I was so apprehensive booking with Hello Services after reading some of the reviews and after the first day I started to regret it. From what I gather from my experience, Hello services contract other cleaning companies to conduct the cleaning on their behalf, in areas all over the UK. The cleaning… Read more
was booked for our rental property in Bristol to have an end of tenancy clean. This basically includes every area in your property, including cleaning ovens, washing machines, windows etc .. in order to return the property to an immaculate standard so it is ready to be moved into. This was particularly important for us as our letting agents were renowned to be incredibly fussy. The cleaning was initially booked for 12pm but after confirming this the day before, Hello Services asked if we could change the time to 10am. This actually suited me better so I agreed. I arrived at my empty flat at 9:45am just in case they arrived early. My flat was located in the centre of Bristol ... with any device/google/applemaps/SATNAV .. the postcode alone will take you directly to the flat. At 10:35am after chasing up to see how late the cleaners were going to be, I was then put through to the local cleaners in Bristol directly. A gentleman who could barely speak any English told me my postcode was "Bad" .. and told me he'd be with me at 12pm ( I could hear what sounded like a cereal bowl in the background as if he was just having his breakfast!). I tried very hard to explain the time had been changed to 10am and that they were already late, that I was sitting on the floor in an empty flat waiting for them. The man told me he would arrive in 30 minutes. Finally, after about 10 phone calls between this man, his supervisor and Hello Services and walking a mile perimeter of where I lived, I finally found them. I am a very patient (some would say too patient in this case) individual so did not allow the 2 hour delay sitting in an empty flat to affect my demeanour with the cleaners. Unfortunately from hereon, the unprofessionalism just escalated. First one of the cleaners did not wear a mask. Of course I didn't expect him to wear one while cleaning the flat but when coming within 2m of myself I thought that would be courtesy. I asked if he needed a mask and he told me he would "chance it" .... Because of course he was more concerned with his own safety than mine :'D ... I showed them around the flat and pointed out particular areas that we were concerned about and they simply replied "no problem no problem". Unfortunately after returning 3 hours later, there were several problems. If you had told me that they did nothing for 3 hours, I would have believed you! The flat wasn't particularly dirty or grubby to start with .. but somehow they managed to miss the most obvious areas. There was dust, hair, dirt, the shower had a big area of shower gel by the plug so they obviously hadn't attempted to clean the shower, an area of limescale remained on the tiles, hair left on the sink, washing machine not touched, kitchen cupboards still had salt/sugar/dust, the fronts of the cupboards were dirty .... The men told us to point out areas that weren't good enough, but this wasn't possible .. as every area was just not cleaned in detail. When I pointed out certain areas, they shrugged and said they didn't know what I was talking about. The best bit was when I pointed to finger prints on the windows, and he told me that windows aren't included but he would do it for a tip... at this point I had to take a look around to check if we were on a hidden camera comedy show. Initially we gave them a further hour to reclean before leaving, but after discussion with my partner it was clear that an hour with any cleaner was not going to finish the job. My partner made a phone call to Hello Services to tell them our experience so far. Their response was absolutely amazing. They were devastated and couldn't apologise enough. Without any further questions, they promised to send round a different set of cleaners the next day. Luckily I'm on furlough so I have all the time in the world to be able to sort things like this out. If you're silly enough to organise cleaning the day you're supposed to vacate a property, then think twice...The next day, 10am on the dot, 3 cleaners turned up and without me even having to point out areas that weren't good enough.... they noticed it themselves. The head cleaner instructed and pointed to the others, all the areas that were no good and told me she would be done in 3 hours! 3.5 hours later, I got a phone call from the cleaner who told us they were all done. Wow ... the flat was immaculate. It was cleaner than the day we moved in. Today we received a phonecall from the letting agents telling us how impressed they were with the condition of the flat and we received our full deposit back.
