Choosing a House Cleaning Service

Finding the right service provider for your needs

Home owners need all different types of help when it comes to keeping a house in top shape. To get the best service that's right for you, it helps to know exactly what type of services to ask for. Here is a list of questions for home owners to ask themselves and the provider when considering a cleaning service.

Time Considerations

1. What needs to be done, exactly? “Cleaning” is not specific enough in your efforts to define to yourself and communicate effectively with a cleaning service provider your expectations of what it is that you want and expect to be done. The easiest way to answer this question is to make a list. Write down the most time-consuming regular chores that you usually do and would like for someone else to either do or help with, such as vacuuming and mopping floors, scrubbing bathrooms, kitchen cleaning, etc. This will become the list of desired services.

2. How often does it need to be done? If vacuuming and mopping the floors is one of the tasks, a provider may need to come to the home once a week. Other tasks, such as cleaning out the refrigerator, washing windows, cleaning interiors of china cabinets can usually be done less frequently. Let the list of tasks determine the frequency with which a provider will need to come.

Guiding the Service Provider

3. How does it need to be done? This is where it helps to be extremely detailed. If you have particular areas in your home that you know collect dirt easily and are often neglected by you yourself when you are cleaning this is an indication that this area needs special attention from your cleaning service and needs to be brought to their attention. These area could include thinks like behind your computer, were you see dust building around the electrical wires, or a particular couch that the cat always sits on, the baseboard behind where the baby eats his cheerios every morning and so forth. If you require dishes to be collected and washed and the house needs to be tidied up before the cleaners begin their tasks. Your provider will need to know whether he or she is expected to do that or if the home owner will do it prior to their arrival. If you have any particulars on how the things needs to be washed should also be specified—water temperature, type of detergent, drying time and so on.

4. Who supplies the products and equipment? Someone in an apartment or just starting out in a house may not have a vacuum cleaner or other such equipment, so the cleaning service would need to provide those things. If a home owner wishes to use specific products, such as a special linseed oil on a particular piece of wood furniture that they have or particular hypoallergenic products, they should supply those for the provider to use.

The Bottom Line

5. How does the provider get paid? If a provider wants to be paid weekly and the customer only gets paid once a month, it may create a bit of a cash flow problem. Or perhaps the provider requests a credit card and the customer does not have a credit account. The payment method and frequency can often help determine which service is the best fit for the customer.

6. How much does it cost? Time is money, and in many cases, it is less costly for a customer to hire a cleaning service to handle the job so the customer can work longer hours or spend their time doing other things.

Answering these simple questions can help a homeowner select the right cleaning service for the right price and possibly avoid a costly relationship with a service that doesn't do the best job.