One aspect of marriage that I've always tried to keep front and center is supporting what my…read morepartner enjoys doing. If she enjoys giving the kids their nightly baths, I try to make sure she always has clean pajamas to put them in and enough of their special kid lotions and creams to put on them. If she wants to cook a certain dish, I try to make sure she has the ingredients she needs, and will cut (really, food process) whatever would help her. And when we're moving into a new home, I try to find the right cleaning service that will allow her to focus on organizing things the way she wants them to be.
Well, let's just say there are some things I'm better at than others. And, considering I'm still hearing about the cabinets that we can't use until she "re" cleans them, I'm guessing the picking the deep cleaning service isn't my strong suit.
We had Top & Shine come into our home before we moved in. I chose them in part because of how responsive the owner was and how quickly she was able to come in and look at the property in order to give me an accurate quote. The team came in one Wednesday afternoon around 2pm and began cleaning. They were to clean all of the hardwood floors, dust + wipe down all cabinets (inside + out), countertops, ledges, ceiling fans, clean the appliances, bathrooms, windows, baseboards and doors--you know, help the home be move-in ready.
I meant to get over to the house the following day (Thursday) to check everything out but couldn't make it until Friday. On Friday, I looked through and found that some floors were dusty and cabinets + drawers were dirty. I took pictures and sent to the owner. She said she'd send someone back out but blamed the dusty floors on the one Stanley Steemer (carpet cleaning) guy who came to the house Friday morning. She said that, in her experience, if we didn't have him wear foot coverings, he would've caused the dust on the floors. (Sidenote: before leaving the house that day, I'd find dusty floors in areas he didn't walk.) She also made a point to remind me that I said I was going to get over to the house on Thursday and she generally requires customer inspections within 24 hours. Lastly, she clarified that while they may clean the cabinets, they doesn't include the drawers. (Go into your bathrooms + kitchen and look at how many drawers you have. Imagine if those cabinets were clean but the drawers weren't.)
Due to all of these reminders, the Mrs. and I concluded that they weren't the right people to make this right. We'd have to do it ourselves. And so we did. After moving in that weekend, we cleaned cabinets + drawers (and my wife makes it a point to call me in to see whenever her Clorox wipe was extra dark + dirty). We wiped down our floors. We removed the cobwebs from the light fixtures (one of which my wife saw Saturday night as we finished up moving).
We took care of it. And while that offers some satisfaction of knowing it was done with care and attention to detail, I do wish I could've gotten this selection right + my wife could've just focused on telling me where she wants the linen and the silverware. But hey, none of us can be the perfect partner.
