If I could describe my experience with Nicholas with one word, it's 'chaotic.'…read more
If you are thinking of booking with Nicholas - stay fully informed and read his negative reviews too, don't be fooled by all the 5 star reviews.
During my first phone call with Nicholas, I told him the details of my house that he needed to clean, and he gave me a reasonable rate and promised to show-up at scheduled time.
The morning of my cleaning, he arrived 1.5 hours late (and gave notice which is fine), but when he arrived, I guess he saw that I lived in a nice house in a nice neighborhood and then told me his cleaning would be nearly twice would he originally quoted me because it was "2 stories."
During my first phone call with him, I had already told him all the details of the house and his original quote was for a deep cleaning, but in-person he said if I still wanted to do a deep cleaning, I would have to pay a much higher rate. He defensively asked me if I had told him that the house was 2 stories, but that really makes little difference because the only thing missing with the sq footage is the stairs which he didn't clean well anyway.
He pointed to his Yelp reviews saying how good he is and how good it would be if I did the deep cleaning with him. He kept commenting on how dirty the carpet was (it wasn't), how much dust there was, and how all the walls needed to be cleaned, the windows (which he didn't clean anyway); etc. etc. basically going on and on about how dirty my house was. I asked him if I should be concerned about damage to the house given the heavydutiness he was promising, and he scoffed at me saying he doesn't "do damage." Since I hadn't yet moved in and was moving in soon and didn't have time to find a new cleaner before then, I agreed to his much higher rate. I also trusted that he knew better than me. And I don't mind paying more if he could deliver on what he was promising - that he was going to do the "deepest cleaning ever," better than any "molly maid" could do, but long story short he did not.
Quite honestly a "molly maid" would have done a much better job than he did.
After I agreed to his much higher rate, he said he had to get more equipment and disappeared for literally more than 2 hours without communicating or telling me. I literally got concerned since he wasn't answering my texts and thought something bad might have happened to him on the way.
By the time he got back it was late in the afternoon and he still hadn't begun cleaning. So by this time he was literally more than 5 hours behind. When he did start cleaning he wasn't very efficient with his time, moving through the house at what I considered a slow pace. He kept promising me that the cleaning was going to be amazing, so I let him do his thing.
Since I did not live at the house yet, in the early evening I let him know I would be leaving and that I was trusting him to take care of the house and lock the doors on the way out. Silly me I also gave him a very generous tip on top of the much higher rate, telling him I was trusting that he would do a good job and lock my doors up.
When I returned to the house, the entire first floor was barely cleaned, there were stains on my tile from where his equipment was, handles broken and damage on the walls from where he presumably slammed the doors. It was incredibly insulting and just shows that he wasn't careful or respectful of the house.
Everything but the carpets on the second floor was barely cleaned - the bathrooms were still dirty, dust was literally falling on me when I touched high surfaces, just very obvious dirt still on the first story floor. Entire sections of the house completely missed. Even the carpets themselves missed a lot of the harder to get areas. I essentially had to clean the house myself because Nicholas didn't do it.
Basically, I paid for carpet cleaning and some house damage (I'm giving 2 stars instead of 1 for the carpet work). The lack of honesty was astounding and insulting. It was so bad I didn't even want to contact him back to fix what he missed due to the character he revealed, and chalked it up to my loss.
It's entirely possible that he simply got tired and ran out of time, given how delayed the entire day was. But it's very obvious that half the house had not been cleaned, and he should have been honest about that instead of running off pretending everything was done.
There were definitely more pictures I could have taken but didn't since I wasn't planning on writing a review at the time, but I've attached a few for folks to see.
My overall impression of him was that he was dishonest, defensive, and strange. I would be wary about hiring Nicholas for a cleaning.
Out of all of the people I've invited into my house to work on my home, Nicholas is the one that I regret.
EDIT: After Nicholas's correspondence with me after he saw my review, it's clear why there are so few negative reviews. I won't be pressured to take this review down.