Any time you invite a stranger into your home, personal safety is a concern. You want to know who is entering your home. You likely wonder “is this person okay? How do I know?” Following are a few personal safety tips to consider whenever you have cleaners and other service professionals come into your home.
Know who is entering your home.
Find out the answers to these basic questions before someone enters your home:
- If the service person is coming from a company, do you know if that person is an employee or an independent contractor?
- Does the company perform background checks and of what type?
- Do they actually check the listed references and prior work history?
Many companies don’t do all the steps because the expenses can add up. Some, especially in the cleaning industry, merely post the job for people to bid on to get the work.
- Is their bidding pool screened?
- If the service provider is an independent are they established with a good reputation or someone who started on their own because there is something in their past that keeps them from getting a job?
You certainly need to know.
Personal Safety/Family Safety & Security
At Town & Country Cleaning Services (Chapel Hill NC) all of our service providers are employees. We do the background checks and other checks, including e-Verify from July 2013 forward.
Many of our employees have been with us for many years, a rarity in our industry. Your key, when entrusted to our keeping as happens about 80+ % of the time, is coded with a letter and a number so there is nothing on it to tie it to your house outside of our internally-secured list and your key is held in the office when not in use, not given into the crews’ possession permanently. 
We know you care about who comes into your home and we strive to give you the greatest sense (and reality) of security possible. (Read “Personal Safety For House Cleaners” article.)
Beyond personal safety, we also consider what will be safe to use on your fixtures, your hardwood floors, your food preparation surfaces and so on. Here are our thoughts on safety for those materials.
Materials and Surfaces Safety – ‘Green and Gentle?’
Always use the safe and proper solution for the surface you are cleaning.
We care that your home is cleaned safely. Some people say your possessions are safe because “we use only ‘natural’ or ‘green’ cleaning agents”. But those cleaning products can still do significant damage to surfaces if used incorrectly. For example, vinegar could significantly damage marble and other calcium-based stones and even finishes and composition of certain modern vinyl types. (Read “Myths and Facts About Vinegar” article.)
So using this ‘safe’ cleaning agent, and others, is not the whole story—you have to know what to use on which surface.
Or ‘Strong and Harsh’?
On the other hand, some cleaners will use the most powerful cleaning agent possible and use disinfectant on everything in the mistaken belief that they are protecting their client by leaving those toxic residues all over the house.
The trouble is that almost no one uses these disinfectants properly and, as a result, they are not disinfecting and may well be doing more harm than good. Plus, the overuse of strong or corrosive cleaning agents can shorten the life of many surfaces.
Moderation – the Best Path
At Town & Country Cleaning we try to strike a middle ground between these approaches. We use the safest cleaning agent (often ‘greener’ than vinegar and other ‘green’ cleaners) yet one still strong enough to do the job and be appropriate to each surface. If in doubt we will err on the side of caution. It is always possible to try another approach to clean a surface that did not come up as well as hoped, but not so easy to fix damage caused by the wrong cleaning agent.
We make it our business to stay abreast of the label manufacturer’s care recommendations whenever possible and pass that newly-learned information on to our crews. Today’s finishes and materials are often more delicate than they were on the surfaces in use 25 years ago. We want to make sure your personal safety comes first and your surfaces are cleaned safely as well.
For information on house cleaning certification for your own professional cleaning business, visit the Institute for Service Excellence website.