Office staff say Surrey-based cleaning company Scrubbi has shut down

When Scrubbi operations clerk Harley Thompson got a text Tuesday morning saying the Surrey-based house cleaning company was shutting down, he wasn’t surprised.

“If you have issues with not being able to pay people to do the work for your company, it’s not a shock to me at all that it fell apart,” Thompson said.

For months, CTV News has been reporting on Scrubbi cleaning contractors who aren’t getting paid for work already done, issues the company’s owner blamed on a new payment system and problems at the bank.

“This has been going on for a while, and it was super stressful to have to try to help these people, because there wasn’t anything we could really do about it," said Thompson, who began working as a scheduler and liaison between the independent cleaners and head office last November.

"It was all the time, there were angry people who, rightfully so, were talking about how they weren’t getting paid. And it was tough because no one in my team could do anything about it.”

When he returned to headquarters to pick up his things after learning the company had folded on Tuesday, Thomson says he spoke to company CEO Daniel Deckert.

“He pulled me into the boardroom and gave me the talk, and said basically we are just shutting down business operations. It’s been 10 years but there is not a lot they could do to sustain business,” said Thompson.

While he’s out of a job, he says he’s more concerned about the cleaners who are still owed money.

“I don’t know if they’re going to get an apology from the company, but I would love to apologize to the cleaners. They put in so much hard work,” said Thompson. “I want them to know that the people in the office who they were talking to did genuinely care, and we did really try to make sure everything worked, but the pay stuff was out of our control.”

Former contractors aren’t the only ones who will be left chasing their money from Scrubbi, which had B.C. operations in Metro Vancouver, Victoria and the Interior.

“There are people that have weekly appointments pre-paid for a whole year ahead of time, and I don’t know what going to happen for them,” said Thompson. “It looks like the company doesn’t have any money to make them whole this point.”

CTV News wanted to ask Deckert how he will make contractors and clients whole, and why the Scrubbi website still appears to be accepting new bookings. He did not reply to an email, and the company’s toll free number went to voicemail.

“From the sounds of it, the money issues have been going on for a while,” said Thompson. “I would be surprised if everybody that is owed money is paid.”