Handy

Why did I try them again! I should have learned my lesson last year, but in need of a clean before a holiday party, I trusted Handy– and that was the worst mistake. I have a very small studio apt and as a female I specifically requested a female cleaner. However, I get assigned a male cleaner. Try all morning to contact the company who doesn’t answer their phones (if you can figure out their US phone number) and now stuck with no cleaner. Previously, I had 1 good cleaner out of the 5 or so I tried as they send a different one each time. Worst service ever and now I am going to be stuck fighting for another cleaner ASAP or to get my money back and forced to do it all myself!

Used this service for the first time using their voucher code. For a discount, the service is fine. You can only book recurring services. So booked the first one to recur every 4 weeks. You can’t choose the cleaner and have no idea of their experience. The guy who came to clean was perfectly pleasant, very polite and accommodating but had obviously not done much cleaning in his life. He didn’t know how to mop the floor. He did help me take a lot of bulky rubbish to the bin. Would use it again for one off clean but not on a regular basis. Now off to see how I can cancel the monthly subscription. I read on here that they make it really difficult to cancel. Watch out for the voucher codes on the tube or when you cancel a booking on their site. They will send you a discount. Try it out then.

Handy sells itself on being convenient — you can book quickly and easily — I think this is probably OK if you need a deep clean before moving/​in or out of rented accommodation or if you have a party and just can’t be arsed to do it yourself, however for regular cleaning it’s not great.
The reason why it’s not great is that you don’t get the same cleaner each time and the cleaners can cancel with hours of notice (you can’t do this without being charged yourself mind!).
This means every two weeks I need to go through the palaver of showing someone new around the apartment — don’t get me wrong, some of the cleaners are very good, but strangely enough the good ones seem to disappear (into private employment?!) so it’s not really a regular cleaning service.
But it’s cheap for what you get I guess… And I’m too lazy to cancel now, despite cleaners showing up early (when I’m not even dressed!), too late (making me late for work) or not telling me that they used all the cleaning products!
I would love to leave my keys with someone but you can’t do this with Handy as you never know who you’ll get — oh and the customer service has now moved from humans to computers with significant impact (bad) — problems from growing too fast I think…
Remember Handy is just an agency for the cleaners — it doesn’t actually employ them…

Such utter rubbish. Will never use them again.
Three different cleaners came on three occasions and were okay (³⁄₅; one of them smelled soooo badly) under my account. My partner booked the next cleaner under a new account, and I cancelled my recurring booking. The cleaner my partner had booked cancelled half an hour before she was scheduled to arrive. Handy did nothing from their end to rectify it, apologise or offer us another cleaner.
Despite cancelling my recurring cleaner on their app (which is such an un-​user friendly joke of an app), Handy did not cancel my recurring bookings and I got an email that a cleaner was scheduled for the following day. I rang to explain that I had canceled the booking on their app, but they told me it wasn’t showing on their system and charged me a £10 cancelation fee. There was no supervisor to speak to and no amount of arguing to convince them it was ludicrous. Literally the worst customer service EVER and very average cleaners, assuming they do show up.

Just dont subscribe. Better to do the cleaning stuff yourself. The cleaner cleaned the kitchen and just leaved, I had scheduled 4h! (her name is Mariana Videnlieva). The second suprise is to canceling the regular cleanings schedule, they write, you must call them but they will never answer. Either by mail. So you will need to cancel the cleaning book one by one, every day otherwise they will debite you. And I guess you will need to do that all the rest of your life?

We made a booking for 12pm today, as our landlord is visiting on Monday… at 10am, I received a phone call from a woman who, as soon as I answered and said hello, started shouting down the line unintelligibly at me, obviously very distressed and irate. I tried to establish who she was, but she just kept shouting until I hung up. The second time she called, we established that she was in fact the cleaning lady we had booked, but she was two hours early and lost a few streets away.
She continued to shout incessantly and angrily that she couldn’t come at the scheduled time of 12pm, and demanded that I go outside to look for her immediately! Obviously, I declined. When we rang Handy, they said that she had just called herself to cancel her appointment, but that she hadn’t mentioned the fact that she had already tried to turn up here. They didn’t have any other cleaners available until late next week, so we cancelled the regular appointment we had booked. The lady on the phone was helpful, quick, efficient, and — importantly — polite and calm, although she didn’t try very hard to convince us to use the service in the future. She seemed used to this kind of situation. Very bad service, we won’t be using it again. I’m now postponing birthday plans to stay home and clean before my landlord arrives. Meh.

I’m with Nick S on this one that this is a pretty tough business to scale…
I’ve used Handy a few times for my 2 BR/​2 bath flat and while I’m a pretty low maintenance person, a few experiences have bothered me:
1) One cleaner did a fine job tidying up but didn’t make the bed. Even if not washing or changing sheets, I think a freshly made bed is one of the most important parts of the job.
2) Another cleaner made me feel super awkward by asking if I would report her for leaving 30 minutes early.
Clearly, there is an important consistency x quality issue that Handy needs to solve if it wants to retain cleaners and customers.

Third update and I’ve given up with this company. The cleaners are just really inconsistent. I realize it must be hard to retain and manage this type of workforce, but as a customer it’s simply not worth it.
I could go on, but my advice is to Google «
Unilocal san francisco» and read the reviews– you’ll get an idea of the problems this company has. Reading through a bunch of the 400+ reviews from the U.S. they sum up my experience using handy in London 7 – 8 times now.
I’m looking for a new company to use if any Unilocalers know a good one. Save your money.