happy cleaners vs. other two cleaners? opinions please!

prospectplacegirl · January 2007

question

i went to happy cleaners to get a number of things done.. alterations, cleaning, etc, and it wasnt cheap. but i was more upset to get home and find tags on them that said "no clean, alteration only" after paying an insane amount that should have totally covered the alterations WITH cleaning.

that being said, from experience, which cleaners between park and prospect on vandy seem to be the least expensive? between Caree, the one next to muddy waters, and the Happy cleaners?

or if there is another that i can walk to within a blocks radius, ill go there too...but want to know of your experiences with these three since i pass them everyday, and are the most convenient for me to get to.

thank'y!

apollonia666 · January 2007

Happy Cleaners is evil evil evil!

Last year they lost ALL my bras and then, after a month of excuses and delays on their part and repeated phone calls on my part, finally agreed to reimburse me, but only offered a downright insulting pittance. I don't remember what it was -- something like $5 or $7 each.

But worse:

Brooklyn Papers
April 10, 2004

Mom: Landlord poisoned, evicted us
By Jotham Sederstrom
The Brooklyn Papers

A Dyker Heights mother whose four children may be suffering serious health effects from exposure to toxic chemicals emanating from their landlordâ€™s dry cleaning business has a new headache â€” heâ€™s evicting her.

Jennifer Reid says she withheld the $1,200-a-month rent for two months after complaining about the dry cleaning chemicals filling her home. She received notice this month to pack her bags after complaining of the toxic draft, which Department of Environmental Protection officials say hovered 200 times above the cityâ€™s accepted levels.

She lives with her mother, husband and their children next door to the business on the second-floor of a building on 74th Street at 13th Avenue. Calvin Jiang, her landlord and owner of Happy Cleaners, on 13th Avenue at 74th Street, has been under investigation by officials from at least three city and state agencies, as well as Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The attorney general last month agreed to look into allegations that the business was leaking the chemical perchloroethylene, commonly known as â€œperc,â€ into nearby apartments.

Doctors from the Mount Sinai Medical Center Pediatric Environmental Health unit told Reid that the chemical was found in high dosages in her childrenâ€™s urine. All four of Reidâ€™s children, ranging in age from 4 months to 6 years, were treated at Mount Sinai hospital on April 1, the same day the eviction notice arrived by certified mail.

â€œThose were very high, much higher than what weâ€™ve seen in other residential exposures,â€ Dr. Nathan Graber told The Bay Ridge Paper, referring to the childrenâ€™s urine samples. â€œThis is one of the highest weâ€™ve ever seen.â€
...

This isn't the entire story; I didn't paste the whole thing so as to not take up a huge amount of space. But you can read it all in this PDF.

Evil!

veggiequeen · January 2007

I've had good luck w/ Caree. They seem reasonable, but I don't get much dry cleaning done (only sweaters and quilts).

poot · January 2007

We use Claudine's weekly. Sorry I can't comment on price because that's the only cleaners we've used; first shot was a winner. I am not sure if the cleaning is done on premises or sent out, but I don't care because she - if that is in fact Claudine who is always behind the counter - is awfully nice and does an excellent job on the duds.

withachaser · January 2007

i've been using carees for the past 5 years or so for dry cleaning and alterations and have found both consistently meet my expectations and with prompt and courteous service. can't vouch for prices, but i am sure they are in line with the 'nabe. prior to them, i used the place on flatbush next to natural land and still use them for leather repair.

i tried happy thrice and was FAR from it when i got my dry cleaning back, after waiting a half hour for them to find it and figure out how to charge me each time.

pensodyssey · January 2007

Happy sucks.

Caree is good for cleaning, okay for alterations, and pretty close to sloppy on repairs.

veggiequeen · January 2007

I wasn't happy with any of their alterations. Sometimes cleaners should just be cleaners and tailors should just be tailors.

alafairnadia · January 2007

I know a guy who lives way out in flatbush who drives to Vandy to use Caree. how? I work with him and he spotted me there once. I told him that I only use Caree for pants alterations and cleaning of 'complicated" things like my comforter or leather.

for my shirts and slacks, I use the happy cleaners on washington btwn sterling & st. johns. the owner is awesome.

herrick · January 2007

Claudine is WONDERFUL!! she know's us by name. HEr work is excellent. She has offeered to help me carry large loads home (I have declined) and she's offered to have someone pick stuff up when she know i'm really busy. (I also decline). I can't say enough about her service and we've tried a few of the others. The guys next to the Met (closer to the park) ruined a few shirts by ironing over buttons and they were never quite the same.

apollonia666 · January 2007

alafairnadia wrote: for my shirts and slacks, I use the happy cleaners on washington btwn sterling & st. johns. the owner is awesome.

I'm guessing he or she is a manager instead; Happy's owner is the guy I posted about. He owns all the Happy Cleaners with the blue signs and the smilies in Brooklyn.

alafairnadia · January 2007

apollonia666 wrote: [quote=alafairnadia]for my shirts and slacks, I use the happy cleaners on washington btwn sterling & st. johns. the owner is awesome.

I'm guessing he or she is a manager instead; Happy's owner is the guy I posted about. He owns all the Happy Cleaners with the blue signs and the smilies in Brooklyn.

oh, that makes me sad. she's the wife (I think) of the dude who does the laundry at Ali's (LeRoy is his name, I believe)

apollonia666 · January 2007

alafairnadia wrote: [quote=apollonia666][quote=alafairnadia]for my shirts and slacks, I use the happy cleaners on washington btwn sterling & st. johns. the owner is awesome.

I'm guessing he or she is a manager instead; Happy's owner is the guy I posted about. He owns all the Happy Cleaners with the blue signs and the smilies in Brooklyn.

oh, that makes me sad. she's the wife (I think) of the dude who does the laundry at Ali's (LeRoy is his name, I believe)

Some of the managers are *really* nice people; it's unfortunate they work for such a douchebag. The manager at the location that lost all my bras, over on 4th Avenue, was the sweetest lady ever. Didn't make it any better when I had to deal with her boss, though. And she clearly felt bad about the whole thing and was really uncomfortable being stuck in the middle, having to relay obvious bullshit from him to me, etc. I ended up speaking directly with him over the phone a couple of times and he was clearly the one who was being a jerk in the whole situation.

sushipants · January 2007

Claudine gave me some of the rudest customer service I've ever had. I took a piece in to get fixed, paid, and was told it would be ready two weeks later (seemed like a long time to me). Went to get it two weeks later, and it was almost ruined by how badly it was "fixed". She sent it back to her sub-contractor, and it came back two weeks later even more badly ruined. At that point I asked for my money back and she said no, that it wasn't her fault. I'm incredibly stubborn, so I demanded she return it three more times until it was finally done right. She yelled at me each time I returned and acted like she'd done me a massive freaking favor when it was finally fixed after two months of my begging. My new favorite Prospect Heights game is sitting on the bench outside Joyce drinking a nice cup of coffee and dreaming of the business that will one day replace hers.

homeowner · January 2007

I've used Claudine for several years now, and have never had bad service from her. In fact, my experience has mirrored Herrick and Poot in that she's always gone out of her way to be helpful and has never been rude towards me or my family.

prospectplacegirl · January 2007

I'm incredibly stubborn, so I demanded she return it three more times until it was finally done right. She yelled at me each time I returned and acted like she'd done me a massive freaking favor when it was finally fixed after two months of my begging. My new favorite Prospect Heights game is sitting on the bench outside Joyce drinking a nice cup of coffee and dreaming of the business that will one day replace hers.

wow. you sound very angry.... :oops:

sarahb · January 2007

Oh, Caree --

Caree was fine for the first few years I used them, but then they f-ed up 2 of my white jackets (you think I would have learned after the first). A white linen blazer came back with a hole (an actual hole!) where a spot had been. A year later, another white blazer came back discolored brown-ish with whatever they use to do the cleaning. I had to take it back twice to get it white again, and it is still not like it was. Plus there was the time when they did an alteration a pair of pants that just flat-out fell out.

Yet, I stay in my relationship with Caree. They are close, friendly, and I keep hoping they won't f-up again. Sigh.

sushipants · January 2007

ProspectPlaceGirl wrote:
I'm incredibly stubborn, so I demanded she return it three more times until it was finally done right. She yelled at me each time I returned and acted like she'd done me a massive freaking favor when it was finally fixed after two months of my begging. My new favorite Prospect Heights game is sitting on the bench outside Joyce drinking a nice cup of coffee and dreaming of the business that will one day replace hers.
wow. you sound very angry.... :oops:

Not in general I'm not . . . it's just that remembering this made my blood pressure go up a bit. It was an insignificant thing in the scope of the universe, but it was very upsetting at the time to be met with such overt hostility and now her store-front always reminds me of being treated badly. Happy to hear others have had better service.

sterlingguy · January 2007

Subject: Happy v. Caree

Repeating some of the comments already made, I will also say that Happy sucks (they ripped my best suit and denied it) and Caree has been only good to me for both dry cleaning and alterations.

emily · January 2007

We've actually had some repairs and alterations done by Caree that I thought were good. I sew, so I'm often having to make a decision of whether I should do things myself or send them to Caree. They're cheap enough that I usually give them anything more complicated than hemming.

happy cleaners vs. other two cleaners? opinions please!

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