COLLEEN LEWIS

We "fired" our previous housecleaners ... a service ... for losing our key and being totally unresponsive about helping to rectify the situation. They weren't all that good anyway, but now we were stuck with with the possibility of having to return to cleaning the house ourselves. Our difficulties were compounded by the fact that we didn't always get the same "team" of 2 cleaners and often neither of the team members spoke English making it impossible to leave notes or talk with them. This was what caused us to join Angie's List. Before we had a chance to use the list, we learned that Colleen, our neighbor's daughter, cleaned houses. A little gun-shy given our previous experience, we figured it couldn't hurt to give her a try. If it didn't work out (an agreement that went both ways), we'd try someone else. She immediately worked us into her schedule and did WAY better work faster and for less than the service charged. She cleaned the entire house (about 2000 square feet) including many tasks that had been "overlooked" for weeks ... if not months. The kitchen and bathrooms shined and the dusting, something I'm particularly fussy about, was done very thoroughly. She doesn't dust or clean around things, she moves them. She vacuumed along all the baseboards while she was at it. First rate ... top to bottom. And she even left two mini-loaves of dessert bread. Purrrrrrr. She's been back 3 times ... for a total of 4 visits, once every two weeks ... and we couldn't be happier. She lives a fair distance north and, given gas prices these days, asked if we'd reimburse her for mileage. We said "yes," at first somewhat reluctantly. Now we're delighted. Her work warrants the expense ... and then some :).