General Cleaning Services

Mari and her crew have been cleaning my various residences since 2006 (2005?). Obviously I’m a satisfied customer since I’m still around. The cleaning is very thorough, and I love coming home to such a clean house (plus I love the smell of whatever they use of the floor). I think the worst thing that has happened in 9 years is maybe a glass got broken once. We’re moving again in a few months and Mari and company will be coming with us.

Broke my laptop. Refused to fix/​compensate/​or even contact their insurance company.
1^st visit: broke a picture frame. I didn’t make a stink because it’s just a picture frame.
2^nd visit: cracked my laptop screen somehow. I didn’t see it happen, but it was fine before it was moved by them and now the screen is cracked with black smudges.
Owner is horrible. Contacted her with picture of screen within 1 hour after cleaners left and she said because I have no evidence (for some reason she thinks a broken computer is not evidence) she refused to do anything about it. I told her I understand accidents happen but this was too serious to ignore and if we could not reach a solution I would have to explore legal options. She said she understood my point about it not being broken before her employees touched it, but she would not do anything about it and stated «please initiate the legal action.»
I asked for the name of her insurance company 5 times and have not received a response.
If you don’t like people to break your property, I would advise against it.
If you don’t like people who refuse to take responsibility for their employees’ actions, I would advise against it.
If you don’t like people who claim to be insured and bonded yet still refused to provide you with the name of their insurance company and refuse to contact them on their own, I would advise against it.
I went to bestbuy (where I bought laptop) who confirmed the only way the crack could have happened was if it was dropped, stepped on, hit with force, etc.

I had a Groupon for this, but never got to find out how well they cleaned.
They rescheduled the first appointment, because their cleaners had been in
an accident. The rescheduled appointment was for the following week at 2:30 on a Tuesday. According to their website, that could mean an hour each way), but they never showed ! I never got a phone call (which the website says you will get if they will be more than an hour late). When I tried to call them, all I got was the answering machine — I left three messages, but never got a return call. Totally unprofessional.
I called Groupon and got the money credited to my Groupon account.
Groupon was great !
General Cleaning Services was not !!

Sadly, this will be my first Unilocal review, and I’m not one to generally be punitive in my opinions right off the bat. I’d been searching for a cleaning service to come to my small, two bedroom apartment on the Malden/​Revere line for awhile. I finally decided, based on all of the positive reviews and comments for this service, that I’d go for it. To top it off, there was a Groupon for three 90-​minute sessions, so this was a no-​lose situation. I bought the Groupon a week and a half ago, and have since scheduled two dates for the cleaning crew to come to my place; once in preparation for my family’s visit, and once in preparation for some out-​of-​town guests. My thought was that I’d have them come back (even without the Groupon) on at least a monthly basis, if not more frequently. This afternoon, while sitting at my desk at work, I got a text message from the cleaning service telling me that my apartment was MORE THAN 15 miles from their office, and therefore, not located within close enough proximity of an area where they would be willing to service. To make sure I wasn’t losing it, I looked up the directions from their office to my apartment on Google Maps, and it was 9.7 miles (which, in itself, is deceiving, since their Internet presence indicates that they’re basically the next town over in Somerville — the main office is apparently in downtown Boston). The text message went on to direct me to request a refund from Groupon. I actually responded to it to inform them that it’s strange that 9.7 miles somehow translates to more than 15 miles, and was asked to «send what I have,» apparently to prove them wrong. Needless to say, I can’t be bothered at this point. If someone can’t 1) Indicate on their website (or the Groupon) that there’s a specific serviceable area, and 2) Call me up to apologize for the mistake, when the onus is clearly on them, then that’s a red flag. I’m sure all of you who have had pleasant experiences with this service can attest to how happy you are with it, and I’m sure the service is exceptional, but this has irritated me to no end.

My partner, Seth and I have been using Mari and her team for the last several weeks based on recommendation of a friend who is also a client.
Mari’s initial clean of our place was amazing and exceptionally thorough. Her team has been to our unit two times since then, and each time the condo has been left looking spotless and polished to a sparkle! Every time we come home after a clean, theres always that ‘little extra’ touch that we notice. (folded over toilet tissue, neatly stacked remote controls, the hand towels folded as if we lived in a Westin Hotel!) Love it!
Her online booking system was handy, but we love the fact that she accepts paypal, and sends a very friendly text message when our cleaning is complete and payment can be sent.
Its nice that she leaves a bucket with all her supplies at our house so we can see what she is using and if there is a brand/​cleaner we’d prefer her to use – we simply leave it in the bucket that lives in our storage/​utility closet.
Hiring Mari and her services was one of the best decisions we made in our new condo. We used to be clients of MaidPro, but are SO HAPPY we switched to Mari!
Thank you Mari!

The quick version:
1. The house is spotless
2. I recommend them to all my friends
3. They regularly clean out my fridge
4. Technologically connected for easy communication and payment
I’ve used General Cleaning Services for more than 8 years now. I’d say first off that they’re reliable, consistent and accommodating. Every visit, they change the sheets, clean the house from top to bottom, and regularly add in a refrigerator clean or under-​the sink clean up. They leave a bucket of their cleaning supplies with us so we know what they use. Our house feels homey, neat and organized after their visits. We have them come every two weeks for a two bedroom apartment with two cats, and they make bales of their fur disappear every week. All the rugs are lifted, swept underneath, replaced, and vacuumed. So clean, your mom will compliment you on it.
With any cleaning service, I have learned to make sure that I put away things in the kitchen where I want to find them later. And I also make sure to pick things up so the house is de-​cluttered. I don’t think of it as intrusive at all; it’s thorough. Think about when you’re in a hotel and all of your stuff gets slightly reorganized. It’s what they do, and they do it well. Over the years, the amount of clutter in our house has gone down dramatically.
When we’ve had construction in the house, Marilene and her team have come in to do a thorough deep clean afterwards, since plaster dust and saw dust get everywhere after a remodel. She came back two weeks later and saw some issues with the deep clean, and she and her staff did it again, on their dime. We’ve had the dust bunnies behind book cases eradicated, and lost cat toys under the fridge recovered.
We schedule our cleaning on a day of the week and Mari usually comes with her staff to drop them off. The few times we’ve been home (because someone is sick or what have you) they’ve been very accommodating with schedules. For example, I sent of a quick text a few days before our cleaning asking if we could get an early appointment because I had a doctor’s appointment and would be back home the rest of the day. She showed up at 7:30 and the house was spotless when we got back from the doctor’s at 9.
I like that I can pay with PayPal, making it easy to pay even if I run out the house without leaving a check. I can send a quick text to Marilene and know that she’ll get it and get back to me soon. She has always been super pleasant to us, so I was surprised to see a review of someone characterizing her as rude. Cleaning up after other people’s messes is not easy or pleasant work, and I appreciate her dedication and strong entrepreneurial spirit.

DO NOT USE THIS SERVICE!!!
The owner, Marilene Da Silva, is argumentative and rude, will show up late, speaks abusively to her employees and will be hostile to you, the customer, for no reason.
We purchased a deal with Da Silva’s home cleaning service thru Amazon Local. The appointment was at noon. The deal we purchased was for «Two Hours of Heavy Duty Cleaning with Two Maids.» Instead of two maids, three showed up, including Da Silva, at which point she announced that the cleaning had been switched to an hour and twenty minutes instead of two hours, because there were 3 instead of 2 maids.
They were over half an hour late. I had an appointment at 12:30, which I was incredibly late for because of this. There was no apology or explanation for this. I spoke to Da Silva on the phone before she arrived, and she was argumentative with me, as she was having trouble finding the apartment. She barked at me repeatedly that my street, a highly trafficked road in Cambridge, was «closed,» which I could easily verify by looking out my window was not true, as there were cars speeding by. I should have cancelled the appointment right then, as this was clearly a bad omen.
By 12:35, she and her employees were inside the apartment but had not started cleaning yet. She demanded to know which rooms were «not priority,» as she seemed confident that they would not have enough time to complete the job. My apartment is not a lot of space. Our normal housekeeping service sends one person, who easily finishes in two hours. For three professional cleaners to not be able to finish in an hour and twenty minutes seemed very puzzling to me. When I expressed this to Da Silva, she snapped at me that «I should have called someone else then…»
The interaction went downhill from there. One of her employees made eye contact with me and mouthed the words, «I’m sorry» and gave me a very sympathetic, commiseration look. Clearly Da Silva’s rudeness to customers is par for the course.
It slowly dawned on me that Da Silva viewed the appointment to have started at 12pm, even though they arrived after 12:30, thus, she was only planning on remaining in the apartment for less than an hour, which indeed, would have been hard for them to complete. My expectation that she would spend an hour and twenty minutes actually in the apartment cleaning is what escalated her rudeness to a new level. I would never have purchased her cleaning service if I understood that travel time was included, and that she would show up whenever she pleased, without any explanation or acknowledgment.
There are excellent cleaning services throughout the city. General Cleaning Services is not one of them. Stay away.