First John tried to charge me more than the Craigslist ad (.35/sf vs .30/sf). After I showed him the printout, he was ok. Then he asked if I wanted the "deep cleaning and grout sealer". I was confused. It's either clean or it's not clean ... it's tile and grout. So I said no to the up-sell. The grout sealer I understand.
The job was 435 s.f. of light tile with beige grout in an empty rectangular space. They pre-treated with a soapy/acid solution, then scrubbed the grout with a stainless steel brush. They then used a carpet cleaning machine ... ie a "squirt and suck" nozzle. There was no mechanical scrubbing of any kind. I would assume cleaning tile requires something mechanical ... maybe that was the deep cleaning. I watched them work and noticed that both John and his helper occasionally missed areas and even a few grout lines around the fireplace.
Bottom line was that about 1/2 of the tiles ended up with a dirty film. I ended up on my hands and knees wiping them down. My white towel was pretty grungy when done. The dirtiest tiles were the ones toward the end of their job ... I can only assume they were in a hurry to finish. They also left large puddles of water throughout which I mopped up.
Originally, my grout had some dark stains (animal urine) and they did do a fair job on them ... but they're still noticeable (off-color). I'll attack them with muriatic acid (swimming pool acid) or baking soda later. What's funny is that their biz card says "High Pressure Steaming" ... the machine did squirt but I saw no evidence of steam.
I won't hire them again.