[carpetclean]

i went to price a decorating job where tenants had just moved out and the house had just been professionally cleaned . whilst  there i gave her one of my cards for carpet cleaning and was told the carpets had just been done by the cleaning company but she was not very happy with them so i had a look at them and showed her the white towel test and low and behold the towel was dark grey on the first rub. she told me she was getting them back to re-clean as it was a company through a letting agency. they did come back and re- cleaned part of the house and did all the carpets in a 5 bed roomed over three floors plus  the h.s .l all this took them 40 minutes with a porty , though to be honest i am still trying to work out how that is possible. needless to say she was still not happy and called me round to have a look and we did the white towel test and again dark grey. the carpets were still damp and i could see where the wand had been missing chunks of carpet and especially the edges and corners. she paid me to re-clean yet again and the amount of dirt that came out was astonishing considering they had been cleaned twice already.  she told me when the man came back he was quite aggressive saying he had a degree in cleaning !!!!!?  what i find amazing is that a letting company will recommend someone with such low standards and  with such aggressive behaviour.

[spindle]

i was called in to do a reclean!!!!!!!!!!!

dont know who did it the first time but they had left streaks all across the room 10*6m

they had used the chemicals in such strength that i could still see where they had cleaned and missed...............customer distressed........

i recleaned with only hot water twice..................HEY PRESTO

the difference was amazing............

sometimes more is less

p.s got tipped to

[Robert Watson]

I would go to the letting agents and say "Hey! look what I can do"
That's what I did and its turned out to be a good source of income.

Rab

[scott.]

C'mon peter.......name and shame.

[Kev Loomes]

It's the same old story isnt it. You get what you pay for, and typically most letting agents want it done for nothing  : When will people learn!

[HQCS (John Kastrian)]

5 bed house in 40 mins with a porty that is just not possible.
We have been called in several times after a tenant has paid a cc to have carpets cleaned and the agent has not been happy.
The cc had been out up with a puzzi under his arm and on foot no sign of transport,say no more

[carpetclean]

when the client told me she was getting them back i asked her to note what machine they used and what company. but when i went back to do the job she had done neither as i would have had no qualms about naming and shaming

[AnnaGrant]

 I totally agree with Formula6,  letting agents/property management  want everything for nothing . They do not understand that we all  have overheads and still need to make a living.

 I got my point across when I asked one of them how much he pays on a hourly labour charge when his brand new Rangerover goes into the garage ? They seem to think that because we are (in there words) Only Cleaners , that we  should work for minimum wage.   I think Not   

[stevegunn]

The letting agent I did work for was charging £1495 a month for a lot of their properties but wanted them cleaned as cheap as possible and expected me to drop everything to accomodate them.Then they would expect 60 day payment terms needless to say I dropped them

[John Kelly]

We do work for a major letting company. They only use us on a select few properties and use a local cowboy outfit on all the rest. They say the landlords won't pay our rates and we aren't expensive.
The cowboy outfit are so bad local suppliers won't even sell them product.

[The Great One]

Hi

I do a lot of LA's carpets and it can be tough, with some of the worst carpets socirety has to offer.

I think I am about to lose a client (LA) as they are finding the slightest fault with the cleaning .

We are spending over 12 hours cleaning + carpets (not all) and they want to pay about £150 max? We are doing what we can with budget and time constraints but at some point we have to stop to make it profitable. Of course they are finding little things.

We can all go into any property and find things wrong, that is the nature of the business.

(Rant over)

Regards

Martin

[AnnaGrant]

Martin,

Our company has about 60 developments that we have the contract for the weekly cleaning , over the past year or so we have been experiencing similar problems, residents want us to spend all day cleaning there stairwell for a nominal sum,, they want the world for nothing !

Its seems to us that the standard that people nowadays expect is forever on the increase as is  our overheads and outgoings  but they grump when we have a 6% increase a year.

we have started updating the specification that we work to  and recosting, also we have added  to our remit a number of cleaning areas  that the residents require, most of theses are done at a set pricing structure  and are carried out on a as and when basis .


Sometimes  I wonder if its worth the hassle

Regards

Anna

[Ian Gourlay]

Peter,

I am a bit puzzled.

What happens to your expensive truckmount when decorating.

I would a thought you would need it working five days a week to get a return on investment.

[John Kelly]

Ian

The price of truckmounts have come down a bit lately. Not sure what model Peters got but the Woodbridge range starts at around 7k I think. The Prowler is 6k. This does not represent such a significant investment as someone paying 15-25k for some of the bigger models therefore there is not such a concern regarding sqeezing every minute out of them. Expecting my Prowler to last 6-10 years with parts replacement. Over that period there is not much difference over running a few top end portables.

[carpetclean]

Ian
 you will be surprised what i earn part time as a cc . i have no doubts about my investment. also people who know me know i start work very early in the decorating game and finish early leaving me time to clean in the afternoon . like now done my decorating having lunch and then out in the other van with the t/m.
hope this answers your question . but john is right the cost of a t/m is not that much, compared to a few years ago. i have the panther 20 and very happy with it.

[HolmansUKLTD]

Don't forget Ian, Peter is quite new to this game so his workload will continue to build up quite rapidly with a porty or truckmount, i suppose he can do more work with a TM so after a few years he should be coining it in!! (like the rest of us )  I think its harder to splash out that kind of money when you are established because youve become established and earn't good money with a Porty! So starting out with a TM is not a bad idea if you have the backing.

Nick

[carpetclean]

spot on nick