The only good thing I can say is that I was able to request service on a Saturday morning and have them come out Monday afternoon. That's where the good ends.
We had them come up to clean the carpet in the ADU on the top level of our house. It has it's own entrance, bath, etc. While one tech (Saud) was busy trying to sell me on why it would be worth $200 to seal our tile today, his cohort (Coby) is getting set up. Part of why I needed to seal the tile now is that these two are the best - only a few trucks have all the equipment needed and they happened to be here - blah blah blah.
While this is happening, the other half of the reportedly grade A team, Coby, had gone into main house downstairs without any heads up whatsoever, leaving the kitchen door wide open. This means free access to the outdoors and letting our INDOOR cat out onto a busy street. No warning that they needed access to the inside of the main house to run some drain that goes in the toilet. If they had taken two seconds to ASK or communicate what they needed to do, it would have been simple to put the cat somewhere safe. I only found out he'd let the cat out because while I'm still being told about the millions of overpriced things I need to upgrade to in the ADU, Coby wanders upstairs and says 'hey, your cat is out' nonchalantly - and it took me a second to even register that something so outrageous had happened. You just wandered into my house without any kind of heads up and let a pet out? Seriously?!?! And why the toilet upstairs immediately next to where you're working wasn't good enough, I'll never know either.
So now, I have a loose cat on a busy street. I did manage to wrangle him, thank god, which was not a minor miracle.
So now that I've deposited the cat in a room and know he's not going to be roadkill today, I call Stanley Steemer - because I'm not happy about this. These kids could have just killed our pet, and have doomed us to a lifetime of increased aggression attempting to get free again (we've been treated to a long chorus of lamenting 'mews' since this happened, who knows when/if it'll let up). Of course, all you can call is an 800 number - there's no calling a local office. You know how sometimes you just get that customer service person who is clearly miserable and hates everyone and everything? That's who answers the phone. I get a stellar example (*cough*) of customer service named Penny, who tells me I have no right to be upset about them opening and leaving doors open without warning, I should have told them I had a pet. The designation of "they were there to work on a totally independent apartment attached to the house" did not resonate with her. Lovely to be really upset about what just happened, not take it out on the person whose fault it wasn't, and then have someone so utterly dumb and useless as your only connection to request a local manager call you. Supposedly someone from the local Hillsboro office will call. Still waiting.
So aside from the appalling peril to our pet, the final result is just not that clean. I'm told the few spots on the carpet are all unworkable to remove. Seems like a stretch to me, but whatever, I just want them out of my house. The space was totally empty, but they couldn't lift the tiny wifi router in one corner to clean that area of the room.
The online price for two areas, a hall, and a stairway was $173. But wait, there's a special! Two areas and a hall for $99 (we'll apply it when we get there, order minimum of $150). OK, there's an unknown cost for the stairwell, but with that coupon it should probably knock at least $23 off, right? Could it cost $74 to do a stairwell? Well, yes, in case you're wondering, apparently it does. The coupon did not change anything. The calculated cost online for all areas before the magic (it does nothing!) coupon is what you will pay. Don't expect anything to improve. This is not going to compete with your other options out there.
So....the pricing did not impress me. If I had more time I would have definitely used a Groupon for someone else locally with better ratings and lower prices (even with an added stairwell, which often are not included). For the quality of the end result, the grocery store rental would have totally sufficed.
And as for wandering into my house without warning and letting my cat out?? I will tell every soul I meet for the rest of my life to avoid Stanley Steemer like the plague. These poor kids working for them might just be trying to make ends meet, and they meant no malice in their stupidity - but they can stay the hell away from my house forever. read more