My name is Candi I own a small business called Candies Cleaning. My business only has a handfull of employees that are usually family members or friends of mine whom i know personally. They all have to pass background checks and random drug tests. I am an honest person and believe in the best in people unfortunaly that is not always the case. I had a customer by the name of Angela who called me a week before labor day to book a house cleaning. She stated that she was moving, that she had just bought a home and that the 5 bathrooms where in pretty bad condition and could use a deep cleaning serivce. She wanted the job done on labor day. I usually do not work on Holidays but I felt bad that she had to move into this home with her small children and it was very dirty so I brought together 4 girls to do the job including me.
The house was a nightmare, not just the bathrooms but the whole house. It was alot worse then described. The bathrooms had alot of mold and it was very overwelming. She kept asking me and my employees to perform extra services like cleaning out 2 refridgerators that where not cleaned in years that had compacted soda and other sticky products along with dog hair matted inside of them; things that are very vary time consuming; that she did not mention on the phone. I told her and her husbnd that it was going to cost more and they said that was fine. She also asked me to do a deep cleaning to the oven which I had not intended to do and that was pretty dirty but I told her I would. A job that was suppose to last 4 hours for 4 girls lasted 6 and a half. We broke our backs to get that house done for her and it was extremely hot with no fans.
During the time I was cleaning the kitchen there was rusty water leaking from the kitchen faucet; it was corroded and very old. At one point when I tried to clean some of the rust off the faucet it actually came right off where the rust was leaking. I told her i would take money of the total of the bill and let her know that it was very old and rusty. She debated the charges on the bill with me for 20 minutes, saying that it was to high. My employees where exhausted, hot and wanted to get home to there children; I couldnt just tell them we were not getting paid and I didnt know what to do. So In the end I ended up not charging her for work performed on a holiday, for the stove deep clean and the 2 refridgerator deep cleans oh and the extra kitchen that was in the basement. I also didnt charge her for the deep clean of the master bedroom that was covered with thumbtacks that we had to pick up for over an hour before we could attempt to vacume them but still had to vacume for an 1 1/2 to get all of the birdseed that was stuck into the carpet.
In the I only charging her for $70 over the original quote when we went 2 and a half hours over the quoted time limit and lost of $140 because she was acting as if she was not going to pay me. When I went out to leave my employees where thrilled at how the house turned out and asked me how she liked it i told them that she would not pay the total bill although she asked for all of the extra services. They where very dissapointed, the best part of busting our butts to clean a house like this on a holiday away from our own children is to see the customer satisfied, that makes us feel good. That did not seem to be the case.
Over a week later Angela called me and told me that the broken faucet was more money then i had given her off the bill. I told her I would pay for the difference if my insurance didnt cover it (since the claim was over a week old) and to just send me the bill. I really just wanted to be done with this woman.
Well the bill was for a $200 faucet. Now I had never replaced an actual faucet so I was not sure about the price but this did seem a bit high. I gave her $130 for the faucet and was going to send her the difference this week. I was talking about this with another customer who told me that I was probably being scammed and that when you buy a home that you are given and inspection report to tell you everything that needs to be replaced and if the faucet was leaking rust it would have to be on that report
When Angela started texting me again I told her she would not see the difference utnil she showed me the inspection report. She started freaking out; she sent me text after text today telling me how much of a bad review she was going to write on my yellowpage ad with her last text saying, "Its a shame because I never had to write a bad review, Sorry but such is life. "
I have never done business for someone like this before who made me question my business and weather or not I want to stay in it anymore. I dont make a whole lot of money, I pay my employees twice as much as minimum wage because I dont expect them to work there buts of for pennies. I live in a very small home and I honestly dont have the money to hire a business manager, I do my own accounting and run my company the way I want to but because this incodent Im thinking about cancelling my ad and not excepting new customers. I do this work because I love my job, now Im not so sure.