Scottsdale couple says cleaning company is holding belongings hostage

For a dispute involving a cleaning company, it’s awfully messy.

In 2022, Scottsdale couple Jessie Cotes and Ken Ahern hired Mesa-based cleaning company Cardinal Clean to store their belongings and perform restoration work on the condo where they lived. They said they were given a quote of $17,000 for the work but were instead hit with a surprise bill for $61,000, a markup supposedly to account for cleaning a thin layer of “fecal matter” off their things.

Cotes and Ahern refused to pay, and now the company has held their possessions hostage — including several valuable items of sports memorabilia — for the last three years.

The two sides are now locked in a legal battle. Cotes and Ahern sued Cardinal Clean last year. The cleaning company countersued in August, claiming the couple stiffed them on the bill and withheld insurance money issued for the cleaning and restoration work. The case is still pending in Maricopa County Superior Court.

Cardinal Clean did not return a request for comment made through its attorney.

Cotes and Ahern are accusing the company of fraud, negligent misrepresentation and breach of contract, among other allegations. They say the valuables still in Cardinal Clean’s possession are worth $100,000 and that they have spent nearly $40,000 replacing them over the past three years. In a mediation document shared with Phoenix New Times, the couple suggested settling the suit for $176,000. The mediation went nowhere.

“Since issuing its bill for more than four times its bid, Cardinal Clean has refused to return Plaintiffs’ items, despite multiple requests,” the couple’s attorney, James Cool, wrote in their complaint. “In effect, Defendant is holding Plaintiff’s property hostage unless and until Plaintiffs pay Defendant’s extortionate invoice.”

The saga started in 2022, when Cotes and Ahern hired a separate plumbing company to fix what the company said was a “sewer line backup” in their condo, which is owned by Cotes’ mother. The couple moved out of the home while the work was being done, only for the condo to be burglarized by a plumbing company employee. After that experience, the couple hired Cardinal Clean to perform restoration work after the repairs were completed.

According to their complaint, Cardinal Clean owner Mark Hollingshead informed them that they would need to move their belongings from their home to clear space, quoting them a price of approximately $17,000 to pack out, store and then return their belongings. Hollingshead also told the couple that the plumbing company had not properly covered their things and that “everything in the home was covered in an invisible layer of fecal matter and would need to be decontaminated.”

The couple claims to have a recorded conversation in which Hollingshead promised “there would not be a large bill at the end.” When pressed, “Hollingshead repeated his assurance that Cardinal Clean would complete the work for the amount of its bid,” their complaint states.

Instead, they say, Cardinal Clean hit them with a bill for $61,000 for moving, storing and decontaminating their things. “For many items, the claimed cost of cleaning appeared to exceed the value of the item itself,” the complaint says. The company has refused to return their things and also doesn’t list many items that were taken from the home in its inventory. 

Among those missing items are a $4,000 wedding dress, a refrigerator, a dishwasher, a stove a dime collection worth $5,500 and a litany of sports collectibles, from shoes to cards, worth between $150 and $16,000. In its own filing, Cardinal Clean claimed there was no refrigerator on the property and denied that any other items were missing.

The couple also claims to have security camera video showing Cardinal Clean employees pocketing their belongings and throwing others in garbage bags. Additionally, the footage allegedly shows employees not wearing any protective gear, like gloves or facemasks, contradicting the notion that everything was covered in fecal matter. At one point, the complaint says, “one supervisor is captured on camera handling supposedly contaminated items while then getting candy or some other food item from his pocket and eating it, all using the same hand.”

“The two things that the video does confirm very clearly is that these folks are not treating the area as though it’s covered in some sort of fecal contamination,” Cool said in an interview with Phoenix New Times. “I mean, they’re eating the whole time, they’re touching everything, they’re not wearing any (personal protective equipment).”

Cool claims in the complaint that Cardinal Clean based its “fecal matter” assessment on no scientific testing or analysis. In a court filing, Cardinal Clean contended that the area was indeed contaminated by “category 3 sewage,” citing standards from the Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification, and that the “dust and debris from this area became airborne.” The company also admits that Cardinal Clean employees were seen handling the items without protective equipment and pocketing belongings, and it says those employees were fired.

At a standoff

The two sides remain in a standoff about who owes what to whom.

Cardinal Clean claims Cotes and Ahern understood its initial $17,000 quote was “subject to adjustment.” The company also claims that the couple’s insurance company approved the cleaning work, though the couple says its adjuster “admitted he was overworked and made errors in approving charges.”

Cardinal Clean claims the insurance company issued separate payments of $20,000 and $37,000 for the pack-out and cleaning but that the couple pocketed it. However, the couple says those payments were for “unscheduled personal property” and not related to Cardinal Clean’s work.

Cardinal Clean also says Cotes signed a Completion and Satisfaction form approving the pack-out of their belongings, but the couple contends that the signature was forged. Cotes says she was at work at the time of that inspection, which Ahern attended. Ahern claims he signed no forms. Cardinal Clean denies the forgery claim.

In July, Cool attempted to resolve the dispute through meditation, proposing a settlement of $176,000, which largely accounts for items still being withheld by Cardinal Clean, the cost of items that were replaced and attorney fees. Those negotiations were not successful, leading Cardinal Clean to countersue in August.

“The reason we went to early mediation even though the lawsuit itself has not progressed very far yet was because, one, I think this really should be worked out,” Cool told New Times, “but two, we have this difficulty where I can’t really determine how much my clients claim in damages because the property packed out by Cardinal Clean is still, to this day, in Cardinal Clean’s custody.”

Ahern was able to visit Cardinal Clean’s facility to inspect the vaults where all their belongings were being held, according to legal filings. Cool said Ahern got through four of the eight vaults containing their items before Cardinal Clean changed its mind, barring him from returning to visit the other four. During that visit, the couple claims in court documents, Ahern found unlabeled boxes of belongings, “a football card bent and destroyed,” family trust documents, Cotes’ mother’s wallet and “an urn containing ashes, withheld for over 600 days and only partially returned in July 2024.”

“They have no choice at this point but to go forward with the lawsuit,” Cool said.

Cotes and Ahern may not be alone in their beef with Cardinal Clean, though. County court records show at least 26 lawsuits involving Cardinal Clean dating back to 2018. The cleaning company was the plaintiff in 24 of those — 25, if you count its counterclaim against Cotes and Ahern — and won a default judgment in at least seven of them. Nine of the cases were dismissed.

Additionally, the company’s Yelp and Better Business Bureau reviews are littered with former customers who have made similar complaints about the company’s operations. The company has a 2.6-star rating on Yelp, with more one-star reviews than five-star reviews. Multiple one-star reviews complain about Cardinal Clean damaging property, theft by its employees, losing belongings it stored and its aggressive billing practices. The company’s reviews on the Better Business Bureau — where it holds a 2.14-star rating but an A-plus grade — make similar allegations.

One Yelp review from September mentions a similar “outrageous” $60,000 bill and accuses the company of misplacing items. The reviewer also says she was “billed for gloves and masks that we never saw their workers use consistently or at all.” A 2022 reviewer said the company sent a surprise second bill for packing out their belongings, calling it “my worst customer experience ever had.” A third review, left in 2023, claims the company “caused almost $20,000 in damages to my property and refused to address it” and then threatened him with a lawsuit over what he said were exorbitant and unjustified fees.

A second person, in a 2020 review, wrote about being sued by Cardinal Clean over nonpayment, despite their landlord being the responsible party. Rather than fight the suit, the person paid up.

“It kills me that I have to pay them off rather than go to court and have the judge slap them down and tell them to do the right thing,” they wrote. “Their mommas clearly didn’t teach them right from wrong.”