When you’ve hired someone to provide a service or work on your home and the quality of work degrades over time, how do you handle it? Has talking it over with the person, or company owner, ever resulted in long term improvement? I haven’t had any luck, despite repeated promises that the work will be done better next time. That’s been the case with maid services, the yard guys, window washers, pressure washing services, etc.
Our current yard service has not been doing a good job for the past year and the owner seems to realize it. We talk, he apologizes repeatedly, but things don’t improve. Terminating him is going to be awkward because he’s a neighbor.
I’ve tried 8 or 9 cleaning services. They send a team of cleaners who take half a day or longer the first time, then 3+ hrs. the next time and about 2 hrs. afterwards. The quality of work declines but the price doesn’t. They offer to send someone back to take care of whatever was missed, but that’s inconvenient and things don’t improve on the next visit. My current solution is to hire a team to do deep cleaning every six months and then manage on my own the rest of the time.
I keep wishing for some magic words to help get better results.
We have had to switch from a yard service that was over-priced and ended up growing poor work over time. The property manager suggested a different yard service which was reasonable and not constantly calling us to ask us to pay extra for additional services.
Sorry you’ve had trouble. Several of my relatives who have had servix s ended up dropping them after awhile, when quality declined but prices remained high.
Ugh. double ugh.
Be upfront with your neighbor on lawn service. After your next lawn cut, bush trims or whatever you contract for tell them what’s wrong immediately afterwards and why you are not satisfied. Take them on a tour of your yard and point out what the problems are and tell them your expectations. Might take more than one go around.
It is possible that your yard requires more work than they are able to handle.
It is possible you have some unreasonable expectations.
Whatever.
Any business owner knows apologies only go so far.
You’ve given plenty of notice–don’t feel bad firing them if they can’t do the work. It’s not personal.
Overall I’m happy with our yard service but there are some areas they “skip” that should be included and then become problematic and we have to pay extra to have them taken care of. Our rates have not changed in ten years, this year the owner told me he had to raise the rate from $50 to $75 a week. I agree that an increase is due but that’s a steep increase. I told the owner that with that increase I’ll expect the area that is often skipped to be maintained regularly and that I will not pay extra for it if they ‘forget’ and it gets overgrown.
@HImom, thanks. It helps to know it isn’t just me.
@gouf78 , you’re right that I need to call the yard service owner immediately after his guys finish and ask him to review their work with me. I’ll try that next week and tell him that I especially want the yard to look nice since we’re expecting company over Easter so will need his guys to return to finish the job properly.
@3scoutsmom, I need to say the same thing to my guy about the regular stuff that doesn’t get done like it should and then is added to the hourly extras.
As far as housekeepers, I much prefer an independent individual over a service who sends who knows who every visit. I think they are more accountable when they are an owner/operator type.
How big is the team? If it’s 2, 3 or more people than 2-3 hours should be plenty unless you are truly living in a mansion. Usually, the first time does take longer because they are doing a very thorough cleaning on stuff that might not have been touched. Some stuff doesn’t get an every week cleaning, typically. I’d very clear to the owner and whoever is in a supervisor capacity on the team sent about what you want done.
@doschicos, in a smaller house, I’d prefer an individual, too. Unfortunately, it would take too long and I haven’t found any who want the job. It’s no mansion, but the house is larger than average. Each new team takes a while to find their way around. They often fail to communicate with each other about who has done what, so sometimes a bathroom is missed or a bedroom isn’t vacuumed. They usually wait until they’ve loaded their equipment and supplies into their vehicles to ask me to walk around and check on the work. If they’ve missed something, there’s a delay in getting what they need to complete the job and by then I just want them out.
First time visits by a service usually entail 4 or 5 people for half a day or longer if they clean the main floor and the upstairs but not the finished basement. When a service does a repeat cleaning on the main floor only they can typically finish in 2 to 2.5 hrs. with 3 or 4 people.
The deep cleaning service I tried recently did a good job. They brought in ladders to clean the beams and chandelier in the family room where the ceiling is vaulted. The baseboards and light fixtures looked better than they have in a long time. Unfortunately,they don’t change bed linens or do other chores they consider housekeeping vs. cleaning. Dh wants me to have them come quarterly, but every six months is all I can justify for their cost.
When I moved to this new house, my house cleaner had to go. I have an individual, and she’s here all day long, from about 7:45 to 4pm once a week. She does an amazing job. She doesn’t really speak english, we manage with my spanglish and her loose understanding of english. It does crack me up every week to see how she places the pillows on the couches and bed, she even lines up any makeup or lotion on my sink if I leave it out.
I do try and give people a chance, but after 2 or 3 times I move on.
I’m not thrilled with our lawn-mowing service. They did a really good job the first year, but not as great since then. DH is the one who deals with the lawn, so I’ve left it up to him to decide whether or not to keep them. There are enough other services around the house that I deal with.
I was going to come on and say that it seems like it is the nature of the beast but then I remembered that our pool guy and landscape guys at our last house did a great job every time. House cleaners–yup.