Zen Home

This review is not based on the cleaning I received. I was not even able to schedule a cleaning. I filled out the online estimate form. Heard nothing after one week. Then I called the San Francisco office. Spoke to a live person. I explained that I had not heard from the company. The woman on the phone was less than organized. She did end up taking my number and telling me someone would call back that day. I have still heard nothing from them (one week after the call). I have scheduled a different company to do the cleaning. They responded. Zen Home did not. I wanted to support this ‘green’ business, but not responding to my inquiries is poor business practice. I won’t be contacting them again.

OK, so this review is long-​overdue, but here it is finally!
If you’re looking for a green, non-​toxic cleaning company, this is the place to call! I have sensitive skin, so harsh chemicals that other companies use don’t work well with my body.
Boy, how life gets in the way of a clean home sometimes! Eventually, you find the need to deep-​clean your home, and you just can’t find the time because you work all the time, the energy because you’ve spent all of your energy being productive at work, or the willpower because everything’s turned into a bunch of piles and your motivation gets zapped just looking at none other than your own mess. This sound about right to you?
Why is it so much easier to clean someone else’s mess? The answer is: Because you have no emotional attachment to the «things» that are accumulated.
Anyways, I’ve digressed. These humble ladies are FABULOUS!!! The first time they came out to clean my house, I was so embarrassed about the mess that I had no time to clean. But, they were very professional and didn’t make a big deal out of anything. I wanted to start things off with a bang and opted for the deep cleaning option. And between the 4 of us (I had to join in the fun, of course!), we cleared out so much stuff. Lisa even personally stopped by toward the end to check on the progress and helped me to determine what to throw out and what to keep. Love her straight-​forward style!
What a relief! My stress had noticeably vanished!
Since then, Karen has been my biweekly cleaner, and I have to give her a big shoutout: Karen is THE fastest, hardest-​working, and thorough cleaner EVER!!!
Other cleaning companies better watch out! They have a very high standard to live up to when compared to the Karen-​ator, that’s for sure!
So, because Karen is my favorite, you can’t have her … Haha, I’m just kidding!

Researched cleaners and went to the Zen Home site, left a voicemail and completed the request for quote and received confirmation of it in email on March 16^th. Heard nothing since.

I have now been a client for a year now. Zen Home is still the best cleaning service ever. Just when I think my apartment couldn’t possibly be any cleaner, they outdo themselves. I am consistently impressed by the above and beyond efforts and I feel very fortunate to have had the honor of having them tend to my home over the past year.

Zen did a great job helping me get ready for an open house. Lisa accommodated my last minute request and went above and beyond the call of duty to provide great customer service. Our house was tidy, clean and refreshed. We would definitely recommend.

There is nothing quite like coming home after a long day of work to a beautifully cleaned, nice smelling apartment. With Zen Home, this is what I get twice a month.
I’ve used other cleaning services in the past — Zen Home is the most expensive one I’ve used (my only real complaint), but they do a great job. The extra touches, like chocolate and tea on my pillow or folded over toilet paper and paper towel ends are also nice.
After the first cleaning, we had a couple complaints — some pictures had dust on top and they missed a trash can that is off to the side of our desk. We let them know and on their next visit, we had zero complaints.
If you are overly sensitive to smells, this might not be the best service for you. For me, the apartment smells fresh when I come home, which is nice since cleaning services I’ve used in the past have used overly harsh products that left chemical smell. While you will not get chemical smell, you will get aromatherapy smell, so if you aren’t in to that, you may want to look elsewhere.
They are professional and do a great job — even our cat seems to enjoy their visits. I recommend this cleaning service.

My recent experience with Zen Home Cleaning was great! I needed to hire a good quality cleaning service to clean our 2bd/​2ba condo unit last minute (within 2 days). Zen Home was able to escalate my request and schedule someone with short notice to clean our unit and clean sheets for us. The operation manager was very friendly and helpful to work with. I just referred them to our tenant and would recommend their service to anyone seeking good quality cleaning service.

I’ve been using Zen Home on and off for a couple of years now and have always been a fan. They are friendly, accommodating and I love the oils they burn as part of the service. They clean in places I could never reach or think to go and for that, I am loving them!

We have been using Zen Home Cleaning for two years now, we have always been satisfied with the cleaning and when there were any issues Seth quickly fixed our problem. We have recomended them to several of our friends… they help our home to keep looking nice!!!

I have been using Zen Home since moving to SF in August and can say that while there have been times that I was disappointed with the cleaning Seth was able to take care of it and remedy the situation. They are timely efficient meticulous and wonderful job. My only complaint would be that I have had to switch cleaners a couple times but that is really out of the control of Zen Home and Seth.

I rarely write reviews about anything, but I need to warn you about Zen Home.
I should have trusted the Unilocal reviews and my fellow Unilocalers. Stay away from Zen Home. A number of people had complained about Zen Home, but I disregarded it. Their operations manager, Seth, is nice on the phone, and they have managed to get some press, so it can be misleading. But be careful about press. As a former marketing director for a couple companies, I can tell you, if you have a good angle, a good PR agency, and good marketing, you can get a lot of press regardless of the quality.
In my experience, Zen Home’s quality is just terrible, they are so slow, they throw your valuables out, and don’t take responsibility.
I have hired cleaners for years, paying far less, and everyone did far better than Zen Home. For a few years, I had cleaners clean far bigger apartments top to bottom, cook, and do laundry, and organize in 4 – 5 to hours. In contrast, I had Zen Home clean part of a small apartment I moved into. Zen Home didn’t even clean everywhere, but in the areas that supposedly they were to focus on like windows, they left dust everywhere. The good news is that after pointing out their neglect, they did come back to redo, but again, the first person in the two person recleaning crew left towns of dust again on the windows. So I had to go place by place in the apartment to show the second person all the dust, and she resented it. Unbelievable.
But that isn’t the worst of it. I had put a number of things in bags that had been scattered about to clear some space. I also had just brought back some pants from the tailors. I had told both Seth and the person cleaning to go through the bags. Instead, they just threw many things out. I managed to rescue my eye glasses, but am still missing my iPod Touch, cargo pants, and some other items. I informed them of this and Seth is saying that isn’t their fault they threw them out. That seems like insanity to me. How couldn’t it be their fault? A responsible company would reimburse someone for the items that they threw out.

After my initial disappointing cleaning, the owner offered to send someone out to clean again. This time did not disappoint. Marisol did an awesome job. My place is shiny and clean. I also appreciate the company following up to remedy the situation. I will use Zen home again!

Let me start with some caveats. 1) I am not neat, so there is always a lot of stuff to clean around (mostly stuff on tabletops/​counters, not on the floor). 2) When they came, I had been without house-​cleaning for a month, and I have a dog, so lots of fur and dust and stuff.
Cleaning:
They did a pretty good job. The place was clean in some places I never even think to look, like behind the sofa. However, they didn’t move stuff (e.g. on the coffee table) to clean in between, so when you pick something up off the coffee table, you still see the dust that was between items, which is strange, given that they cleaned behind the sofa. Still, I can deal with that, EXCEPT…
Time/​Price:
They took 7 hours (SEVEN!) to clean. I have a 2 BR /​1 ba house (1100 sq. ft. upstairs, plus a hallway downstairs, total about 1250 sq.ft.) but they only had to clean one of the bedrooms, because the other is basically storage. So for 1 BR, 1 bath, kitchen, LR, DR, and hallway, SEVEN HOURS. Without moving any of the mess to clean between. (If they’d moved the mess, I’d have understood, cuz there’s a lot of that, but they didn’t.) They did say that if I had regular cleaning, it wouldn’t take as long (natch) but c’mon, it had only been 1 month since my last regular cleaning; it’s not like they had to scrub 10 years of caked-​on gunk off the stove or anything like that. It’s just 4x as much dog fur and dust.
I had one of those coupons, but even so, it cost me $ 175 (would’ve been $ 245). Wow. I started to wonder whether they stretched it out to bump up the cost. But if the goal of participating in the coupon program is to acquire new regular customers, then it seems counter-​productive, since there’s no way I’m paying $ 245 for them to come every week. Or even $ 210 (if they can do it in 1 hour less on a weekly basis.)

I have used Zen Home for about 6 months now and am happier with them than any other service I’ve used in the past. I’ve had 2 other services in about 3 years in the same home in SF. We have a 2 story home and started with the ZH deep cleaning, which I highly recommend as a starting point and annual or biannual event (spring and/​or fall cleaning). They do cost more than traditional house cleaning services, but for that extra money you have a communicative and professionally managed company behind the cleaners themselves, good quality/​experienced house cleaners, and eco-​friendly methods and products. Marisol (our head cleaner who comes alone for 4 hours each week) is a big part of our success, as she is stellar!

The cleaner did a good job. However, she arrived 30 minutes late, and I would have preferred much more attention to detail.

I am grateful for the results after the first visit. I recommend Adrian highly for all his hard work and stellar results and I look forward to the next time when he makes my house smell and feel as nice as a luxury spa.

LOL! Thats funny.
Lets address each of his concerns…
1. I told the second guy that the company sent over for «one hour,» that he did a good job, because he was not the cause of the problem and he did the best job that he could in the «ONE HOUR» that the company restricted him to. If as MR. Seth says above, they could have finished the job in the half hour that was left in our additional time THE FIRST DAY, then why couldn’t the second guy finish it in the HOUR he was given ON THE SECOND DAY? hmmm, makes you think right?!!
2. I did ask the initial cleaner if he could stop by my job before hand because it is only two blocks away. I also offered to meet him there. The company said it was perfectly fine, (and of course it was fine, because they charged me for the time anyway).
3. The second cleaner did change the sheets (with the wrong ones, but thats ok, although i did specifically leave out the ones I wanted him to put on) but the duvet cover was not changed as I asked them to be.
4. The pictures will show, that allllllllll of the things that were left by the first guy COULD NOT have been finished in the half hour remaining.
5. And finally, after all of that (WHICH I WAS HAPPY TO WRITE A GOOD REVIEW HAD IT BEEN DONE WELL… EVEN HALF WHAT MY OLD CLEANER DID) THEY OVER CHARGED ME ON MY CARD!!! LOL! That just broke the camels back. When I let them know that I would let everyone know about the bad service that I recieved Mr. Seth himself had the nerve to threaten me with legal action for SLANDER!!! LOL! I told him that it was within my legal rights as a consumer to tell others about my experience since it is the TRUTH!

I’m hooked. I think I’m still floating from the lovely scent of jasmine that infused my house after a visit from this amazing service yesterday. Not only was the apartment spotless and the interior windows and sills smudge free and bright, it felt calmer. more” zen”, one could say. There were subtle organizational touches, feng shui style, that definitely allowed blocked chi to flow… and I really mean that. It was an overall wonderful experience: from the green products they use to the actual results, to the amazing team who performs the magic. I will use them again for sure! Oh – and the turn down service which includes chocolate and herbal tea (c’mon who else does that?!) is such a treat too! I wish I could have that everyday! … So if you’re looking for a weekly service or just for a special treat, I wouldn’t look anywhere else. these are your people!

I saw Zen Home Cleaning featured on the Sundance channel and am very happy to find that they are now here in the Bay Area. I had been looking for a green cleaning service and Zen Home’s service was everything I expected it to be and more. After their visit, it was a real treat to come home to my apartment after their visit. They used wonderful essential oils that reminded me of being in a relaxing spa-​like place. In the bedroom they did a turn down service with chocolates, tea and the best hospital corners I’ve seen in ages. The floors, shelves and surface areas, windowsills, microwave, over and refrigerator all looked better than I have every see them. The level of courtesy the crew showed towards me and my home impressed. They’ll be back next week and I can’t wait.