Your time is valuable; you can do so many new things when you no longer have to clean your home. Bringing in a house cleaner can be beneficial whether your house needs a deep clean or you are looking for regular help keeping things tidy.
Hiring someone to clean your house is worthwhile as long as you know what to expect. Take time to investigate a house cleaner before inviting them into your home. Here are nine things to consider when deciding to hire a cleaning service.
Skip to section
1. Reviews Can Help You Choose a Cleaning Service
Like with many services, reading reviews from real customers can help determine if a house cleaner provides the results you are looking for. Word of mouth is a powerful advertiser, so pay attention to what people say about a cleaning service before you hire them. Search out online reviews and, if the good far outweighs the bad, use the less-than-ideal reviews to form questions you can ask the company to see if they have addressed an issue or formed a policy to take care of the concern.
It is helpful to see your priorities mentioned in a review. For example, if you live in Seattle and want to make sure the day-to-day messes your dog makes will be taken care of, it would ease your mind to see a Seattle house cleaning service with reviews specifically praising the house cleaner for taking care of the dirt and pet dander left behind by a 60-pound Boxer.
2. Ask About Your Cleaning Service’s Employee Training
When working with a cleaning service, ask how their employees are trained. Knowing that their house cleaners go through specific training helps give you confidence and set standards you can expect to be met when your house is cleaned.
Don’t shy away from asking specific questions that might relate to your home and needs.
Questions you can ask regarding training include:
- Are there standards I can expect from each house cleaner?
- What knowledge do your cleaners have on techniques for specific cleaning situations?
- Do your employees use specific cleaning products?
3. Eco Cleaning in Your Home
Part of the training a house cleaner goes through may include eco cleaning. Eco cleaning, also known as green cleaning, focuses on sustainable cleaning products that refrain from using toxic chemicals. Consumers and cleaners need to be careful of greenwashing — a marketing ploy used to make items look more eco-friendly than they are.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency manages the Safer Choice program to help identify safe products for health and the environment. Ask your cleaning service if they use green cleaning practices and products.
Now that you know what eco cleaning is, you might be asking why eco cleaning is important. Green cleaning can benefit your health, the environment, and your wallet.
Eco Cleaning Is Good for Your Health
Ensuring your cleaning service is using eco-friendly products can positively impact your health. For example, if you are one of the nearly 25 million Americans with asthma, green cleaning may reduce your symptoms by improving indoor air quality.
Eco cleaning also focuses on quality products that will not aggravate asthma and upper respiratory symptoms. Many common house cleaning products include volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can be detrimental to your health. Common VOCs in cleaning products include:
- Ethanol
- Formaldehyde
- Benzene
- Methylene chloride
According to the American Lung Association, VOCs can impact a person’s eyes, nose, and throat. They can cause breathing issues, nausea, and damage to the central nervous system. Some VOCs have been shown to cause cancer.
Eco Cleaning Is Good for The Environment
VOCs also have a negative impact on the environment. When cleaning products with VOCs are used, those gases interact with other air pollutants and contribute to air pollution. This pollution leads to global warming and climate change.
A cleaning service concerned with green cleaning will also pay attention to how their supplies are packaged. Recyclable containers and products that offer refills help keep single-use plastics out of the environment.
Many companies that produce eco cleaning supplies also take their responsibility further by donating to non-profits that help with conservation and education to further their environmental impact. This means using these products can help the environment on several fronts.
How Green Cleaning Is Good for Your Wallet
But what about the cost? Green cleaning may seem pricy up front, but many eco-friendly products can be used in multiple ways and are often concentrated, making one container last longer.
As more people become concerned with how chemicals impact personal health and the environment, more products are hitting the market and driving down prices. Just beware of greenwashing and do your research to make sure you’re purchasing products that live up to their advertisements.
When you hire a house cleaner committed to eco cleaning, they will bring their own products. You can be confident your home is cleaned with your health and the environment in mind.
4. Is Your House Cleaner Insured?
Most professional services can be expected to hold insurance to cover their work. Ask your cleaning service if they are insured to protect both you and them while they are working.
In the unlikely event something is damaged when your house cleaner is working on your house, insurance will help cover the damages.
While this protection is vital for a professional business, insurance and licensing regulations may limit a cleaning service from tackling certain tasks. Be sure to bring up specific concerns so that your house cleaner can let you know if there are restrictions on desired jobs.
5. Your Relationship with Your House Cleaner
It can feel intimidating to invite a stranger into your home. Your cleaning service can pair you with the same person or team for each cleaning, so you are comfortable knowing who will be in your home regularly.
When you first contact your cleaning service, let them know if you have any specific concerns or allergies. They can match you with a house cleaner who can keep all your specific requests in mind each time they visit your home.
Also, let the company know if you have pets. This way, your house cleaner will be prepared — and often excited! — to visit your home. Matching cleaners with clients is one benefit of working with a cleaning service.
6. Choosing the Right Cleaning Schedule
When you have found a house cleaner you trust and are ready to move forward, you will need to establish a cleaning schedule.
There are several options when deciding the frequency of your house cleaning:
A weekly cleaning would be ideal for the person who wants to spend little to no time cleaning their house. A bi-weekly house cleaning schedule is great for keeping things clean when you have a little time to keep things tidy in the interim. Monthly house cleaning puts a professional cleaning service touch on the home that gets a little attention throughout the month.
Evaluate your personal schedule and budget to choose the right frequency for your cleaning service. Stay in communication with your cleaning service and let them know if you need to increase or decrease the number of times they come to your home each month.
7. What Do the Cleanings Include?
Open communication with your cleaning service is vital so you know exactly what to expect from their work. If you have a deep clean scheduled, know what you will have done. A deep clean will include focused cleaning in your kitchen, bathrooms, living and family rooms, and bedrooms.
Regularly scheduled cleanings will vary depending on the needs of the home. After signing up with a cleaning service and having a conversation about your specific requirements for the home, you will have a clear expectation of what your scheduled cleanings will produce.
8. House Cleaning Prices
Your conversations about cleaning expectations will lead right into pricing. Many factors come into play when writing a quote for a house cleaning job, including the size of the home, how many cleaners it will take, the frequency of the cleanings, and location.
Your cleaning service can give you a general pricing guide, and as you start to build your plan together, those prices will become more defined.
Consider tipping into your cost. A tip of $10-$30 would be appropriate for a regular cleaning job, and 20% would be deserved for an exceptional deep clean or other specialty job.
9. How to Prepare for Your Cleaning
Your house cleaner is scheduled, and you are ready to have a clean home. Before they come, take time to pick up any clutter you find around the house. This doesn’t have to be fast, but it will save your cleaner’s time — and your money — to have things ready.
Consider starting your relationship with a cleaning service with a one-time cleaning to get your house in the best place for easy maintenance from that point on.
Once you read the reviews, have the conversations, work the cleaning service into your budget, and get on the calendar, you will feel relief that your home is in good hands. Give yourself the gift of time by hiring the best house cleaner you can find.