Hiring a Cleaning Service: How to Get the Best and Cheapest Service for Your Money

Work, school, doctors appointments for the kids, school concerts, grocery shopping, the list goes on and on of tasks that seem to compile. You might tell yourself that this is the weekend that you will devote to cleaning your house but then it is next weekend and well, you get where this is going.

The time has come where you may finally realize that you are going to do what you vowed never to do and this is something your mother must never know about. You are going to hire a house cleaning service. Before you make that call there are a few things that you should know. First of all, your life is going to be a lot easier by doing this. Realistically, it is unlikely that you can hire someone to do all of the other stuff. You have to start somewhere and this is a good place to begin.

Check with some co-workers or friends and see if they can refer you to a cleaning service that maybe they have used. This way you know the kind of work that they are capable of and can be assured that they are trustworthy and reliable. When you make the initial call it will be to hear what services they offer and to get a price estimate. Some cleaning services will send someone out to give you an estimate while others might just give you one based on the size of your home.

Understand that cleaning services usually offer what is called “production cleaning.” This is where a team of women go out each day and together will clean two to four homes per day. While that might seem almost impossible to many, if three women come to your home to clean for three hours, technically that is nine hours worth of cleaning.

Think about how much cleaning can get done in that amount of time, just pure cleaning. Many times cleaning can turn into looking through old photos and other tasks that can distract you from your initial endeavor. Cleaning services don’t have these distractions. They will do the big cleaning such as scrub the tubs and tiles, wash the floors and baseboards, move the furniture and vacuum underneath, wash interior windows, dust ceiling fans and mini blinds, etc.

These crews are in and out and usually leave the place sparkling behind them. They will charge and hourly rate, normally. Again, remember that you have a team of workers coming in. This is a much better system then having one woman come in for the whole day and paying her hourly.

These women are used to working as a team and normally work very well together. One will head for the kitchen, another the bathroom and one starts in the bedrooms. They work in a way that places them working out of the home. Once a room is vacuumed it isn’t stepped into again. This is part of the presentation technique where for some reason people like to see the vacuum marks rather than footprints on their plush carpet.

It is best before the cleaning crew arrives if you do a few things on your end. Make sure that everyone is out of the house. Cute little kids and conversation only slow the cleaning crew up. If you feel more comfortable staying home rather than leaving them alone in your house, that is fine, but try to stay out of the way. Don’t clean before the cleaning crew! Some people will do that but you don’t have to, they have seen it all before. Pick up stuff that will slow down their cleaning. After all, you don’t want to pay someone that is on the clock to pick up your kids toys. Any important paperwork or clutter that is lying around needs to be put away. If you don’t have time, stash it in a box and go through it later.

Make sure there isn’t a sink filled with dishes. You don’t want to pay someone to load the dishwasher. Prioritize and be willing to eliminate something that might not be that important in order to get something done that is. If you have an office and you don’t feel comfortable having someone in there, just tell the crew not to clean that room. Finally, don’t let the cleaning crew dock out early unless you are absolutely sure that you don’t have anything else for them to do. Even if they leave 15 minutes early, that is 45 minutes of work that could have been done that you are paying for. A lot can be done in 45 minutes!