Working out who you should hire to clean your home is a more significant decision than many people imagine. Not only do you want someone competent at their job, but also a person you can trust. After all, your cleaner will be there, rooting through your drawers and in your home while you’re not there. Hiring a maid is a big decision.
If you’re thinking of hiring a cleaner, don’t go in blind. Check out the following six tips.
Be Clear About The Level Of Service That You Want
Maids aren’t robots who provide precisely the same service to all their clients – they’re people, and they chop and change depending on the situation.
For this reason, it’s essential to be clear on expectations. You want to make sure that your cleaner operates in a way that suits YOUR needs, not those of their other clients.
You know the problem areas in your home better than anyone else. Tell your maid before he or she starts what you want them to do and the places you want them to concentrate their efforts on. The clearer you can make your instructions, the less ambiguity there will be.
Do A Background Check
There’s a risk whenever you invite somebody into your home. You want to make sure, therefore, that your cleaner is a good person – someone who you can trust to leave unaccompanied in your home.
While you can’t ever know a person’s true nature for sure, you can reduce the risks of hiring a shady character by conducting a background check. Many cleaning companies, like SwiftClean, for instance, perform automatic checks on all their operatives before allowing them to clean your home. You can also use third-party services to carry out background checks yourself for a small fee.
Find Out How Much It Will Cost
Cleaning companies don’t usually post their rates on their websites in a menu format for all to see. That’s because the type of service that clients want often varies wildly from one person to another. Some people might need daily support in the kitchen, while others may just want a once-per-week clean of the bathroom and toilets. It all depends on the individual setup.
Quality cleaning services should be able to provide you with a written quote, detailing how much your particular cleaning schedule will cost. You may find that they offer discounts if you hire their services more frequently.
Interview The Maid Who Will Clean Your Property
Whether you use a cleaning company or hire a freelance maid, it’s a good idea to interview them before setting them loose on your home.
The main purpose of the interview isn’t to cross-examine the cleaner – you have background check services for that. Instead, it’s to find out whether you get along with them on a personal level. You want somebody who makes you feel relaxed and comfortable, not worried and on edge.
Prepare Your Home First
Cleaners are skilled at scrubbing and removing dust and dirt, but they’re not so good at generally organizing your home – that’s your job.
If you want to get the most out of your cleaners, start by making sure that all the surfaces and clean and tidy and that you’ve put everything away. Tidying things away will help the maid access everything that they need to clean instead of having to work around it.
Remember, the more time that the maid service must spend tidying up, the more it cuts into cleaning time. If you have books and boxes all over the floor, it could potentially mean less vacuuming and a dirtier, messier home once they leave – not what you want.
Some cleaning services expect you to provide the cleaning supplies. If that is the case, make sure that you put all of your materials in an easy-to-find place, like under the kitchen sink.
Find Out If They Are Green
There are dozens of cleaning services in your local area, all with different priorities. Some focus on cost, while others concentrate on customer service to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Recently, we’ve also seen the rise of so-called “green” cleaners who attempt to reduce the environmental impact of cleaning your home.
Going green is good for two reasons. First, it helps you avoid adding to the environmental burden on the planet. Some cleaning products (including throwaway sponges) clog up landfills and can get into the water supply.
And second, it could enhance your health. Avoiding chemical-laden cleaning products may reduce allergies.
