A few months ago I bought a house (woot) and needed to hire a cleaning company to clean the house I was renting after I moved out. So I looked on Angieslist and found a cleaning company with good reviews and it even had a "move out coupon" that listed everything they clean (including wiping down walls, cleaning shower doors and the tracks)
[ tldr: I paid them to clean the house, but ended up having to do most of it myself]
I called, spoke with the owner "J", and told her I wanted the "move out special" where they cleaned walls and did deep cleaning. I told her that for about 2 months before moving out, I had been so busy with buying the house and renovating and everything else that I didn't really keep up with the cleaning as I should have so there were fingerprints on walls that needed to be removed. I called a week in advance, the first little red flag should have been when she asked to meet me that day to get the keys to the house. Heck no! I am not letting someone else have keys to the house for a whole week. I made an appointment to meet at 9am at the house for them to start cleaning (on a day after I moved all of my items out). I get there at 8:30 to pick up the last few items I had in the garage.
She was about 25 minutes late. She asked me which rental company I used, I told her which company and that they sent me a list of everything that needed to be done. I set the list on the counter but she said she had done a lot of work for them before and she knows everything they ask to me done. She informed me she would not be doing the cleaning herself, she had to call her employee, who had been asleep, and ask her to come clean. J said "she'll be here shortly, she only lives up the street", and she left. She told me on the phone before that there would be 2 people cleaning and it would take "all day".
I waited over an hour for this other woman to show up. Which made me late for my appointment to meet with the contractor who had renovated my house. I was only gone about 3 hours before I went back to check on the progress. She was gone. The floors were wet, so I didn't want to go inside. 2 days later I had to go back to do yard work and meet the carpet cleaning company. I inspected everything, I noticed that the walls were not cleaned and neither was the master shower/shower doors,blinds not wiped down, cupboards not cleaned,water heater not wiped down, garage not swept and a few other small things. I called J to tell her what wasn't done. She said she "assumed" that the rental company was going to paint the walls and told her employee not do the walls. I had actually told her on the phone previously that I needed the walls washed because there were some fingerprints from my child.
I was going to be handing over the keys to the rental company the next day, so she needed to get it done that day. She made an appointment to come about 5:30pm, showed up after 6. Then her employees boyfriend showed up (her employee was on another job) and he looked ticked off. I told J that I will leave them to finish the job, I had to go get dinner for my child and put her to bed. Not even 5 minutes after I left, J called my phone. I picked up but the connection was bad. I called back but no answer. About 7:15pm I get back to the house and J is just sitting in the driveway while her 10yr old is running around. She said they had been done and she waited for me for over an hour. When she called me earlier, it was because they were done.
She sat in her car while I checked the inside. It looked like nothing had been done.She said "my daughter (the 10yr old) even helped with the walls". I said "You didn't wipe down the walls, I just went into the living room where there was a very noticable hand print that I mentioned to you earlier, I spit on my thumb and wiped it off easily myself." She laughed "Oh we must have missed it. Do you want me to call him back to finish". I said "No, it's fine, just go". I was visibly upset. I didn't have time to wait, it was getting late, I was tired, and I figured if I want something done right I'll just do it myself. I grabbed some Magic Erasers from my car and spent over an hour cleaning the walls/shower/shower doors/cupboards myself.
I left the review on Angieslist. I didn't bother trying to get any money back, I just wanted to be done with it. If I ever hire someone to do anything at my home, I know to be there and watch everything being done.