I’ll try and keep this as short as possible.. I live in a flat share with 2 girls, Chloe and Molly. Our contract states that we have to have a clean at the end of each year, also we are all moving out so need an end of tenancy clean.
Molly said that she would deal with arranging the clean, which cost £150, so £50 each. The clean was communal areas only, we have a hallway, bathroom and an open plan kitchen/lounge. On the day of the clean, Molly text us to say that the cleaners had been there for 6.5 hours, and we had only paid for 4 hours, so it would be an extra £60 (£20 each), I said this seemed excessive for what is basically 3 rooms.. but whatever, Molly advised that it was a deep end of tenancy clean so would take longer, fair enough. Once it was done, Molly sent over some photos, I noticed that there was a mans reflection in one of the photos but I just assumed maybe it was one of the cleaners, although they were wearing smart shoes which I don’t think cleaners would wear..
I got home later in the day and saw some litter outside our flat (cloths and empty bottles of cleaning stuff), When I walked in I could tell that the floors hadn’t been cleaned, and as I walked into the lounge I saw that all the furniture and everything was in completely random places.. it wasn’t even like they had tried to put stuff back in a logical place, the sofas were left in the middle of the room, the cutlery drawer left wide open and was a complete mess with it all just chucked in there, I found pasta and coffee pots in the boiler cupboard, the tv was left all unplugged and not where it should be etc, the whole place was a mess to be honest, if I hadn’t known that a clean had taken place I probably would have thought we had been robbed. Chloe and I spent an hour putting everything back in the right place and tidying up. I then looked round the rest of the flat, and the toilets looked like they had had bleach put in them, but no scrubbing or anything done, there were still marks on the floor that were easily washed off, the coffee table still had dust on it etc
I messaged Molly to say that the place was left in a mess and we’ve spent an hour putting stuff back in the right place and that the floors hadn’t been cleaned and said she should speak to the company about not paying the extra money we were charged and she got really defensive, saying that the floors were wet when she picked the keys up and she said ‘give them a break it was only £70 each’ which isn’t the point in my opinion ..
I then asked if she could send us the receipt for the clean, because our landlord would want to see it, so she sent me it and I then left a bad review on the companies trust pilot. The company responded to my review saying please can you contact us as we have no record of you, so I contacted them and gave them the name of my flatmate and our address etc, and they said they had no record of my address, so I sent them a copy of the invoice and they said that although the invoice had their logo on it, it wasn’t there’s as it was a totally different format to there invoices and the website written on the invoice wasn’t there’s, but was a dead site.
I messaged Molly to tell her all this, and she responded saying that her boyfriend who works at an estate agents had booked it through his work, so that would be why the company had no record of it… which doesn’t make any sense to me. She then said she would get her boyfriend to speak with them if we still want to complain. Just to double check, I went back to the company and gave them the name of Molly’s boyfriend and company he works at, and they said that no there was still no record and that they don't work with estate agents. I didn’t say anything more to molly because we are/were good friends and I didn’t want to be accusatory but I thought it was all pretty weird. Molly said she would ask her boyfriend to contact the company with our complaints and I kept chasing her for an update on this, each time she replied, it was clear that she had had no involvement in arranging the clean and hadn’t even been to the flat after it was finished.
Molly then sent me a screenshot of a message she received from her boyfriend saying ‘I’ve fucked up, we use a software to create all our invoices for cleans done on properties and I’ve mixed up your clean with another one that was done on the same day. Please apologise to her for me, and I’m going to try and get the money back from the cleaners as they want more business done with his company’
Again this makes zero sense to me.. because why would the estate agents be making invoices for cleaning companies, surely the cleaning companies would make their own invoices and send them to the estate agents. Anyway she then sent another screenshot where he said that the actual company was reimbursing us the full amount.
I find this all really bizarre, so I called up the correct company but they refused to speak to me and said I had to go through our ‘agent’ (mollys boyfriend), I then got my male friend to call up and the lady told him that a clean was done at my flat but only one room..
I am basically thinking, Molly paid for her room to be cleaned, then her boyfriend quickly ‘cleaned’ the rest of the flat, and they pocketed the money? Then once I kept on at them they panicked and just sent the whole lot back...
Sorry it’s long but what do you think..