Cleaning Services

scrub · #1 07-26-2005, 02:16 PM

My girlfriend is moving out of her apartment, and she's concerned that her landlord is going to try to keep an unreasonable amount of her deposit for "cleaning." This would be outrageous, since the apartment is spotless as is, but she's concerned about it, wants to spend an entire day cleaning the apartment after she moves out, and wants me to help.

I don't want to spend a day cleaning an already clean apartment only to have the landlord try to charge her for something anyway. I brought up the idea of paying a cleaning service to go over the apartment for us, which (1) would keep me from spending a day cleaning the apartment and (2) may give my girlfriend a stronger negotiating position if the landlord tries to get funny with the deposit.

Has anyone used one of these services? If so, how much do they usually charge? Anyone have a national chain or service in the Bay Area they've been happy with?

scrub

SCfuji · #2 07-26-2005, 02:26 PM

www.mollymaid.com

wacki · #3 07-26-2005, 02:29 PM

My parents work a lot so their time is limited. They have a cleaning lady come by every week so it can't be that expensive. (I want to say about ~$60) The lady that comes over is independent and not with a national service.

nolanfan34 · #4 07-26-2005, 02:35 PM

This post is funny, considering your avatar.

Is the deposit enough that it might be worth spending $100-$200 on a cleaning service? I'd imagine so. Does this landlord have a history of screwing people over? Past apartments we've lived in, we just did the day of cleaning ourselves, and always got the full deposit back.

Wes ManTooth · #5 07-26-2005, 02:37 PM

[ QUOTE ]
My parents work a lot so their time is limited. They have a cleaning lady come by every week so it can't be that expensive. (I want to say about ~$60) The lady that comes over is independent and not with a national service.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have a couple cleaning ladies that come every two weeks and it's $70. The first time they came it was $100 though and they also do not work for a national chain. You should get and keep a dated receipt to show the landlord that your place was cleaned by an outside service.

2planka · #6 07-26-2005, 02:47 PM

Another question about cleaning services:

I have a home security system. Do I just leave the thing switched off on the days the cleaning service is going to be there?

Hmmm. a good Dear Bison question.

scrub · #7 07-26-2005, 02:48 PM

[ QUOTE ]
This post is funny, considering your avatar.

Is the deposit enough that it might be worth spending $100-$200 on a cleaning service? I'd imagine so. Does this landlord have a history of screwing people over? Past apartments we've lived in, we just did the day of cleaning ourselves, and always got the full deposit back.

[/ QUOTE ]

We've kept the apartment very clean--this is more a question of my girlfriend not trusting the landlord than a question of the apartment being dirty.

The deposit is big, but I doubt the landlord would have the audacity to try to take more than $400; it's worth $100-$200 to me not to have to deal with a day of paranoid cleaning on top of two days of paranoid moving. Also, if everything goes according to plan, GoT, Evan and Catch Of The Day and I are going to be miserably hung over the day I'm supposed to be cleaning, which makes me even less likely to want to go clean already clean floors for 5 hours.

scrub