How Comcast piss scored me a clean house

Never thought I’d be happy a Comcast service rep peed on my toilet seat, but here we are

I’m standing in a house as clean as it’s ever been, full of the scene of lemongrass and cinnamon, and it’s all because of a lout who couldn’t control his stream.

The whole piss saga began on a December morning when my internet suddenly went down. Checked my modem, sure enough, no lights. Peeked out the window of my second-floor home office and saw the reason. A Comcast worker hovered just about my height, leaning out of his cherry picker and fiddling with the cables on the post on my corner.

“Good morning!” I shouted, lifting the window. “Are you the reason I just lost internet?”

“Probably,” came the sour reply. He mumbled something about old parts that were going to fail anyway. “I’d rather replace them now than come out at 3 in the morning.”

Never have I heard of Comcast visiting a residential area in the wee hours to fix downed cable, but OK, sure. I asked if he knew how long the work would take, and he said he’d be done by this afternoon. A few hours later (still no internet), I peeked outside again to see what was up. “I’ll let you know before I leave,” he said.

Nope. Looked out again around 3 PM and he was gone. Internet was still not back. Eventually, I called Comcast and scheduled a service call, trying to be patient as I explained my way out of the standard barrage of modem tests they wanted me to perform. “It was a guy outside, I think he disconnected the wires…”

Next afternoon, service rep shows up. He’s a young white guy, but big and sloppy. Pants that fall down to reveal the crack, kind of thing. He inspects my inside connections as I tell him the story, and eventually admits he has to go outside and reconnect whatever the other dude had been “fixing” the day before. That completed, he came back inside and said he’d have to wait for HQ to reset some things before he could go.

“Can I sit down?” he asked, a millisecond before plopping down and manspreading his girth across my couch. And a few minutes later, “Can I use your bathroom?”

What’re you gonna say? I winced and said yes. A few minutes later the reset was complete, and he was out.

I did a little happy dance because my internet — connection to society, means of making a living, way of communicating with friends — had finally returned. Then I went to use the bathroom myself. Walked in and immediately walked out, nearly gagging.

Dude had peed all over the seat, with a little dribbled onto the floor, too. Not only did this man neglect to lift the seat, he didn’t bother to aim and then also didn’t bother to wipe up his misfires. I was seriously skeeved. I mean, pee is just pee, but it was this gross stranger’s pee, and I really wanted nothing to do with it. Cleaned it up, and did the obvious thing to vent my annoyance: took to Twitter to complain.

The @comcastcares account was one of the earliest corporate Twitter accounts to actually address customer complaints in real-time, but in the half-dozen years since Frank Eliason started it, volume has made it near impossible to keep up with everything. I’ve heard plenty of anecdotes about tweets being ignored, or not addressed until the problem was already fixed.

But not the pee scenario. That was unique enough (and embarrassing enough?) that it caught the attention of Dan Pohlig, Comcast’s director of digital communications. Using the main @Comcast account, he tweeted back at me just over an hour later.

We started a DM conversation. We want to make it up to you, he said. I told him I really didn’t want him to reprimand the service rep — he knew where I lived, after all. A couple hours later, Dan came up with a novel idea.

“To make up for this we’d like to offer to pay for a whole house cleaning. I’ve found a service based close by to you that is a small, local company; has top-notch Yelp reviews; is a Best of Philly 2014 winner; and specializes in organic, all-natural products to do the cleaning.”

Well…OK!

He contacted Holistic Home — which it turns out has a storefront selling natural soaps and cosmetics not two blocks from my house — and made all the arrangements, including cutting them a payment check in advance.

Things just got better from there. Holistic Home founder Ginger Kuczowicz emailed to set up a preliminary walkthrough, and manager Kasia Rzotkiewicz came by to assess my (admittedly dire) cleanliness situation. She emailed over a very clear, detailed price quote — and I balked.

“Is Comcast really going to pay for all this?” I asked one last time. Yup.

So, on Monday, the crew arrived to refresh my house from top to bottom. It took four women more than 5 hours of constant work to get it all done. (Yeah, it was a mess.) Having them in my home was actually a pleasant experience — they were all courteous and nice and made fun small talk, plus they loved my dog and cat. Even better was the aroma they trailed with them.

Holistic Home doesn’t use any harsh abrasives or toxic chemicals when they clean, and it means having the bathroom scrubbed down doesn’t leave you gasping for the nearest window. It’s something I hadn’t considered before, but — especially when every surface of your house is getting washed at once — it’s an important one.

“I worked for different cleaning companies before, and when I was pregnant, I was worried the whole time,” said one woman (who then confirmed that her babies came out fine).

After we had a quick pizza lunch, the crew did their finishing touches, and departed. I looked at my pristine baseboards and breathed in the scent of lemongrass. Could a clean house be just as conducive to productivity as fast internet? Depends, but I’m gonna ride the idea and see how far it takes me.

So thanks, gross Comcast dude (and attentive Comcast exec). I could get used to this.