Advertisements for potentially illegal mainland Chinese cleaning services targeting Hong Kong households ahead of Lunar New Year remain available on social media platform RedNote despite recent arrests by the city’s immigration authorities, the South China Morning Post has found.
Checks by the SCMP on RedNote found several suspected illegal posts promoting domestic cleaning services in the city, with some saying “professional local team sent to Hong Kong home” and another promising to “deep clean your home in Hong Kong”.
None of those posts clearly named the origin of the janitors.
A reporter posing as a customer sent direct messages to one of the service providers requesting a quotation for a deep clean of a 400 sq ft flat in Sheung Shui, including sweeping and mopping, and cleaning windows, furniture and the hood in the kitchen.
The operator quoted HK$130 (US$16.60) per hour, with a minimum requirement of three hours per session, saying the shorter the shift, the less “cost-effective” the cleaning task. It also requested HK$60 as a border crossing transport fee.
The mainland operator then asked the reporter to switch to the WeChat messaging platform to confirm details of the service and pay half the price as a deposit.
