Insured and bonded — and what that actually means
Almost every cleaning company says "insured and bonded". Fewer will send you the certificate, and that is the only version of the claim that means anything. Ask for it. Anyone legitimate has it as a PDF and can forward it in under a minute.
It is also worth knowing what the words cover, because they are routinely oversold. Liability insurance covers damage the cleaner causes while working — it does not insure your home generally, and any company implying otherwise is either confused or hoping you are. Bonding covers theft by an employee. Neither is a guarantee that nothing will go wrong; both mean there is a route to being made whole if it does.
Who actually shows up
This is the question that predicts your experience more than any other, and almost nobody asks it.
Larger operations rotate crews based on scheduling. The person who cleaned your house in March may never see it again, which means the knowledge — that the guest bathroom tap drips, that the dog hides under the bed, that you like the cushions a particular way — resets every visit. Consistency is not a luxury feature, it is the mechanism by which a clean gets better over time.
- Is it the same person or team every visit?
- Are they employees or subcontractors? This affects insurance, tax treatment and who is accountable when something goes wrong.
- Are background checks run, and on whom?
- How many properties does a crew do in a day? A crew doing eight is not spending long in any of them.
- What happens when your regular cleaner is sick or on holiday?
How they price it
There are two honest pricing models — flat rate by scope, and hourly with a clear estimate — and one dishonest pattern, which is refusing to indicate a number at all.
A company that will not give a range over the phone will tell you every house is different. That is true and it is also not an answer. Every house being different is exactly why ranges exist. Somebody who has quoted a thousand homes knows within about fifty dollars what your three-bedroom will cost, and declining to say so is a sales tactic — it exists so the number arrives after you are invested in the conversation.
- Ask for a range before a walkthrough. Any experienced quoter can give one.
- Ask what is included and what is an add-on. Inside the oven, inside the fridge, interior windows and laundry are the usual add-ons — the answer should be immediate.
- Ask whether the first visit is priced differently. It almost always is, as a deep clean, and that is legitimate. Finding out afterwards is not.
- Ask what makes the price go up on the day, and under what circumstances they would stop and re-quote rather than proceed.
- Ask about contracts, minimum visits, cancellation notice and cancellation fees before booking, not after.
Keys, access and what happens when you are not home
Most recurring cleaning happens in empty houses. That means an arrangement about access, and it should be explicit and written down.
- Where are keys stored between visits, and how are they labelled? The correct answer involves no address on the tag.
- Who else has access to them?
- What happens to the key or code when service ends?
- How is a lockout handled — you forgot, or a code changed — and is there a charge?
- If there is an alarm, who has the code and what happens if it trips?
The guarantee, read carefully
"Satisfaction guaranteed" is on nearly every cleaning website and it means almost nothing on its own. The specifics are what matter.
- Is it a re-clean or a refund? Most are a re-clean. That is fine and normal, but it should be said plainly rather than implied to be money back.
- How long do you have to report a problem? Twenty-four to forty-eight hours is typical.
- Does it cover the whole visit or only the area that was missed?
- How do you report it, and how quickly do they come back?
Answers that should give you pause
- Refusing to give any price indication before an in-person visit
- No proof of insurance, or a delay in producing it
- Pressure to sign a recurring contract on the first call
- A quote noticeably below everyone else's. It usually means fewer hours, not better value, and you find out which on the day.
- Vagueness about who is coming, or a different answer each time you ask
- Cash only, no invoice, no paperwork
- A five-star rating with a handful of reviews that all read the same way, or a rating displayed with no link to where it came from
- Any claim they cannot immediately show you: years in business, number of homes cleaned, awards, certifications
What to expect from a small local operator
There is a real trade-off here and it is worth naming rather than pretending otherwise.
A franchise has more crews, so it can usually fit you in sooner and cover holidays without a gap. A two-person operation cannot always do that. What it can do is send the same two people every time, remember your house, answer its own phone, and be accountable in a way that survives a bad visit — because there is nobody to hand you off to.
Neither is the right answer for everyone. If your priority is scheduling flexibility across a large property portfolio, size helps. If it is consistency and knowing who is in your house, it does not.