Movin Brooms

This cleaning company serviced my house twice. The first time, after they left, I found that they had thrown many items into the trash that were not trash. I sorted through my trash, and then contacted the business to let them know of the problem. They assured me that they would let the cleaning team know that I did not want them to throw away any items that were not already in trash cans. On the next service, I again found that many items had been placed in my trash, and again I had to dig through my garbage cans before I put them out at the curb. Among the items discarded that should not have been were unbroken toys, receipts and paperwork needed for FSA/HSA records, and various other small, household items. I immediately contacted the company and requested that they cancel all future service. They replied that they had trouble with their communication software and that the cleaning team had not received the messages about not discarding items that were not already in the trash, and that they planned to come again on the next scheduled service date. After considering one more try, we decided that we did not wish to have the team clean our home again and let the cleaning service know. At that point, the representative immediately accused me of lying about the items that had been in the trash, and insisted that it was more likely that someone had snuck into our house without our knowledge and thrown random, small things away than that her team had thrown things into the trash when they were already in the house. They charged me a cancellation fee in the amount of $300, technically in line with the contract, since the contract required 30 days' notice of cancellation and there were only 28 days between the March cleaning and the scheduled cleaning for April, but said they would have waived that fee if I could "prove" that their team had thrown the things away. Since then, they have been ignoring my messages explaining why I am certain that their team was at fault. To date, they have also ignored the complaint I filed with the Better Business Bureau. (According to the BBB, they have until 4/22/2020 to respond.) The complaint is here: [*** Link removed ***] Here are excepts of the emails I exchanged with them. After the second bad cleaning, I sent: Unfortunately, we have found that the team has once again proactively thrown away many things, without asking and in spite of your specific instructions to only throw away those things that were already in trash cans. As a result, we would like to discontinue service, effective immediately. They responded reasonably at first: First and foremost, I want to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. The additional notes about your request to only throw away items already in trash cans were somehow not updated though typed and saved. Yes, but, edit.. the additional notes about your request to... were somehow not updated though typed and saved. We have alerted out system management company, Jobber, of this unfortunate "glitch" in our system. Please know that it is our pleasure to serve you and your family and we would never do anything knowingly against your wishes. We would like to offer a refund of 50% for this terrible inconvenience. We are so grateful you brought this to our attention as we pay our systems company to ensure that this type of thing does not happen. We have made certain that the changes have been saved and will honor our contract as it stands. We hope the 50% reduction in fees for this service will help to alleviate any further issue. We will see you on April 15th. Once again we want to extend our most sincere apology for this inconvenience and we look forward to serving you well! I sent an email a few days later letting them know that I still wanted to cancel the service: Thank you, but we would still prefer to cancel our service. We only today managed to go through the latest set of trash, as the COVID-19 crisis has significantly disrupted my work schedule. The level of judgment about discarding things that the team has displayed is so bad that we just really don't trust them in our home. I'm not talking about dirty tissues and candy wrappers (which mostly make their way into the trash cans here before the team arrives), but childproof doorknob covers, computer network cables, prescription receipts that I need for my HSA records, non-broken toys, and other things that I can't believe someone would go into someone else's house and throw away without asking. The company's response was flat denial and a $300 cancellation fee: We hope you are well. We have removed you from the schedule. We do not throw away the items you have mentioned below. As the contract states, we have charge you the cancellation fee equal to one month service which is $300. We wish you well. Please stay healthy. I responded, objecting to the fee: Perhaps the team did not realize what they were throwing away, but rest assured that they did throw all of those things away. I am frankly astonished that, in light of the fact that I requested cancellation the same day as the second unacceptable service, and that there were not 30 calendar days between that service and my next scheduled service (a possibility that I did not realize when I signed the contract, given that I had not received my service dates at that time), that Movin' Brooms is planning to charge the cancellation fee. Is that the sort of service that customers can expect from Movin' Brooms? They started accusing everyone but themselves in the next email: Thank you, Mrs. XXXX. We can assure you that what you are claiming is not of our doing or of our practice, certainly. We are professionals. Are there others in or with access of your home that you could ask, perhaps? I know that my children (2&7) sometimes throw things in the trash can when I ask them to put in the sink or clean up or things that "they thought were trash". Next order of business, you asked to be removed from our schedule and your contract states a 30 day fee, which you initialed and have been charged. Should you be able to prove that it was in fact our team that have maliciously or otherwise thrown away toys/cables, we will gladly refund your cancellation fee in full, immediately. Note: The only child in our household is nearly 10 years old, would have had no reason to throw away things that were in our bedroom, and did not through the things away. Finally, I sent this email. I have received no response, and the cancellation fee remains on my credit card: The only other person with a key to our house is my father, who certainly wouldn't walk in and throw things away, and moreover has not been in Maryland since January. Furthermore, we have a video doorbell that would have alerted us if anyone entered our house. Finally, my husband works from home full-time, and especially since the recent COVID-19 situation has barely left the house at all. Additionally, we found many of the items in trash bags with orange plastic draw strings. The ones we have here have black plastic draw strings. The orange ones are the ones that the team carries around and then puts immediately into the large garbage can in the garage. There would have been no opportunity for anyone else to put things into those bags.