The Dancing Elephant

My wife and I employed Sparkles Cleaning for the better part of the past 5 years, though for the cost estimate on this website, I have only put the cumulative price which we paid over the past 3 years. This is because we had rotated through multiple crews in the early years before eventually settling on a crew who regularly cleaned our current house (in Kitchener). I have several comments to share regarding our experiences: (1) For the past 3 years, we have paid for a 2h:15m clean (for 2 people), which came to roughly ~$160 per clean, depending on the tip. However, after recently examining our security system logs, we discovered that our crew had been leaving early -- in one case after 1h:45m, and in another case, after 1h:30m. When we brought this up with the cleaners, they admitted to leaving early. We do not know how long this has been going on, and while it is possible that it is isolated to these 2 occurrences, my wife and I find it difficult to maintain a relationship with a company and crew that have eroded our trust. (2) We found that the quality of the cleaning decreased over time. Years ago, the cleaning was reasonably thorough, but as time passed, our crew became more focused on "surface cleaning", despite the fact that we routinely asked them to focus on the "deep cleaning" -- things like the tops of bookcases, around baseboards, under furniture, and so on. As far as we can tell, our crew never once stood on a step-stool or cleaned any higher than their heads. Our crew routinely left lights on across the house, occasionally left windows open, and on at least 3 occasions, left our natural gas fireplace running (after they had left the home). Despite our frequent requests to the contrary, our crew insisted on doing "tidying chores" -- like putting away dishes and making the beds -- which we feel was an effort to appear "busy" and avoid doing the "hard work", which is what we had really wanted all along.

My wife and I are repeat customers of Chervin, and I wanted to take a moment to write a review for the benefit of others. It is our opinion that Chervin's commitment to quality, honesty, and honourable business practices is second-to-none. Throughout both of our renovation projects, Chervin's employees have exhibited top-notch craftsmanship and unquestionable professionalism. The quality of their work has brought us great joy, and we would not hesitate to recommend this company to anyone looking for a custom design/build solution.

I wanted to take a moment to share what I consider to be a fair review of Dormio's product & services. Back in February, my wife & I purchased a king-sized, organic (12") latex mattress, wool/alpaca duvet, 2 wool/alpaca pillows, box foundation, and mattress cover, from Dormio. Overall, we have been very satisfied with the mattress, foundation, and mattress cover. The mattress is very comfortable, and seems to perform as advertised. The delivery and setup also went very smoothly. On these two fronts, I would highly recommend Dormio if you are looking to purchase a new mattress. However, we did have some trouble with the wool/alpaca products, namely our duvet and our 2 pillows. The stench of the pillows was unbearable, even after months' of use and attempts on our part to get rid of the smell. The smell is reminiscent of an alpaca or perhaps a sheep. The duvet, while stinky, is somewhat less so -- probably because it's not right beside our heads. To put this into perspective: for the past several months, when my wife and I woke up in the morning, we both smelled of alpaca/sheep. Our hair smelled strongly like animal fur. Our bedroom was embarrassing to enter, because it smelled like a barn. The stench was very, very strong, and having grown up in farming country, neither my wife nor I are particularly sensitive to this sort of thing. But these products are in a different level of smell altogether. So, despite "air fluffing" and "sun drying" our pillows (as well as running them through the dryer with nice-smelling dryer sheets), we eventually had to throw out our 2 pillows. The duvet's smell is still there, but not quite as strong; this is likely because it is not right beside our head. Recently, I had a conversation with John, at Dormio, in which I had offered feedback regarding the wool/alpaca product. The positive take-away is that John was very interested in making our experience "right", and after a few emails on the topic, he offered to replace the pillows. At the time of this writing, my wife & I had not yet had a chance to drop by the Dormio store to replace the pillows; however, I think that the important take-away for a prospective customer is that, in the face of negative experience, the company tried their best to do the "right thing". In summary: Our mattress is great. Our wool/alpaca pillows were so stinky that we threw them out after only a few months of use. But, John from Dormio has offered to give us a replacement for the pillows, and showed a keen interest in trying to make this "right".

My wife & I interviewed 5 separate companies (all of which were rated BBB A- or higher) for quotes on replacing our roof. We considered 4 asphalt and 1 well-known metal roofer. Of the asphalt roofers, 3 of them were GAF Master Elite installers like Cambridge Roofing (which means that they can offer GAF shingles with 50-yr non-prorated warranties), and 1 BP shingle installer. The quote from Cambridge Roofing offered the exact same quality shingles & underlayment as the competitors. The best part, for us, was that they were easily $2000 less than the nearest (BP) installer, and about $4000 less than the nearest (GAF) installer. They were approximately $12000 less than the most expensive asphalt roofer and about $17000 less than the metal roofer that we had interviewed. (So, words of wisdom: be absolutely sure to solicit multiple quotations when you embark on this type of home repair, since there is a huge variance in costs for, ultimately, the same end result.) Dealing with Cambridge Roofing's representatives was a real pleasure; unlike some companies, I found the employees at Cambridge Roofing to be at all times polite & knowledgeable, and more than willing to explain specific choices that they had set out in their quotations. My opinion is that this company was not out to "up-sell" me on unnecessary products, which is an issue that I had encountered with some of my roofing quotes -- e.g., some other companies (not Cambridge Roofing) tried to up-sell me on more 'Moore vents' for my already-professionally-ventilated attic, and also on an entire roof covered in an 'ice & water shield' which isn't really necessary for my roof's slope. The tear-down of the old shingles & installation of the new roof went very smoothly. Cambridge Roofing's 7-man crew worked approximately ~2 days in total. They were polite, respectful, and kept the premises clean. As a layman, all I can really say is that the installation job looks good and doesn't leak; no problems observed thus far. Overall, I would strongly recommend that anyone solicit a quotation from this company. I'm very pleased with the results and the cost-savings to me were substantial.

My wife and I hired The Crack Doctor to repair some cracks in our (now previous) house. We were pretty unimpressed by his work. All of the quoting and work itself was done by his crew (we never met the "doctor" himself). Several cracks ended up leaking after the initial injection. Each time, the crew returned and attempted to re-inject the cracks. One crack, in particular, had been filled 4 times previously, by which point I said: "Enough is enough, I'll pay you to patch this from the outside." While the crewman was convinced that this made sense, it took substantial convincing to get the owner to acquiesce to this request -- he was on the phone with the owner for some time. (And I should clarify that this wasn't a question of payment -- I was more than willing to pay; I think that the owner simply thought that there would be more profitable ventures for him elsewhere.) In terms of the overall job ... I felt that they did a poor job of cleaning up after their injections. Most other foundation repair companies trim the excess down and apply a mortar-like patch on the inside to keep things clean -- The Crack Doctor did not. All told, I was pretty unimpressed.

My wife and I hired Todd (and his crew) to fix the cracks in the basement of our new place. Todd and his apprentice were on-time, courteous, professional, and competent. They did a great job for a reasonable price. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.

We had Tyler clean the carpets at a house which we had recently purchased. The overall job was well done. Most of the stains were removed from the carpet, and my wife & I were left satisfied. Tyler offers a number of add-on products (which can be purchased at the time of installation), and these products can further protect the carpet or enhance the cleaning. My wife and I opted to employ these add-ons, and again, were not disappointed. Tyler did a good job of ensuring that the carpets were properly suctioned-out (so that they would not become moldy). In subsequent conversations that I've had with Tyler, it became clear to me that he cares deeply about his company, and that he is working to establish a name for himself. I've seen, first hand, Tyler's enthusiasm, and have every reason to believe that he devotes himself fully to the task and takes pride in his work.

My wife and I were extremely satisfied with Rick's work. - his quote was not the cheapest nor most expensive, but he was prompt, professional, and at all times, courteous - the workmanship was of very high quality, and the subcontractors with whom he worked (for our plumbing, electrical, flooring, and fireplace installation) were all top-knotch - his employees arrived promptly at 7:30AM every morning, left every day at 4:30PM, and cleaned up every day -- it was the cleanest job site that we've ever seen I'd strongly encourage anyone to check him out again. His list of references is long, and for good reason -- there are plenty of really satisfied customers, including me & my wife.

We hired Lindner to install a new front doorway (made by Mastertech with Verre Select glass) at our Waterloo home. The product wasn't cheap -- in fact, Lindner was almost twice as expensive as the next quote that we received -- but we believed that we were getting a superior product, and the owner's sales pitch was convincing. The product itself -- the door, glass, archway -- is great. However, the good news stops there. The service was, to say the least, awful. Lindner took my original door out and left the front entranceway unfinished for two weeks. After a nasty argument with the owner (in which he sweared at me), they finally came back and finished the installation. They put in the trim (unevenly at that), and left an electrical outlet and the suspended ceiling in my front doorway disassembled. When I asked them to reattach the ceiling in the porch and to reassemble the light fixture, they told me (in no short terms) that they wouldn't do it. The brickwork at the front was done very sloppily. I ended up having to rewire the exterior light and put up the ceiling in the archway by myself. It was certainly not what my wife & I had agreed to; perhaps we should have recognized the 'caveat emptor' when the owner himself originally told us, "Don't worry, we'll take care of everything." In short, I would NOT recommend this company to anyone. Whereas one might assume that completing a door installation involves fixing what you broke, our experience with Lindner was that he took the wording of his contract literally -- and since the contract didn't specifically state that he would reassemble the lighting & suspended ceiling in the porch, he didn't do it. I consider this fairly to be pretty unscrupulous.