Village Cleaners of Litchfield

Never use this place!!! I had a similar experience as the one described below - but quite possibly even worse!. My first visit to Village Cleaners will be my last! I brought in a blazer and dress shirt recently on a Friday to be cleaned - asking for them to be ready for an important function the following Friday. I was told that they would be ready on the wednesday prior to the Friday of my event (which would have been great) I showed up Friday, the morning of my event to retrieve my items - only to be told that hey had made a mistake and someone had apparently written down the wrong date. I explained that I was just off a plane from CA and had no other options to wear. The owner called me to apologize and mentioned that I could drive the 1/2 hour to the off-site cleaning facility that they farm their work out to. That was bad enough. After he apologized and said he hoped I didn't think of them as the village idiots (his words) instead of the Village Cleaners - he sensed my irritation and clued in - offering to have them retrieved for me. He spewed a line about how "customer service" is their number one priority. When I finally got my items, the barely worn dress shirt - (purchased at Neiman Marcus for $220) had a Quarter sized hole in the back of the shirt. I discovered this upon dressing for my event. When I called the owner to explain the situation, his apologetic tone changed dramatically for the worse. He assured me that the hole must have already been there and that nothing in the cleaning process could have caused such damage. When I assured him that the hole was NOT there when I dropped off the shirt - he asked me to bring it in to the shop so he could inspect it. I did so the following day - and was at this point still hopeful of a positive outcome. With all the talk of "customer service" being so important to them - I was cautiously optimistic. Upon inspection of my ruined shirt, the owner proceeded to tell me that the hole had been there all along, that it was in fact patched up without me knowing - and that the patch had fallen off during the steaming process. I again explained that the shirt had been worn once before - and was purchased at a very reputable store - and did not have a hole or a patch on it! The shirt is white, thin, fine cotton. Any "patch" theory is ridiculous.A patch would have been clearly visible! Total BS. He told me that he had seen such trickery before - advised me that Neiman Marcus had knowingly and purposefully sold me a damaged / patched shirt and that there was nothing he could do for me. He did however offer to write a letter to Neiman Marcus on my behalf explaining his "professional" theory of sneaky patch work by one of the nations highest end department stores! I could not believe my ears! He actually said this with a straight face. I accepted his offer of a letter (out of pure curiosity of what he might write- and to see how far he would actually take this) - but it has been over three weeks now and I have not received a draft of the letter yet. Not surprisingly! Nor have I at any point received any offers of compensation or any sort of apology! I still had to pay for the dry cleaning of the blazer! So much for customer service!! Absolutely disgusting!

I want to warn everyone about Village Cleaners in Litchfield located at 7 Village Green Drive. My mom dropped off my wedding dress (to have it cleaned/pressed - there were a couple, very faint, small stains, no bigger than the tip of a finger) with them on Mon. before my Sat. wedding (9/15/12), and they put a rush order on it to have her pick it up after 5 on Wed.



The dress was ready at the time promised, but when my mom pulled it out of the bag to examine it, she found a 5" scrape on the back and multiple grey stains. She said the scrape looked like someone had clawed it and that the stains looked like they had been made by dirty cleaning fluid that had been reused several times before they used it on my ivory, silk dress. The clerk called the owner, and my mom was able to speak with him. The owner said he would personally take the dress to the place they send their garments (apparently the cleaning is not done on premise) and oversee the removal of the stains.



My mom picked up the dress a second time on Thurs. and the stains had been mostly removed, so they brought it home. Upon trying the dress on, we discovered that it had shrunk enough so that my mom had to add extra fabric to the straps so that the bust would sit in line with my chest.



After all of this, the cleaners still only refunded half of the charges we paid - $16.50 of $33. I am disgusted that they 1. damaged my dress to begin with, 2. returned the dress to us in that state, 3. charged us anything at all for their services, and 4. damaged my dress further, requiring structural change to the dress two days before the wedding. They also wanted me to bring the dress in after the wedding so they could send it off to analyze the fabric or something, I said NO WAY.



Do not take your important garments here for cleaning! They will not treat them with care.