I'm honestly flabbergasted that this place has such good reviews after my experience with them…read more
They initially quoted me over 400 dollars to clean my 225sq foot apartment. After calling and talking to Scott I was given a more reasonable quote. Things seemed good, until it was time to click "accept" and confirm the cleaning. I checked, and they were still charging me over four hundred dollars to do a single cleaning of a 225sq foot apartment (one that isn't very messy, and with no special circumstances that would justify the price).
After going back and forth with Scott, he finally admitted that their system didn't let them change the price, but that he would only charge me the amount that he had agreed to by word-of-mouth. I was VERY uncomfortable clicking on something where I was legally agreeing to have them charge me hundreds of extra dollars, with no recourse if they did. I especially worried because if their system was so opaque that they couldn't change the price in one spot, then what's to stop it from doing the same thing and charging me the higher amount, with Scott using the same excuse to say that there was nothing he could do about it.
So I told him, flat out, that if they or their computer system charged me the higher amount rather than the lower amount that we had agreed to, then I would give them one-star reviews on review sites online, that I didn't have any desire to actually do this, but that this was the only method that I had to protect myself.
Anyway, things seemed good after that. They charged the agreed amounts and did the monthly cleanings for several months. They missed spots every time - sometimes large areas - but Scott had warned me that they weren't going to have time to get it all every time. I got the strong impression that Flower City Cleaning rushes their cleaners - pushing them to be quick rather than thorough. Certainly moreso than other cleaning services that I've used when I lived in other places (their initial quote, before I jumped through a bunch of extra hoops and agreed to a word-of-mouth contract that didn't line up with the contract I was actually signing, was considerably higher than ANY quote I've ever received from a cleaning company - both in terms of companies that I've actually used, and companies that I've just received quotes from).
Anyway, then I had my final cleaning. The person was about 25 minutes late (delays happen, and I certainly wouldn't be writing this if that was all that it was). I always go out while they're cleaning, and when I got home I found that in addition to the usual missed spots, they had clogged the toilet with half-dissolved cleaning cloths (something I only discovered when I tried to flush them).
They always send an email asking how they did after each cleaning, so I clicked the lowest "very unsatisfied" button, and wrote "the person was more than 20 minutes late from the texted estimate, and then left a bunch of cleaning supplies in the toilet that completely clogged it. If this happens again then I'll leave bad reviews in more spots than just this email." - I honestly feel like I might have gone too far with the threat. I was pretty annoyed at the time. A heads-up would have been really bloody nice though, so that I didn't try to flush it and get like half an inch away from flooding my bathroom.
They immediately terminated service. No explanation given beyond what seemed to be a copy-pasted paragraph with a bunch of stuff that seemed so disconnected from the situation that I can only assume means that they copy-paste the same thing every time. Was it because of the two threats to leave bad reviews? - Maybe Scott was just having a bad day and did it as a knee-jerk reaction? I honestly have no clue. I also have no clue how their reviews are so good - did I just get really unlucky and have both their computer system and their people screw up royally on me? Ultimately, all that I can do is move on to another company - hopefully one that takes responsibility for doing the job competently, and owns their mistakes when they make them.