With a tagline like that, you’ve GOT to hear this story.

From the files of “Dave, this can only happen to you,” I promise not to exaggerate the following account…

I see quite a few condos, week to week, day to day, and one of the biggest potential differences between Condo-A and Condo-B is the presence or lack of a concierge.

Some people love concierges because they make life easier.  They open doors, accept packages, direct your guests, and of course – provide security.

Some people hate concierges because they are the single largest expense any condominium corporation can incur, and as a result, your maintenance fees are higher.

My building at 112 George Street has a concierge, and for the most part, the staff is fantastic.

However, an incident occurred last week that still has me feeling a little…..naked…

I was in the shower one morning – around 8:45am, minding my own business.

I believe I was rinsing out the Pert Plus (same shampoo for 20 years; guys – give a shout-out if you rock the PP), and just about to make my move to the Dove bar, when all of a sudden, I heard a voice.  No, it wasn’t that voice inside my head that says, “Kill people – kill them all,” but rather an actual, real voice coming from my bedroom.

“Hellooooooo,” the voice said, not in the form of a question, but rather a statement.  The voice wasn’t saying, “Hello?” like, “are you there?”  But rather “Hello.”  Period.  As if to say “I am here.”

I stuck my head out of the shower, and since I thought I was alone, I didn’t close the bathroom door, and a woman – a total stranger, was standing in my bedroom.

“This is it,” I thought to myself.  “This is my Kathy Bates moment.  I don’t know who this woman is, but she is clearly here to end me.  Well, I’ve had a good life…”

“Hello?” I shouted, somewhat startled, as anybody would be.  “Who are you?”

“I am the cleaning lady,” she said.  “We’re here.”

WE?

Who else is here?

I said, “Can you give me a minute?” as the Pert Plus dripped down my head and into my eyes, somewhat obscuring my vision as I tried to squint my way toward identifying this stranger.

“Take your time,” she said, as if she was doing me the favour!

I jumped out of the shower and put a towel over myself, but I was far too stunned and much too concerned to put on anything other than a towel.

Dripping wet, I walked through the bedroom and into the living room, and there was the most bizarre thing seen in quite some time: FOUR complete strangers, standing in my kitchen.

“Hello,” they said, one at a time, in varying accents.

My eyes widened, “What the hell is going on here?”

They took turns shooting looks at me, and each other, looks of utter confusion.

“We are the cleaning ladies,” they said, with authority, and questioning my concern.

“WHO….are you?  What….the heck…..what is going on?  What are you doing here?”

They smiled, laughed, and in answer to my obvious question, they said, “We’re here to clean the condo!”

One of the ladies was actually scrubbing my kitchen sink, and they had bags upon bags of cleaning supplies and rags, so I figured either they were great actors in what was undoubtedly a scam, or they genuinely thought they were here to clean!

“I can see that you are cleaning ladies, right, I know.  But who sent you?”

“You did,” one of the ladies replied.

“No, no, no.  I didn’t send you.  I have no idea who you are.  What are you doing here?  How did you get in?”

That’s when one of the ladies produced a key, in an envelope, marked “112 George Street, Unit XX.”

I was so confused.

“Who did you speak to?  I mean, who hired you?” I asked.

“You did, sir.  Through the website.  With the voucher.  Or your wife?  Girlfriend?”

Now, they were asking me questions.  Now, they seemed less sure.

“No, I didn’t.  My fiancée and I have a cleaning lady – her name is Jenny, and she comes every other Friday.  I didn’t hire you, neither did my fiancée, and I have no idea why you have that key.”

They looked disappointed and said, “We have that key because you left it for us – to clean your condo!”

I asked them, “Which condo are you here to clean today?”  One of them said, “This one.”

I asked again, “No, no, which condo number – which unit number?  What address?” I couldn’t believe I was even having this discussion!  I said, “Tell me – what condo number is this?”  Not one of them could respond.

So the eldest of the ladies, who seemed to be in charge explained, “We went to the concierge and said that we were here to clean a condo at 112 George Street, and we asked him if there was a key left for us.  He reached into his drawer, and he gave us that envelope.”

Aaaaah, I see.

So basically, these women were hired by somebody in my building – one of several hundred people, and these women did not write down the unit number, the name of the person who hired them, or basically ANY of the pertinent information required to successfully complete the job.

Then, they showed up at my building, and simply told the concierge, “We’re here to clean!”

The concierge, in his infinite wisdom, gave them the first and only key he could find, without following any sort of protocol, or even calling me!

These women were handed the key to my condo, and I was never even notified.

Worst case scenario: they steal everything I own.

Best case scenario: they clean the hell out of my condo!

I told the ladies, “Look, as much as I’d love to get a free condo cleaning here today, you’re in the wrong unit, and somebody in this building paid good money for your services.  I suggest you call your boss, or whoever sent you, and have that person figure this out.”

Amazingly, one of the women said, “Okay, we’ll do that.  Here’s our card though – in case you ever need your place cleaned!”

Right.

As if I’m going to hire four women who are so clueless that they show up to the wrong unit in attempts to clean for the wrong client.

I locked the door as soon as they left, and tried to make sense of what had just happened.

There’s something very scary about a concierge who hands out keys to your condo without doing any due diligence.  If a man dressed up as a Rogers Cable technician and said, “There should be a key for some unit somewhere in this building,” would the concierge let the guy into people’s units?

The fact that I was soaping up my…….legs, in the shower, when some complete stranger walked into my bedroom was a bit violating.  I’m a pretty confident guy, and I’m not overly concerned with safety, but that was a little scary to me!

Out goes one security company in our building, and in comes another.

Does anything really change?

Don’t get me wrong – in order to get a visitor parking pass, they need the licence number, make, model, style, and year of the car, but what good does that do when they’ll let four cleaning ladies into your condo at 9am on a weekday?