Can You Trust Your Cleaner?

Do you know who you're letting into your home?

Many people would love to hire a cleaner but there's often one thing that puts them off - letting a complete stranger into their home. It's pretty daunting right?

Your home is your intimate space. It's full of your personal and treasured belongings. It's where your family lives. So, it's only natural you're going to feel a little bit wary of letting someone you don't know in to clean it for you. This is why we, as a professional cleaning company, stress the importance of doing your research and fully vetting your cleaner before hiring them.

Self employed cleaner vs. Company cleaner - which is safer?

When it comes to hiring a cleaner, you can either choose someone who is self-employed and perhaps running their own one-man-or-one-woman cleaning business or you can go to a cleaning company.

You may find that self-employed cleaners offer a slightly cheaper cleaning quote. After all, they might not have quite the same overheads as a bigger cleaning company. It also may be a good decision for you if one of your friends or family members already uses a particular cleaner. They'll be able to vouch for their hard work and honesty, so you can have peace of mind that they'll not only do a good cleaning job but can be trusted in your home.

Security checks

However, if you don't have any recommendations from friends or family to go on, you may be wiser to get in touch with a professional domestic cleaning company.

Reputable cleaning companies will vet all of their cleaners to check they have clean records. Here at NG1 City Cleaners, we do a DBS check. DBS stands for Disclosure and Barring Service and is basically a way to check that a prospective employee doesn't have a criminal record. We only hire people with a clean record that we fully trust.

Health & Safety training

Another benefit of choosing a cleaning company is the level of training their employees will receive. Sure a self employed cleaner may have a lot of cleaning experience but do they have up-to-date health and safety training? This isn't always certain.

Here at NG1 City Cleaners, we're committed to ensuring our staff receive on-going training so they not only clean your house to the highest standards and in the most efficient way but do it safely. We also regularly test our equipment to check that it is safe to operate. With NG1 City Cleaners, you can have the peace of mind that your home is in safe hands.

Insurance

While we're on the topic of safety, it's also important to check that your cleaner is insured. No matter how great your cleaner is, accidents can happen. It's always worth checking that costs will be covered if something in your home is accidentally broken or damaged by your cleaner.

You may be wondering whether you need to inform your home insurance provider that you're hiring a cleaner? We found this fantastic article on This is Money that should clear up some of your questions.

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How to vet a cleaner

If you've found a cleaner or cleaning company you like the sound of, your next step is to do a little research. Check their website or social media pages to learn more about them. Type their name or company name into Google and see what comes up.

A reputable cleaner is likely to have some reviews on social media, even if they only operate on a small scale.

A larger, well-established cleaning company should have its own website. Read the customer testimonials and look for other reviews on independent websites like Google, Rated People and Bark. If they also offer commercial cleaning services, see which companies they work for.

Local recognition

Has the cleaning company won any local awards? This recognition will give you peace of mind that the company is legitimate and offers a good service. This seems like the perfect time to drop in the fact NG1 City Cleaners recently won 'Best Commercial & Domestic Cleaning Company 2019 in Nottinghamshire' at the Midlands Enterprise Awards! It's something we're very proud of and it's all down to our fantastic cleaning team and happy loyal customers!

Ask questions

Don't be afraid to ask the cleaner or cleaning company for references and make sure they answer any questions you have. Get to know the cleaner and find out about their experience. If it's a cleaning company, find out if they hire their own cleaners or use sub-contractors. It's perfectly reasonable to want to know exactly who will be cleaning your property. A good cleaning company will know their staff as individuals.

Make sure your money's safe

Before hiring a cleaner, it's important to make sure you get a quote for the services they will provide. You'll then be wise to check this quote against the price of other cleaning services, to see if you're getting a fair deal. We'd suggest reading our post 'What should a domestic cleaner in Nottingham cost.' It details all of the different things that are included in cleaning fees and how companies price their services.

Don't pay cash in hand

Some cleaners will ask that you pay them cash-in-hand. This isn't illegal, providing that the cleaner is declaring their earnings to HMRC. The problem is when they don't.

Whilst a cleaner operating under-the-radar isn't really your problem and won't have any repercussions on you (the customer) if they're found out, it does bring their integrity into question. If they're willing to commit tax evasion, what other crimes are they willing to commit? Can you really trust them in your home?

You should also consider the fact there will be no record of your payment. So if you're dissatisfied with the way they've cleaned your home, you will have nothing to prove that you paid for the service, should you approach trading standards or another official body.

Make sure there's a record of payment

It's much safer for you to choose a cleaner or cleaning company that is paid via bank transfer. That way, there is a record of the payment. If you're dissatisfied with the clean or you need to claim on an insurance policy for one reason or another, at least you will have a paper trail that proves you paid for the service. You will also be covered by the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

READ MORE: Paying cash for your domestic cleaner

Ask for a cleaning contract

A trustworthy cleaner should be more than happy to supply you with a contract. This will outline the services provided by the cleaning company and ensure that both parties have the same expectations. Always read through your contract before signing and making a payment.

Here at NG1 City Cleaners, we go beyond offering a simple contract by creating a personalised cleaning specification for our cleaners to follow. By doing this, we ensure that your needs are being met and you can trust that you are getting exactly what you're paying for. You will be required to sign off each clean so we know you're 100% happy with our service.

To sum it up...

Although it's normal to feel a little bit nervous about hiring a new cleaner, there are things you can do to keep you and your home safe:

• Get recommendations from friends and family
• Enquire about training and DBS checks
• Make sure the cleaner or cleaning company has insurance
• Look for reviews and testimonials online
• Ask for references
• Get your questions answered
• Compare the quotes of several providers
• Never pay cash in hand
• Always get a contract (and read it!)

Choose NG1 City Cleaners for cleaners you can trust

Are you looking for professional, reliable and trustworthy domestic cleaners in Nottingham? Look no further than NG1 City Cleaners. We offer various customisable cleaning packages to suit all budgets and only hire experienced, qualified and fully-vetted cleaners that we ourselves trust 100%.

NG1 City Cleaners is fully insured and does not accept cash-in-hand. We use bank transfers so there is a record of payment and bookings are organised through our client scheduling software, Jobber, so there is a complete paper trail.

We're more than happy to answer any questions you have about our business, cleaners and award winning services. Simply drop us an email, message us on Facebook or if you prefer to speak to a friendly member of our team over the phone, give us a call on 0115 971 3157.

We're all about giving you total peace of mind and ensuring you are as confident in our ability to clean your home to the highest standards as we are!