Home cleaning explained
Do you need to be home during a cleaning?
No, and most people are not. What matters is that access is arranged properly and that you are comfortable with who is in your home — which comes down to bonding, insurance and screening rather than supervision.
Hygiene Maids of Fort Worth5 min readUpdated
How most customers actually handle it
The typical arrangement on a recurring schedule is a door code, a smart lock code, a lockbox or a garage entry. The customer goes to work and comes home to a cleaned house.
For apartments and condos, access usually involves a gate code and building entry as well, and sometimes a key held at the leasing office or with a concierge. Telling us all of that at booking is the single most useful thing an apartment customer can do — on a compact unit, twenty minutes spent getting in is a meaningful share of the visit.
Some customers prefer to be there for the first visit so they can walk the property with the crew and point out priorities, then hand over access afterward. That is a sensible middle path.
What actually makes it safe to hand over access
Not supervision. Screening, insurance and accountability.
- Background-checked cleaners. Every Hygiene Maids of Fort Worth cleaner is vetted and background-checked before a first visit.
- Bonding. Protects specifically against theft by a worker in your property. Separate from liability insurance.
- Liability insurance. Covers accidental damage. Ask any provider for documentation of both rather than assuming.
- Consistent crews. On a recurring schedule you get the same people wherever routing allows, so you are not letting a stranger in every fortnight.
- A named point of contact. So there is someone to call, not just a booking system.
When being there does help
The first visit, if you want to walk the property and explain priorities. Ten minutes at the start saves a lot of guessing.
A deep clean, where decisions come up — whether to move a piece of furniture, whether a stain is worth persisting with, which of two products you would rather was used on a surface.
A move-out clean, if you want to see the state of the property before handing it over.
Any visit where something specific has gone wrong and you want to point at it rather than describe it.
Practical things to sort out before the first visit
How we get in and how we lock up. Where pets will be, and whether they are friendly with strangers. Whether an alarm needs disarming and what the code is. Any room you would rather we did not enter. Parking, if it is not obvious. Whether anyone else — a contractor, a dog walker — may be there at the same time.
Five minutes of this at booking removes almost every problem that comes up on a first visit.
Questions
Common questions
- How do you handle keys and codes?
- Access details are held against your booking and shared only with the crew assigned to your property. Most customers use a door code or smart lock code, which they can change whenever they want.
- What if I have a dog?
- Tell us at booking. Most crews are comfortable with friendly pets, but it is safer and faster if pets are secured somewhere out of the way, and some dogs find a cleaning crew genuinely stressful.
- Can I leave instructions rather than being there?
- Yes. Notes on your booking travel with the crew. A short list of priorities is more useful than a long list of everything.
- What if something is missed while I am out?
- Tell us within 24 hours and we return to address that area at no additional cleaning charge, subject to the terms of the satisfaction guarantee. Pointing at a specific spot rather than a whole room gets it fixed fastest.
- Are your cleaners insured and bonded?
- Yes. Hygiene Maids of Fort Worth is bonded and insured, and cleaners are background-checked. Documentation can be provided to an HOA, landlord or building manager on request.
Book a cleaning
Tell us how we get in and we will take it from there.