#we took her platform out for cleaning and maintenance etc | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

anneedmonsonus · 4 years

Text

A House Clean by Fantastic Services Review (and WIN a Clean!)

Have you ever had a house so messy you feel like you are going to scream? If that’s never been you, I envy you. (And how are you managing to achieve this?)

While we have had numerous fantastic once-off cleans and had a terrific weekly cleaner back when our first-born was a baby, for the past couple of years we haven’t had a cleaner. Unsurprisingly, with two kids now (and a hairy dog) our house also gets messier than ever.

I really don’t know why I get so stubborn and weird about hiring a cleaner, to be honest. In my mind I’m like – “Well, I’m at home, I’m lucky enough to work from home, too, we’ve got a Roomba too, surely I can manage to stay on top of the cleaning?” Or I think about how much hiring a cleaner costs, and I think, “Oh, for x amount of money we could put that away or do y, surely I can just bang out cleaning the bathrooms while the baby is having her nap.”

But then without fail, EVERY week I am exhausted from juggling two little kids and a job (not to mention cooking, cleaning, a dog and exercise).

To be quite honest, not so long ago, when Little Nerd was four and Miss Nerd was 18 months, we were in a spate of horrible 40-degree days, and I’d nearly had a meltdown at the state of our house and garden and my hubby (away on a job at the time) had suggested I hire someone just to come do a once-off clean. However, it was such an unsatisfactory experience it made me even more stubborn about “I can clean my own house myself!” This is what happened: a couple of friends suggested I use a fairly well-known site where you can advertise any sort of job that you need doing, write a little description of the task, share some photos, and state how much you’re happy to pay for it. Then you choose from the people who put their hand up. I put up an ad asking for someone to clean just our two bathrooms and vacuum and mop the floors; no need for them to do the kitchen or dusting. I picked a lady who said she had a professional cleaning business and had five star reviews, and arranged for her to come in first thing in the morning that weekend. She came in with her vacuum cleaner and tools and I took the kids and dog down to the river for a playdate, knowing that in our smaller house it would be easier for her to get the job done without them underfoot. I came home and the first thing I noticed was the floor. Small clods of matted, dog hair were stuck all over the floors. They’d obviously been wettened and now were drying and sticking to the floor. I can’t lie – I was miffed (and annoyed). I remember the cleaner had carried in her vacuum with her, but oddly, she started mopping just as I had herded the kids out of the house. I had dumbly just thought, ‘That’s strange and different, maybe that’s her method and she will vacuum and re-mop later after she’s done the bathrooms?’

I messaged her. “The bathrooms are spotless, but did you actually vacuum?” “Oh, no I didn’t vacuum, I just used the mop to pick up the dog hair,” came the reply. Who on earth – especially as a professional cleaner – thinks you can pick up dog hair with a wet mop? Even I, a cleaning rookie, know that’s a no-no. I sent the photos of the clods of not-picked-up dog hair, and can’t remember what I wrote back but let’s be honest it was probably something wildly passive aggressive. “Oh that does look bad doesn’t it?” came the reply to my photos of hair stuck all over the floors and to chair legs. Yes, it did. She did apologise, and offered to come back to “do the floors properly” during the week, but honestly, I just wanted it done properly the first time. I was so annoyed and just getting my two out of the house in the morning, at that time, was a mission and a half that normally resulted in shouting and tears (theirs, mostly, mine, sometimes). I vacuumed up the dog hair myself and vowed never to use that website again. I know, I know. It’s such a totally privileged first world problem (“the cleaner didn’t clean properly”) but I can’t lie, I was so tired at that time, and I was cross – that niggling feel when you feel like you have been nice (and had paid her promptly via the site without even seeing the house first) and had been taken advantage of.

So we just went on without a cleaner, me boring EVERYONE with the story of the cleaner who didn’t, stubbornly running myself ragged every day trying to keep up with the house, two little kids, a dog, cooking and a job, so intent that, “I can do it all myself.”

But the thing is, whenever I DO try to do it all myself – the cleaning, the gardening, the cooking-from-scratch – I feel like I end up sacrificing other things – like my own sanity and wellbeing. Like yeah, I might be ABLE to scrub my bathroom, but the whole time Miss Nerd will be whining or crying for my attention, and by the time the job is done we’re both stressed and unhappy. Really, rather than scrubbing the shower, I would rather be spending my weekend time pottering around with the kids in the garden or taking them out on a playdate – something we all enjoy. Something that fills my cup and theirs. I know from having had great house cleans that there is something great for your wellbeing when you have a clean, shiny house to live in.

That was when Fantastic Services, who pride themselves as being a sort of one-stop platform for people to book all kinds of home cleaning and maintenance services, emailed to ask if they could gift me a house spring clean or some other sort of service in return for a review on House Nerd. I had sinusitis at the time and felt like death on toast. However, you might be surprised to learn that I actually still hesitated – so put off was I by my experience with that other-website-we-shall-not-name!

Then I looked around at the current hovel that was my home, and realised I was guilty of tarring one with the same brush. After a closer inspection of the Fantastic Services website, I felt much more confident about responding with an excited, slightly desperate, “YES PLEASE” because I could see that they worked with only legit, approved cleaning businesses and specialists.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Their services don’t run to just house cleaning, by the way, they cover all kinds of things from pressure washing, carpet cleaning, gardening and odd jobs, etc. Price-wise for house cleaning, they are not the cheapest, but also not the most expensive I’ve come across either. Their hourly one-off cleaning rate is $45 per cleaner per hour without any discounts; for Fantastic Club members, who receive discounts and special offers, their fee is $41 per cleaner per hour. We had two cleaners for three hours which came to a little below $300 (we have a three bedroom, two bathroom house with no carpets). With the oven clean, it came to a little over $500 (we have a double oven). They list their prices for each type of service on their website to minimise any hidden surprises or time wasting, which I thought was good (you can see their prices here).

The cleaners came (two of them) and they were polite, professional and friendly. While they cleaned, I took Nala and the kids out for a play in the morning, then went to my mum’s, put the baby down, went for a nice long walk with Nala and my sister along the river and grabbed a takeaway coffee at one of my favourite cafes before returning home. Like, an ideal Saturday.

Fantastic Services had organised for our house to have a spring clean as well as an oven clean, something I’d never had before. Oven cleaning is another one of those household tasks where I’m always like, “I can do it myself.” Well, let me tell you. I have NEVER cleaned our oven to that standard. It looked like brand new. I don’t know what kind of voodoo they did to our oven but it absolutely sparkled. I was so impressed. Now I totally see why people spend money to get their ovens cleaned professionally.

The bathrooms were spotless, the floors were clean, the windows glowed and looked like they didn’t even have panes of glass in them. They had never been so clean in their window lives. I cannot even explain how even three weeks later, the windows have sort of STAYED cleaner than they have all those times I’ve painstakingly Karchered them myself (again, some sort of amazing cleaning repelling voodoo? These cleaners clearly knew tricks I didn’t). The house smelt pleasantly like eucalyptus oil (the cleaners Fantastic Services organised for my house prefer natural cleaning methods).

One of the fantastic Fantastic Services cleaners. KIDDING. It’s just my child slave, doing his favourite job.

After a hectic fortnight, I cannot explain to you how nice it was to have a proper Saturday, then sit back that night to a nice-smelling, freshly cleaned house – I didn’t even want to mess up the kitchen, so I treated myself to takeaway. It sounds so weird that a house clean would be my Saturday night ‘treat of choice’ as an adult in my 30s (I can see early 20s Maya shaking her head in sad disbelief at her future self) but trust me. Who needs flowers or chocolates or a massage? A super-clean house feels so very good. I felt so quietly relaxed. I have 2.2 kids, a marriage and a mortgage – but it’s having my house cleaned that makes me feel like I am A Real Mature Adult.

I’m thinking now of hiring someone through the site to pressure-wash our garden path – again, one of those tasks I could really do myself, if I wanted to – but sometimes it’s just nicer to stop trying to ‘do it all’ and take the pressure off. Er, no pun intended.

Thanks to Fantastic Services for gifting us this clean! If you register to join the Fantastic Club at this link (you must use this link!) and use the referral code ‘housenerd’, you’ll get a $20 credit to use off a clean or service. You can follow them too on Instagram @fantasticservices or Facebook.

WIN! A HOUSE CLEAN, DEEP OVEN CLEAN OR OTHER SERVICE FOR YOUR HOME – WITH A $200 FANTASTIC SERVICES VOUCHER

Have something around the house you’d love to have done for you? Whether you’re craving sparkling clean windows, your bathrooms need scrubbing or you would love your crusty oven brought back from the brink, you can win a $200 Fantastic Services voucher to spend on or put towards your dream home service. Leave home (if you can), relax a little and come back to a cleaner house.

All you have to be doing is follow Fantastic Services on Instagram @fantasticservices or Facebook and leave a comment below saying what you’d love to have done below. Don’t use social media? Let me know in your comment and don’t forget to include your email (not published) so I can contact you if you win!

Good luck!

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

● We provide a $200 worth voucher that can be used towards cleaning services from Fantastic Services. ● Won service to be delivered by three months from the draw. ● Valid for Sydney, Melbourne and Perth residents ONLY. ● Winners must be following Fantastic Services Instagram or Facebook account at the time of the prize draw. ● T&C and minimum charges apply. ● The prize does not have a cash equivalent and cannot be exchanged for another service. ● Prize cannot be regifted. ● If chosen service/s price exceeds voucher value, it is the client’s responsibility to cover the difference. ● Cannot be combined with any other deals and promotions. ● Subject to availability. ● Must be 18 years old to participate. ● If the won prize is not claimed by 48 hours after contacting the winner, a new winner will be drawn.

Competition drawn 11am Sunday September 13th.

The post A House Clean by Fantastic Services Review (and WIN a Clean!) appeared first on House Nerd.

from Home Improvement https://house-nerd.com/2020/08/18/win-a-house-clean/

0 notes

thegreatestapp-blog · 6 years

Text

Targets Users + Observations/Interviews

Target User 1

Age range (19-25)

Background: Full-time college student w/ a part-time/full-time job

Occupation: Student, or intern, or working at retail/restaurant

Computer Experience: Tech-savvy.

Target User 2

Age range (30-50)

Background: Parent w/ teenagers

Occupation: Full time parent, Full time job, Part time job

Computer Experience: Relative knowledge

Target User 3

Age Range (13-18)

Background: Adolescent living with parents

Occupation: Full-time High School student involved in extracurricular activities

Computer Experience: Tech-savvy.

Interview 1

The individual interviewed for this task was a 23-year-old male who currently works as a software developer for a small company. I selected this particular individual because his credentials reach our target demographic of relatively tech-savvy twenty-somethings. Furthermore, a task in which I placed this certain individual was one in which they had to attempt to contact a friend online to discuss plans about the upcoming week.

First, the user proceeded to obtain his mobile device and launch the Facebook Messenger application from his cell phone’s main interface. The individual remarked, “The messenger app lays out recent conversations with relevant friends, so that it’s able to clearly indicate to me which person I would like to talk to… In this case I’ll select [name retracted].” Afterwards, the user then hovered his index finger towards the top of the screen towards the application’s search bar, remarking that “located at the very top of the app, I’ll click search and type in [name retracted], and find him with relative ease.” From that point, the user was “greeted by another window.” The interface encountered was a simple: a basic textbox, easily accessible emoticon features; additionally, an icon indicating access for camera usage. In this case, the user interviewed was not motivated to type out a message; instead, decided to send a voice message. In order to accomplish that, the user advanced his index finger towards a microphone icon near the application’s text. The user then held the button for a while, asked a question vocally towards the phone’s microphone input; then, released his finger as soon as he was done recording. As soon as the user let go, the voice message was immediately sent. The user then faced me and stated:

The app indicates that it’s sent via attachment of a blue circle with a white checkmark on it placed next to your voice message text bubble. Once a circular icon representing the recipient’s Facebook profile picture moves down to where my text bubble is, and erases the original blue circle, I am now notified that he has read my message.

Successfully completing the original task at hand, I then concluded the observation by asking numerous questions; based off of the answers I received from the user, I was able to conclude that there are opportunities for integration from other applications that would satisfy user needs in regards to Communicate:

· Q; If you were older, how do you think such application would confuse a user?

o A: If I were older, and was used to using the desktop version of Facebook, I would be really confused by the function of the enter key. As the enter key allows me to send a message immediately on the desktop version, it does the opposite on the mobile application. Rather than sending the message, it only creates new paragraphs in the text box.

· Q: Do you frequently use Facebook the most, out of every other social media platform?

o A: Yes, however I don’t frequent other social media other than Facebook.

· Q: Has there been any experience of Facebook Messenger being reliable, or frustrating?

o A: Frustrating… Facebook made it mandatory to download their messenger app, when it was already integrated into the actual Facebook app itself. It made me angry because I felt it wasn’t necessary to download another app when it was already built in to the original one. However, since my account is already linked, it’s reliable. I wouldn’t have downloaded it if it wasn’t associated with Facebook, though.

· Q: How can developers of newer messenger apps encounter the problem with recipients being passive towards other users. For instance, the goal of our main startup for class?

o A: I believe an application like Facebook messenger could borrow and integrate features from Microsoft Outlook, as it has task and calendar features that allow users to answer yes, or no, towards certain events. Thus, this would enable recipients to actually acknowledge the user sending the tasks, rather than ignoring them.

Interview 2

Age Range (13-18)

Background: Adolescent living with parents

Occupation: Full-time High School student involved in extracurricular activities

Computer Experience: Tech-savvy

I spoke with my friend’s seventeen-year-old brother Sam who is in high school.

We were having a conversation about music, so I asked him to share a note that he had on his phone that was a list of albums he wanted to listen to.

So the task in this scenario is sharing a list of information between two people on cell phones.

TASK:

- Sam opens notes app on his iPhone.

- He scrolls through all his notes.

- He finds the right note.

- His initial reaction is to copy all the text from note and then paste it into a text message, but then he realizes that there is a feature in the notes app to share the note over the iPhone Messenger (texting) app.

- He shares the note to me.

- We then realize that even though we are both iPhone users who have the Notes app, all the share feature does is copy and paste the list into a text message sent to me.

He said that the fact it just copied the list instead of sharing the note was disappointing. It was something we were both surprised about.

He said he could see situations where a list-sharing app would be useful, but he doesn’t know if he would particularly download it on his own accord.

Interview 3

I interviewed a 21-year-old female who currently works as a tutor for preschoolers through DePaul Jumpstart. She also babysits for families and participates in fashion events. I chose this individual because she meets our criteria for our college-aged target audience. She’s very busy, her schedule is hectic, and her roommates are also on irregular schedules. It’s in our best interest to observe an individual in this type of setting in order to help them improve communication in the household.

I asked the user to show me what she does when she communicates with her roommates. She immediately opened up her Facebook Messenger app and her group chat with her roommates was the second one from the list (proving they constantly communicate via messenger). When she opened the group chat one of her roommates had sent a message about dirty dishes about an hour ago. No one had responded to her message. The message complained about people allowing dishes to pile up, and the food that’s left on the sink. The user took the initiative to respond to the complaint. User seemed to know what to say right away without thinking too much about it. She agreed about the dirty dishes situation and added that people shouldn’t make it hard by leaving gross dishes. After responding to the complaint, she sent a message to the group about maintenance coming in Monday from 2-6pm for the washer since it flooded downstairs. The user double checked for spelling errors before sending the messages.

Q: How do things run around here?

I am usually the one in charge of making sure everything is being taken care of in our home. I send reminders about when the rents due; I look out for maintenance and finances. I also created a chores chart for everyone. All of my roommates say I’m the mom of the house. We use Facebook Messenger to communicate. I really like how it lets me know when someone has read my message.

Q: How about when it comes to buying things for the house? Like cleaning supplies, etc.

We have a rule that someone has to spend $5 at least on something for the kitchen. As for toilet paper, it depends on the floor you’re on. I usually just take toilet paper from the student center since its right on the corner.

Q: Do you find FB messenger to be effective for communicating with roommates? Why or why not?

Yes. You can send a message and you can add thumbs up to the message as a way to let them know you agree, or you’re on it. It’s also very helpful how you can call people out by tagging them on the message.

Q: Are there communication issues in your home?

No. We tend to understand one another and communicate effectively about what needs to get done and what our rules are.

Q: Can you think of any features that can make certain aspects easier?

It would be nice to set up reminders and events to reinforce what needs to be done. Such as maintenance coming over Monday. Also, a notes section on the reminder would be helpful. That way I can include what they need to tell the maintenance guy when he comes over.

Q: You mentioned earlier that you’re the one in charge of many things such as reminding others when the rent is due, keeping up with finances, maintenance, etc. Can you think of specific features for those who are in charge of the household?

I currently write all of the financial stuff in a little notebook. So maybe something about finances can be helpful on the app. Finance reminders would be nice since I have the extra responsibility of having to remind everyone when the rents due every single month.

Q: Let’s say you come home one night and you find a HUGE mess in the kitchen? What is your approach to this?

I will approach them in person if they are home. If not, I will send a message on the group chat confronting the issue. Although, I do feel like telling them face-to-face is better because the issue can get solved then and there.

Before observing and interviewing this user I didn’t consider the idea of adding specific features for users that are in charge of home maintenance. There are households out there where there is one person who’s in charge of collecting rent, finances, etc. It will be very helpful to consider these users in order to ease the extra work they do. It was nice to see how much this user enjoys FB messenger itself for communicating with her roommates. We can apply some of the beneficial features from messenger onto our design. Consistency helps users navigate through a new app easily. Although the user seemed to find Messenger sufficient, she still expressed some needs, such as: reminders, events, and notes. The user feels as if this will help take some responsibility off her hands.

The user showed me the chores chart she created. She has an interesting system behind it. The chore is displayed in the middle and the names are aligned to the left. Once the chore has been completed, they move their name to the right (completed) side. I found this to be very inspiring for our app and I’m hoping to implement something similar.

Interview 4

Age range (30-50)

Background: a mother of 5 with a husband

Occupation: Full time parent, Full time job

Computer Experience: Relative knowledge

Children ages: 22,21,18,13,4

I talked to my friends mother and I asked a couple questions and asked her to complete a task for me.

I asked her to show me how she reached out to her oldest children when she needs something at home and she was to buy to buy it.

I first asked her a couple of questions before we got to the task.

Do you usually do all the groceries and chores at home?

Yes and No, I usually do most of the groceries and chores but when I can’t I get my oldest children to do it or my youngest when they get home from school.

How often do you depend on your oldest and youngest kids to accomplish things?

I depend on my children a lot when it comes to finishing things up or taking a quick run to the grocery store. Only because sometimes I forget things or just don’t have enough time to get them or do them, my husband isn’t much help since he works and comes home just to sleep.

How do you reach your children when you need something accomplished at home?

I either leave a note at the door or tell my oldest to do it, if she can’t I’ll tell her to tell the rest.

Can you recall the last time you asked your child to do something at home?

Yes today I asked my daughter to get milk and mexican sweet bread because I forgot this morning.

Was it done?

No, I had to go the next day.

Can you tell me the exact process you went through that time?

I told my oldest through text to get milk and bread

Then I asked her to show me how she would usually react out to all her kids if she needed something done.and she replied that she couldn't go because she worked late but she would tell the rest. She later told me someone would do it but when I got home there was no milk or bread.

We later talked about her frustrations on how she can never really know if what she asked for was done because she’s at work and cant be on her phone much.

0 notes