Cleaning company agrees to refund disputed $85 surcharge in Madison settlement

Tidy Spruce Cleaning LLC agreed to refund Erin Bell the disputed $85 surcharge, resolving a cleaning-bill dispute brought in small claims court in Madison. Bell had sought the return of her entire $225 payment, with repayment of the surcharge as her minimum requested remedy. The recorded outcome is a settlement, not a judicial ruling on whether the extra charge was authorized.

The disagreement concerned how a $140 apartment-cleaning booking became a $225 bill. Bell said she never approved the additional charge; the company maintained that she authorized extra work during the visit. The settlement returns the contested addition while leaving the original $140 charge outside the refund.

The recorded terms set a deadline for repayment and provide for a complete release of claims arising from the cleaning and the disputed surcharge. They contain no admission of fault and do not require further cleaning work.

• Refund the disputed $85 surcharge within 10 business days after signing.
• Provide a complete release of claims arising from the cleaning and disputed surcharge.
• Resolve the dispute without an admission of fault.

Bell relied on the booking email, which stated that extra work and its price required prior agreement. Her position was that neither the additional $85 nor the work behind it had been explained and approved during the visit.

Tidy Spruce's account was that Bell authorized extra work while the crew was there. Bell also acknowledged signing a crew ticket without reading every section. The record does not supply the ticket's contents, so it does not establish whether that document recorded approval of the surcharge.

Bell said she paid the $225 invoice because she believed payment was required before the crew departed. She also complained that the bathroom still looked dirty afterward. Those were her stated grounds for challenging the bill; the settlement does not establish that the cleaning was deficient or that payment amounted to acceptance of the extra charge.

The booking email made advance agreement on both extra work and price central to the dispute. The competing accounts therefore concerned not simply whether more cleaning occurred, but whether Bell had agreed to pay more for it.

The supplied record identifies project emails as supporting material, but says the receipt for the $225 payment was unavailable and lists no known witnesses supporting Bell's claim. It contains no courtroom testimony or judicial findings resolving the parties' accounts.

The agreement gives Bell the minimum financial remedy she had requested and closes the claims covered by the release. It leaves unanswered whether the surcharge was authorized and whether the quality of the cleaning would have justified a larger refund.