The Cleaning Alternative

unknown

The Cleaning Alternative does a fine job cleaning our house on a monthly basis. They do a thorough job and are responsive to requests to pay particular attention to certain areas. Their price is a little higher than other services, but they use environmentally friendly cleansers and do a very good job at all cleaning tasks. We tried cleaning services that were cheaper but none of them did quite as good a job and our house always smelled eye-wateringly of bleach afterwards. Not so with The Cleaning Alternative - the house always smells very nice afterward. I'm not even entirely sure what the smell is. It's just... clean! My wife has remarked that our stovetop has never been cleaner (and we're not slobs. We keep a clean house the other three weeks a month the CA does not come, but they're simply better than we are! ) we'll be happy to continue to use them in the future. They're flexible in their scheduling, and always polite when they are in the house.

I moved into a furnished corporate apartment downtown just for the summer, and I wasn't happy with the level of cleanliness when I arrived, so I called The Cleaning Alternative to have them perform their "move-in" clean. I spoke with Sharon, one of the two proprietors, who said the job should take 4-9 hours; I thought 9 hours would have been excessive for a 1000 sq. ft. (2-bedroom, 1-bathroom) apartment, so I asked her to limit the cleaning time to 7 hours. Their rate for first-time cleaning is $32.50 per hour. The soonest appointment I could book was a week away. She emailed me the contract ahead of time, which I appreciated.

I was pleased with the results, but not wowed. They ended up spending 5.25 hours cleaning. I can tell they vacuumed and cleaned the entire bathroom. The shower looked visibly better. The blinds weren't cleaned, and I noticed that the top of fridge was still dirty. Those things weren't explicity mentioned in the contract, so I can't complain too loud. I guess for $200, I just expected to be wowed a little more by the visibility results, but maybe my expectations were off. I will use them again if I need another cleaning this summer.

Another minor quibble: they don't take credit cards at all, and they don't take a check for a first-time cleaning, so I had to scramble to get cash. The total amount spent included $170.63 for service rendered, $14.93 for sales tax, and $14.44 for a tip (total = $200).

They do 4 hours of service because two people come out and they clean 2 hours each and for that amount of service it’s $128.33. When they come the first time they charge a little more, but it’s not a lot. The one thing that I like about them is that there’s a 4 page agreement that I had to sign. It has the things that they will clean, won’t clean and what happens if I cancel and different things like that. It’s a professional business. Another thing is that if there’s ice or things like that, they get it off the steps before we come. If one has pets or something, they don’t have to worry if these people would like their pets or not. These people are primarily very friendly and they love animals. The first time they came, the girl noticed I was on the web and she told me about a site. This guy has an L box in his backyard and when someone else comes, it puts them on the web. She told me about that so they love animals. I would continue to use them in the future.