Nine questions to ask before you hire a cleaner

Hiring a cleaner means giving a stranger access to your home, often when you are not there. It is worth ten minutes of questions before you commit.

These are the ones that actually reveal something. A good company will answer all nine without hesitating.

1. Are you insured, and for how much?

Public liability insurance covers damage to your property. Ask for the figure and ask to see the certificate — any legitimate company has it to hand.

If the answer is vague, stop there.

2. Are your cleaners employed or self-employed?

This determines who is responsible when something goes wrong. With employed staff, the company carries liability, handles vetting and covers sickness. With subcontractors, responsibility can become genuinely murky, and you may find the insurance does not extend to the person actually in your home.

Neither model is automatically wrong. But you should know which one you are buying.

3. What vetting do you do?

The minimum is reference checks and right-to-work verification. DBS checks are appropriate where the setting needs them — clinics, schools, work around vulnerable people.

"They are all lovely" is not a vetting process.

4. Will I get the same cleaner every time?

For regular domestic work, this is the question that most predicts whether you will still be a customer in a year.

A rotating cast never learns your home, so you re-explain everything every visit and standards drift. Some companies cannot offer consistency because of how they schedule. Better to know now.

5. How is the price calculated, and is it fixed?

Per job or per hour? If per hour, how many hours do they estimate, and what happens if it takes longer? If per job, what specifically is included?

Get the answer in writing.

6. What is not included?

Ask directly. The usual extras are oven interiors, inside the fridge, interior windows, ironing, carpet cleaning and balconies. Better to hear it now than to find it on an invoice.

7. How do you handle keys?

If you will not be home, ask how keys are stored. The right answer involves keys being logged, never labelled with an address, and returnable on request. A key with your address on a fob in an unlocked drawer is a real risk.

8. What happens if something is damaged or missed?

Every cleaning company breaks something eventually — it is a job that involves handling other people's possessions at speed. What matters is the process afterwards.

A good answer: report it to you proactively, claim on insurance, resolve it. A good answer on quality: tell us within 24 hours and we return free.

Any hesitation is itself the answer.

9. What notice do I need to give?

For skipping a visit, cancelling a visit, or ending the arrangement entirely. Fair terms are typically 24 hours for an individual visit and a short notice period to end a regular arrangement. Long lock-ins on domestic cleaning are a red flag.

On very cheap quotes

If one quote is far below the others, the difference is being funded somewhere. Realistically that means below-minimum-wage pay, no insurance, no employment status, or a scope that will expand once you have committed.

Cleaning is labour. There is a floor below which the numbers cannot work legally, and a quote beneath it is telling you something about how the business operates.

Our answers

We are employed-staff, fully insured, reference-checked, same-cleaner-every-visit, fixed-price-per-job, and 24 hours' notice either way. If anything is not right, tell us within a day and we come back free.

Ask us the same nine questions — or just call and put us on the spot.