this place is neither as horrible or as fine as the above comments suggest. this place — as my great-grandmother used to say — will at best "do in a pinch."

$31.50 an hour? I'm a college graduate, who's been in the TV business for over ten years and I'm not making that kind of money. Insane.

That's a crazy amount of money. Just ask around your neighborhood/social circle and you'll find someone for a much more reasonable price. You'll be supporting someone better than whomever NYMag has determined is "in" to have clean your space. And you can form a better relationship/trust. Most of the people that I know in my neighborhood pay less than half, love and trust their cleaning person, and aren't getting involved in the garbage that it sounds like at least some of you are.

well... you get what you pay for, (or sometimes not ) truthfully, if it were something not worth paying for, we'd all do it without question. but it's really a lame time consuming task that no-one wants to do. same with moving. the real problem is that i hear the stories of broken stuff, missing stuff and rising costs, and well, it makes me cringe just enough to know that i need to do it myself whether i want to or not. hell, i decorated it myself, i should be able to handle cleaning it myself. whatevah!

Sigh. Good help is sooo hard to find, isn't it?

College graduates don't make that kind of money.
The owner gets most of the money and probably pays slave wages to the cleaners who don't speak or understand english,
Do they really need a car service to get to you when there is great and cheap public transporttion?

New York is full of great cleaners for much less money.

it has nothing to do with whether or not you went to college - if you are in the service industry (or any industry really) you charge what you think your services are worth to the people you hire you. To me, hiring someone for $30 an hour to clean my apartment is completely worth it... why? Because I don't want to do it!

That said, I've never used Little Elves, so no opinion there. Just find someone you like and trust and stick with them. Hopefully if they're unavailable in a pinch they can recommend someone else.

I used them once years ago, and they did a nice job.

However I was shocked by the bill. I don't remember the exact amount, but it was like $100-200 MORE than I expected b/c they charged some sort of fee (that I wasn't told about) for transportation & bringing supplies. Very upsetting.

After having read Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, I will never, ever use a cleaning agency. There is no guarantee that the owner is paying the people who do the actual work a living wage or providing them with decent working conditions. Seriously, do what it takes to find an independent person to do your cleaning. You know that they are their own boss and that the money you pay is going in their pocket. And in NYC, an excellent house cleaner should be making about $20/hour... 1/3 less than that ridiculous rate of $31.50.

I use Murphy Maids, $65 for 4 hours and I usually tip on top of that. I've had a few duds over the years but most of the cleaners have been really good.

When my girlfriend and I unexpectedly had to move to the West Coast, we had a very short time to find a buyer for our condo in HK. We had half our lives in boxes when we decided we needed to hold an open house. Problem is, we both had to work that day. I remember chuckling at the name when I went online to research cleaners. I called, and talking directly to Barbara (the owner who must be in her 60s and still helms the ship) had me sold in minutes. She was super sweet and funny and said they would come in before we left for work that day and they'd have it showroom ready by the time we got home. The crew was on time that day, listened intently to our concerns, and sure enough, when we got home with only an hour before guests started to arrive, our home looked like a model. They even rearranged the half-populated shelves to make them look intentional. And all of our boxes were tucked neatly out of sight. I truly felt like they had treated our home and special need as if it were their own. Worth every cent.

OVERCHARGED! they come to your apartment and inspect the job. they give you a quote based on the inspection. then they charge an additional $200. if you pay them the quoted amount, they just charge your credit card anyway which is unethical. the cleaning was ok by the way. i might have used them again if not for the unethical business practice.