House cleaning service?

I use Julian Lewis, 347-232-7932. He is excellent and very trustworthy.

He cleans my apartment every month and charges me $80. I have a 2 bedroom place and it takes about 4 hours.

Decided to revive this thread to mention a BAD experience I had this weekend. We had a bunch of construction done on the house recently which created a lot of dust and grit. Also, I was away for a month and no means by which to keep up with the dirt, dog hair, etc. House needed a serious cleaning from top to bottom. Based on a recommendation we went with Miracle Maids. Rather than bore you with little details, I will simply sum up:

We contracted for a deep post-construction clean. Three cleaners at $40 an hour each, 4 hour minimum no matter how quickly they finish, from 9AM-3PM.

1) First cleaner shows up one hour late at 10 AM.
2) Second cleaner shows up two hours late at 11 AM, after which hubby leaves to meet me and the dogs in PPark
3) Third cleaner shows up at 2:30!
4) We came home at 2 PM and hung out on the third floor while they did their thing. At some point, we hear a crash (something glass or ceramic breaking). Hubby and I decide not to investigate, but wait to see what they have to say. at 5PM (two hours later than they were supposed to finish, but who can blame them when they were so tardy to begin with, right?) they were done, & hubby was put on the phone with the supervisor to agree job was completed. Hubby tells the supervisor about the unknown broken item in the house and says how disappointed he is no one mentioned it. Cleaners look highly embarrassed, as one goes to the garbage can, digs down to the bottom, and fishes out the pieces of broken vase. Supervisor says "it's not out policy to hide broken items", but I guess the three cleaners didn't get the memo. As hubby was on phone, he realized they didn't do any of the living room windows as contracted, so cleaners were told to clean them by their supervisor.
5) We asked yesterday, and again today, for a specific breakdown of the cleaners' hours and service charges since we have no idea what they said versus what we know to be true. In both instances we were told "No problem. We'll email right away", but have yet to receive it. Just called again two minutes ago, and this time they said, "I don't know why someone told you we could do that for you this weekend. The person who does that comes in tomorrow." Fine. That MAY be true. But considering everything we did with them, including contract and payment, was done online, I have my suspicions.
6) Summary: they did an okay job, but NOTHING to write home about. There are streaks on both my kitchen and living room floors, and they forgot to do my staircase entirely. Lots of other little details were missed: cleaning the inside if the fridge but not bothering with the outside, dusting the shelves but not all the items on them, cleaning the phone table but not the phone.

To say this experience was an expensive disappointment is a bit of an understatement. I have never used a service before, and I'm sure there are great ones out there, but if you're doing construction and are looking to deep clean your home, stay AWAY from Miracle Maids.

www.thedreamclean.com - Dream Clean Maid Service

I assume they serve Brooklyn and not just Manhattan, but Oxford Maids is great.