Matilde C.

Matilde has worked for me for several months now and my husband and I could not be happier. She is very thorough in her cleaning, and she and her helper do a great job cleaning our home. Very trustworthy and very conscientious; always goes the extra mile and goes above and beyond what I'd hoped for. I hope she'll be with us for many years to come! I have never had any trouble communicating with Matilde, her English is great. She's a hard worker and I would recommend her above any of the housekeepers I've EVER had.

Matilde agreed to clean my house on Oct 11th, 2012. She was supposed to be here at 9:00 a.m. and showed up at 9:20 (with a helper that she never mentioned). I was actually on my way out due to her not showing up or calling to say she was running late- but I stayed. We talked and agreed on days and a price. At 12:00 she comes to me saying she needed to go help another customer nearby and would be back in 30 minutes - 2.5 hours later, still no Matilde. She had left her helper at my house that spoke not ONE WORD of English. I speak no Spanish at all. I told Matilde that morning that I had hired 'her' and she would have to be in charge of her helper, I was looking for a single housekeeper so that I could build a relationship with, a person that would be trusted with my home while I was not there. That's when she said sometimes this helper couldn't come and she would have another person help- I said 'No'. I do not want random people in my home. She agreed. While Matilde was gone: Her helper used Pledge oil on my zinc table, she cleaned under a concrete remnant on the table and put it back upside down and drug it across making terrible scratches. She cleaned the bookshelves and shoved everything to the back of all the shelves. I had discussed this exact thing with Matilde when I hired her- 'please make sure you put everything back where it was'. I had to redo all the shelves. She cleaned an antique statue that had chippy paint all over it- now there is no chippy paint. I gave Matilde a special horse hair brush that is only for cleaning lampshades- I made it very clear to her that it was ONLY for lampshades. I walked around the corner and my horsehair brush is being used to clean the A/C return vents in the hallways- now it is dirty and ruined. There are other things but you get the point. I was very disappointed in Matilde. All the reviews said she was wonderful and that is not what I experienced. I had to go pick up my kids from school, I was late leaving because Matilde had not come back and I had to ask the helper to leave. Matilde was nowhere to be found and her helper had no car. I felt terrible leaving her outside, but had no choice. On the phone I told Matilde that this was completely unacceptable- not to mention this was her first day on the job- I paid her, and told her I could not use her again.

Matilde is a good worker, and trustworthy. But, her communication is not great. She was supposed to work at my home on a weekly basis, but after the first visit, she did not stay in touch or show up. I had to try to contact her several times to get her to return. Her work was really good the first time they came out, but the second time it was hit and miss, so we paid her a little less that week. I had told her up front that we needed a lot of help initially, which would require heavy cleaning, then once the house was in better shape, lighter cleaning. She seems used to working only one way, and wanted to do the same type of cleaning she does at every house. That wasn't what we needed. She wasn't very flexible about agreeing to an hourly rate, rather only by the job. She does not answer texts about whether she is coming to work or not, and this was a problem for us. If she had been able to fix the communication issues, and be more consistent with the quality of her work, I would have loved to keep her on a regular basis.