Urban Spoon Catering and Personal Staffing

Like others, I can’t actually review their cleaning services as they never showed up.
Three appointment booked, three no-​shows, probably three hours trying to call them to confirm and make sure they’ll actually show this time, any number of emails claiming they were calling me up and down, already cleaned my house last week, etc.
Save your money and save your time by just cleaning up after your self. How this place is still in business, I don’t know.

The worst experience I have ever had with any service EVER. First of all, they never answer their phones. I left about 5 messages over 2 weeks and never heard from them. Just for fun, I tried calling the number every 2 minutes for about 20 minutes… guess what? Never got an answer, and the machine message changed halfway through which was strange. They also boast of a «live chat» option of booking appointments on their website, but it is never available to use. I’m glad I was never able to actually book an appointment as it seems they are just as unreliable with the service itself as with their communication skills. The whole operation seems shady, and I would NOT recommend you call upon these people.

Bought a Groupon in Feb. 2011 and have never managed to get a call back or e-​mail back. I am glad to hear its not personal and that perhaps I’m one of the lucky ones for NOT having them show up. I’ve contacted Groupon for a refund.

Boy I wish I check here BEFORE hand. Same thing tried over and over to schedule no emails or calls returned then when they did finally call back of course couldn’t do the date I wanted even though I tried to schedule it for 6 weeks out.
The staffer was so rude! When I did I had been trying for weeks to schedule the appoint she said «well so you claim» basically saying I was lying and that I hadn’t been calling and emailing.
I do have to say I called whofish daily catch and they didn’t even ask for any details just said they were happy to send me a refund.
BUYER BEWARE!

I unfortunately also bought a Groupon that will be going down the toilet.
I have repeatedly called them and they never called me back– what a waste.

I am one of the many who purchased a Groupon for the cleaning service. I have a small 2-​bed apt. Yes, it is 2-​beds but it is an extremely small (thisbig) apartment. My husband and I are very neat people and frankly, I just needed someone to come in to wipe down the bathroom, maybe run the vacuum and dust. My requirements were super low so there’s no way they won’t impress me with their cleaning skills, right?
The guy spent 3-​hours in my apartment and I came home right after he left to find an apartment that looked EXACTLY the same way it had when I left. I know the guy came — I let him in and showed him where everything was! What did he do for 3 hours??? He didn’t sweep, there was exactly the same amount of dust as when he came, the counters weren’t even wiped down — NOTHING! Seriously… what did this guy do for 3 hours? I shudder to think.

Ordered a housecleaning coupon through
— tried scheduling an appointment on a half dozen occassions to no avail. Got voicemail each time, left a message, never received a call back. Complained to
, no result. Out 40 bucks. After reading the reviews of people who did actually get them to show up, I’m now kinda glad I didn’t let them into my house but still, I hate that they got $ 40 out of me for absolutely nothing.

I am kicking myself for not checking out the reviews before I bought a voucher for Urban Spoon on Eversave. Thankfully they offer refunds and if nothing else I can appreciate the pure comedy of my Urban Spoon struggle. I hope you enjoy it too:
Early this year my boyfriend purchased a voucher on Groupon for Urban Spoon and on his scheduled day he received a phone call from the cleaner that she was running late, a while later he received another phone call that she would be even later because she was in a car accident. Eventually she made her way to his North End apartment and called to ask where she should park… in the North End… because it’s his responsibility to make those arrangements. ??? He ended up giving her his spot in his garage and she smashed into a pole so he parked the car for her. Finally we got her in the apartment and when we returned the place looked just fine. All’s well that ends well.
A few months later I opted to purchase a similar deal with Urban Spoon on Eversave. The day I was scheduled I went home at lunch to meet them and no one showed so I called and the woman seemed surprised because the person who was coming was ‘her best’. Five minutes later they called me back to let me know that she was in a car accident (sense a trend?) and was too shaken up to come so I had to reschedule. She asked if someone could come tomorrow morning and I said that would work if they were there by 8:15am. She was going to call me by the end of the day to confirm which she never did. I assumed no one was coming but at 8:45 the next morning I got a phone call from a man who was at my building to clean my apartment. I was not there to let him in and had to reschedule… again.
I finally rescheduled for a date in July and they called to cancel because the woman had ‘burned her hand’ (at least now they are getting creative). I rescheduled for Friday August 26 (which is the day I am writing this), now determined for this company to clean my damn apartment but the day before I called to confirm and there was no answer — all day. I called again the morning of my appointment and there was no answer so I finally left a message that I would not be there to let anyone in unless I got a call back to confirm. I also started reading the reviews and realized the mess I had gotten myself into. Did I really want these people in my house? They did return my call to let me know that they would have to once again cancel my appointment because of the ‘storm’ since they must give employees 48 hour notice. The storm they are referring to is Hurricane Irene which is scheduled to hit Boston on Sunday. Today is Friday and it’s a beautiful day. Honestly, I am quite relieved that they cancelled, I have contacted Eversave to receive my refund or credit and called a reliable cleaning service that I will by loyal to in the future to schedule an appointment for next week. All’s well that ends well.

I wish I could give it less than one star. No show, no call, I took the day off work. I had purchased through Eversave who get 5 stars for refunding my money.
It took me several days to even reach them– they did not answer the phone during buisness hours for 3 days or return my messages.
When I finally reached them they offered no explanation, were rude, tried to reschedule over a month away, and would not let me speak to a supervisor.
Then she said she would call me back after finding me the first possible appt. It is a week later and she never called.
Points again to Eversave, so thankful I got a refund. This is the worst company I have ever dealt with!

Once again, another Groupon down the drain story. I purchased the Gold Package deal for our apartment. Granted it’s a 4– bedroom apartment shared by four guys, so the place isn’t immaculately clean… if it were, I wouldn’t have wanted to hire someone to clean it to begin with. But it’s no hoarders den or frat house. The gentleman that came out did a fine job of cleaning the kitchen and one of two bathrooms, but that’s all he did. Three hours and he didn’t touch any other room in the apartment. The kitchen and one bathroom. And when I scheduled the apointment, they asked me the size of the apartment, so it’s not that they thought it was a studio or something…
When he left, he told me to contact the company and they will send someone out to finish the job, but I was hoping to have the place finished today. Of course, when I called, it naturally went to voicemail. IF the company makes good on their word and send someone to clean the rest of the place, I will update this and add some points, but for now, this was a huge dissapointment.

I have never written a review on Unilocal before, but as so many others have stated, the service was so bad I feel compelled to tell others DO NOT use urban spoon cleaning.
I can’t even comment on the cleaning because it ended up not happening. My roommate thought buying a groupon would be a good idea and she scheduled the cleaning a month in advance. That was about 3 months ago. Since then they canceled and rescheduled THREE times and had one no-​show. HORRIBLE customer service. The first time they canceled, they said it was because the cleaning lady had «car problems.» This seems to be a common excuse/​the one they always use!
Fast forward to their FOURTH attempt at rescheduling. My roommate tells them that they have been doing this too many times and the representative from urban spoon gives her an unapologetic, rude attitude and tells her that if we don’t like it, then get a refund. So we did just that! Screw you, urban spoon, no wonder you have to resort to deep discounts to get people to buy your services.
Long story short, DO NOT hire them for cleaning. They probably will never come anyway! Worst customer service I have EVER experienced. I am looking forward to the day when I read their Unilocal page and it says they have gone out of business.

Buyers beware. This is a ridiculous company. To start off, scheduling was horrible – the first appointment was canceled because of car troubles, the second was their no-​show, and the third was 2.5 hours late. One person showed up with non-​professional cleaning equipment (a dirty febreeze duster, and diluted windex?). He asked to take before and after pictures, which I declined. (I did take photos of his work at the end though: didn’t clean the tub, toilet, or oven; big hair ball in the middle of the floor, rearranged items haphazardly, etc.)
As for the cleaning, it was more pushing around the dust and debris, and moving all the furniture around, leaving the place in more disarray than it started. Thank goodness I started reading Unilocal reviews while he was here. I asked him to leave early because I was worried about what he might be doing, or not doing. He actually wanted to take a picture of the bathroom, which I asked him not to. I fear it’s all a hoax to show how awful he can make a place look afterwards and laugh about it with friends. Seriously, my home feels even worse than when he started.
Never again. I even have a second Groupon that I won’t be using. I mark it up to a lesson well learned.

I bought a groupon for two hours of cleaning for my one bedroom apartment. I was at work when the cleaner was at the house (my partner was home), but I was very excited to come home to a clean house… Sadly, I didn’t. The floors (kitchen, bathroom and hall) weren’t clean (there were spots of dirt and dust, so they hadn’t been swept or mopped apparently). The rugs had lint, etc, so it seemed that they hadn’t been vacuumed. The small trash cans in the bedroom and living hadn’t been emptied, even though they were clearly full.
Under one plant, there were dead leaves on the ground that had fallen off that week, and the cleaner hadn’t bothered to pick up.
I am literally not sure what he did. The only thing that was clean was the stove-​top, which takes me 5 minutes when i do it myself, so I cannot imagine that it took him the whole two hours.
The thing that bothered me the most was all the dust. That is a big reason that I like to have a cleaner come. He dusted around the perimeter of clusters of knick-​knacks– he didn’t dust between them or pick them up. So frustrating.
I bought two groupons at one time and am very sad, because I do not feel happy about them coming again. Especially since when I got in touch with them to schedule this cleaning, they had NO appointment times for six weeks. So not only will the cleaning be bad, I will probably have to book it over a month in advance.

I bought a coupon for 2 hours of house cleaning through Eversave. Had no problem booking an appointment, but the day before, Erin called to tell me their housekeeper had a car towed and wouldn’t be able to make it. Since I was hosting an event at my house the next day, I told her I absolutely couldn’t reschedule, and to her credit she said, «OK, this is not your problem… I will find someone to clean your house.»
The housekeeper showed up on time… a very nice young man, wearing dress clothes (?). He immediately told me this was his first time doing this. I have a 900 square-​foot condo and he spent an hour in my 12×12 bedroom. When I went in to check it out, the floor had wet mop lint all over it, the window was filmy, and nothing was put back where it had been, including furniture that he had moved. The floors looked dull, so I asked him to use my wood floor cleaner instead. (I think he used Simple Green on everything. I hate that stuff… sticky sticky!)
He proceeded to the second bedroom, where I had a bunch of stuff stored. I told him he didn’t need to move any of the stuff, just clean around it. He moved all of the stuff. AND, he didn’t put anything back where it belonged.
He then moved to the kitchen. I don’t know what he did in there, but it did look fairly clean with the exception of the counters, which were filmy. Again, he didn’t put anything back where it belonged.
After the kitchen was the bathroom, then after 3 hours total, he told me he was done. I looked at the living room and asked him if he cleaned it and he said yes. It was hard to tell, because everything from my kitchen (trash can, recycling bin, stools, cat dishes, etc.) as well as everything he used to clean was in the living room.
He said «the lady» told him to only spend two hours but he spent three because he wanted to do a good job. Bless his heart. I was so anxious to get him out of there that I didn’t check anything else. Turns out he didn’t touch a thing in the living room. And every object he moved to clean was left somewhere else. I was so disgusted that I spent the next two hours re-​cleaning my entire condo.
I called to complain, and Erin very sweetly offered to send out another housekeeper on another date. Since my event was the next day, that didn’t help me much. She said that Urban Spoon couldn’t refund my money since I paid Eversave, and that I should contact them for a refund. WAY too much trouble to get my $ 35 back. My other option was to schedule another cleaning in the future at no cost. She didn’t give me any formal confirmation of this, just «her word.»
This company cannot clean their way out of a paper bag, and I will not be using them again.

1 STAR IS WAAAAAAY TOO GOOD FOR THESE IDIOTS
Most unprofessional company in history, pretty sure they don;t even really exist becuase we have tried for a month to get ahold of someone there and failed. left at least half a dozen messages no call backs and never a human being to answer their phones. How this company is still in business is one of the worlds great mysteries, but avoid them like the plague as they are completely and utterly useless.

Can I give less than one star?
I am basing this entirely on their scheduling and customer service because even though I called to schedule an appointment several weeks ago, I still have not had a housecleaning service.
I had initially made an appointment for 1pm on April 21. I arranged my schedule at work so I could come home to let the cleaner in; at about 9pm on the 20^th I received a voice mail from Urban Spoon informing me that they could not do 1pm, but would come at 3pm instead. That didn’t work for my schedule and I left two voice mails (one in the rescheduling box, one in the supervisor box) for the staff around 7:30 on the morning of the 20^th saying so (in all fairness I had first left a voicemail saying the 3pm would be ok).
Fast forward to that Thursday afternoon. I received a voice mail from US letting me know that the housekeeper was outside around 3pm. We played a bit of phone tag (this is another big problem for me – you can’t get a live person when you call!) and the manager explained that no one had checked voice mail to register that I couldn’t make the 3pm time (so two voice mail boxes went untended from about 7:30am to 3pm on a weekday). The manager was extremely condescending about their mistake («normally we would charge you for this» — for your error, really?) though he was willing to reschedule and throw in other services. I was told there were no appointments left for this week but we went through their schedule for next week and set up a time for Friday (ie the 29^th).
Guess what. I received another voice mail from US yesterday, Friday the 22^nd, letting me know that a housekeeper was outside my apartment.
This place is killing me. I’m actually beginning to wonder if this is a scam they run on all Groupon ticket buyers to get out of housecleaning because it’s prepaid.

I really wanted to update this review with more stars, not less. Particularly because I want to give a good review to those who offer groupons and discounts, to thank them for the price break — and to appreciate good customer service and feedback (such as the comment from the management below). But I cannot…
I booked an appointment for the middle of April. I understand they oversold their groupons, so I tried to be as flexible as possible and worked with them to find a possible time. I arranged my schedule, so I can be home to let the housekeeper in (not that easy a task). I do this, because I want someone to come before I have company this weekend.
I get a call a few days before. .. a matter-​of-​fact attitude stating that my appointment was changed to JUNE 15TH. That’s right, two months from now.
No, Urban Spoon. You will not come on June 15^th. I don’t even know what my cleaning needs will be then, so I have no idea how you think you do. I want my house clean before my company comes, NOW, not when I’m pretty sure I’ll be on vacation. Had I known, I would of scheduled someone else.
After my FIFTH attempt of calling them (no call back — even a call directly to the gentleman writing below soliciting my comments) — I got through. The representative was very kind and apologetic and promised to re-​book the next day (with complimentary ceiling fan and floor board cleaning as an apology). I don’t have fans, but fine. This will get the job done before my company comes.
So I was going to overlook this whole June 15^th business. . I cancel a meeting, TAKE TIME OFF WORK and go home to meet the housekeeper and. .. nothing. No one comes. I call — get through! — and am told — no, your appointment is in June. I said — no, it was re-​booked YESTERDAY. Again, the representative was very apologetic and said he would get someone there as soon as possible. But no one comes. No one calls to apologize. Nothing. And now, my company is here. Awesome.

Zero reliability
— company tried to reschedule my single appointment 4 months down the road
Zero customer service
— no one answers the phone
Zero communication between the office and the cleaning crew
— the employee had no idea what services he was supposed to provide
Zero quality
— the «2 hour» cleaning service consisted of vacuuming two bedrooms
Zero satisfaction
— overall, the biggest waste of time and money I have ever spent

I am extremely disappointed with this company. I purchased a groupon, and was slightly frustrated to find out that there was a 2 month wait to have my house cleaned. I picked a date that was when I was due to have house guests.
I took ½ the day off from work, to be home for the cleaners… guess who never showed up.
I called and called, and left numerous messages. FINALLY I got a call back from someone who said my «file indicated I had gotten a call rescheduling» — that never happened. I pushed the issue and they agreed to reschedule for 8pm, later the same day. I rearranged my evening — and now it is 8:30, no one has showed up, no one has called, and and I suspect no one is coming to clean.
EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING. I’ve already requested a refund from Groupon. Do. Not. Use. This. Company. It is a waste of money.
(incidentally, if anyone knows of a better cleaning service that can clean my house this weekend or on Monday, I’d love the connection!)

I purchase a Groupon for 2 hours of housecleaning services from Urban Spoon on Feb 23^rd. I left 6 voicemail messages between Feb 24^th and March 9^th and received no call back from them to schedule my appointment and either my cell or office numbers that were provided on every message. I finally reached someone on March 14^th (I had called again, this was not a callback) and was told the earliest cleaning appointment I could get would be April 30^th at 3:30pm. This long wait and poor customer service is totally unacceptable.
This may have been a good company in the past, but I believe they sold many more vouchers than they could handle servicing and are now suffering. I’ll probably still use my voucher because it was a good deal, but I definitely won’t sign up for any recurring service.