My Honest Review: Spic & Span

Spic & Span offers home & office cleaning services across Portugal.

Hey LIT fam,

Welcome to the first My Honest Review post. As promised I, the creator of Lisbon for International Travelers (LIT), will give you a first-person review of the services listed in the directory.

My first review is for Spic & Span Home & Office Cleaning. I found the company with a Google Search. The headline of having English-speaking cleaners stood out most to me. I have friends who hire cleaners at cheaper hourly rates, but I’m still learning Portuguese and didn’t want language to be a barrier.

However, the cleaners still struggled a bit with understanding me. I had to book two different cleaners (more on that later), and I had a hard time explaining what needed to be done around the apartment. She didn’t understand how to use my mop, and it was a pretty standard mop (not like a Swiffer Wetjet or anything). This first cleaner was probably shy, and I had to keep micromanaging her as she moved through each room. That kept me from doing my own work, and made the process more stressful than helpful :-(

I also booked Spic & Span for their mold removal services, but the first cleaner did not come with the necessary supplies to perform the task. I called the company’s customer service line three times and no one picked up. I literally sent an email in all caps saying CALL ME IMMEDIATELY before someone rang me back to discuss the mold issue. The representative acknowledged it was a mistake on their end to not prep the cleaner with supplies, so they offered to have a second cleaner come the next day solely for mold removal.

They almost charged me extra for this (THEY TRIED IT!) but after multiple emails back and forth they agreed to include the second cleaner within the budget I already booked services for. The second cleaner was kind, eager to ask questions/understand her assignment, and worked quickly to scrub my bathroom and kitchen walls. I was so happy with the results!

One minor annoyance: language was still a barrier with the second cleaner, although she was more fluent than her other colleague. I guess I shouldn’t hold that against them, because hey, I’m a foreigner in this country and I have yet to master their mother tongue. If anything, it’s pushing me harder to practice Portuguese as much as possible ;-)

In total, the entire cleaning took 2.5 hours across two days.

Overall rating:

Customer support - 3.5 out of 5 stars

Service delivery - 3 out of 5 stars (would be higher if the second cleaner came to me first)

Likelihood of recommending them again ( “0” being no, “5” being hell yes) - 3.8

Visit my site and filter by “Services” to get the company details.