or saturday.
NO phone call.
I called and emailed FCM until finally they got back to me and said someone could come saturday at noon (but added that «they hoped it worked out» with the on-​call cleaner coming)
Noon arrived and FCM *texted* me saying that they would be there at 1245 and there would be 2 women for an hour and a half instead of 1 woman for 3 hours.
I agreed to this.
1245 came, and no maids… I called and they said they would be there any minute, WHICH THEY WERE NOT. At 115 they said «their GPS says 17 minutes» 130 comes and i text FCM saying that if they are not there within 5 minutes i am cancelling.
I called Amazon Local to cancel and was told by their company how sorry they were.
At 145 FCM texted me saying «They got lost. Almost there. We are scrambling today. You know whats happening. Weve communicated well with u»
At this point i asked them not to come and made it clear that waiting 2 hours for an appointment is absurd. How incredibly inappropriate to text me like that as though i i should be feeling bad for him here! so whack.
Anyway, the entire experience was horrible and bizarre and i strongly advise not using them.