5 Things House Cleaners Don't Want You to Know - YouTube

There are five things that you need to know about house cleaners.

When I share these five things with you, I'm going to be really unpopular with a lot of

house cleaners, but as a homeowner, you have the right to know, so here we go.

Hi there.

I'm Angela Brown and this is Ask A House Cleaner.

This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question

and I get to help you find an answer.

Today's show is brought to us by SavvyPerks.com

Savvy Perks is a discount membership, and did you know if you're a small business owner,

you qualify.

This is a package that was put together for major corporations but it is offered to our

network of savvy cleaners.

Okay, so, as a savvy cleaner, as a savvy business owner, you can save money.

It's a discount membership.

You can save money on things like your year-end taxes.

As we're getting ready to go into the end of the year, and we're getting ready to put

all of our taxes together and hire a tax accountant or hire a tax service, you can save an enormous

amount of money on your taxes with your Savvy Perks membership.

The money you save will more than cover your entire year membership of Savvy Perks.

Check it out at SavvyPerks.com

Okay.

Onto today's show which is five things that you need to know about house cleaners.

Now, it's easy to assume that all house cleaners are professionals, but they're not.

Here's what you need to know.

There are a lot of people that have either been fired from their jobs or they quit their

jobs, and they've fallen on hard times, and they've decided to go into housecleaning because

it seems like it's the wisp of the quick buck.

I can jump in.

I can clean a few houses.

I can make a little bit of money and get back on my feet.

There are a lot of people that jump into the housecleaning business and they have no training

whatsoever.

They don't want you to know this, but when they come to bid a job, you might be the first

house they've ever bid.

They don't necessarily know what they're doing.

You need to know that.

There is a series of questions you can ask them to qualify them, but as a homeowner,

you need to qualify your house cleaner.

The next thing that you need to know about some house cleaners is some of them have never

passed a background check.

There's no drug check.

There's no background check.

There's no job history check.

There's no thorough investigation that they're actually who they say they are, and so you

need to do your due diligence, because if you have a house cleaner that comes to your

house and they're not insured, and they're not trained, and they haven't had a drug or

a background check, and they're not who they say they are, you could be letting a perfect

stranger into your home, and who knows what.

They've got your alarm code.

They've got a house key.

They know where you live.

They see pictures around your house of your family.

Not cool.

You've really got to do your due diligence, and this is a thing that a lot of house cleaners

don't want you to know.

Another thing that house cleaners don't want you to know, is that some of them don't actually

know how to clean.

This is a little crazy, but they come in and they spritz.

What that means is they bring like Febreze, or Pine Sol, and they spritz it in the air

so the house smells clean.

They're sitting there reading your books and they're doing other things, and they're not

necessarily cleaning your house.

It's great if you ask them for a checklist.

A lot of professional house cleaners have a checklist.

They will check off what they do.

It's a satisfaction guarantee.

If a cleaning company comes to you and they don't offer a satisfaction guarantee, walk

away, because they're not guaranteeing the work.

When you come home from work, you need to be able to see and know what they've done.

A checklist helps you do that.

Because if they come on a regular basis and they're maintaining everything, you may not

necessarily notice, but they've checked the things off that they've done.

If they're just coming, and they're dusting a few main items, and they're running a few

carpet lines on the floor, and spritzing stuff into the air, you might be paying for a whole

lot more than what you're actually getting.

Some house cleaners don't want you to know that they don't actually know how to clean at all.

You need to have a checklist or something.

Okay.

Another thing they don't want you to know is a lot of house cleaners eat your food.

It's true.

I hear all kinds of stories about house cleaners and it's a little frightening where they will

eat some of your cold cereal, and then they shake the box up so it doesn't look like some is gone.

Or, they'll drink sodas and things out of your fridge.

They might eat sandwiches or make things out of your pantry or your kitchen because they're

hungry and I don't know what, you know?

But, you need to have rules in place that hey, this is my house.

I'm on a budget for my groceries.

I'm not fixing lunch here.

You need to have rules in place.

But some house cleaners don't want you to know that you're their meal ticket, so they're

going to come to your house, and they're going to find some food, and they're going to make

themselves some sandwiches or ramen noodles or whatever, and then hey, your groceries

are their groceries.

Another thing that house cleaners don't want you to know is that some of them are not confidential.

They come to your house and while they're cleaning, they see and they hear things.

They see that you have past overdue notices.

Some of them actually rifle through your mail, and then some of them hear you over-talking

on the telephone, and they hear you fighting, and maybe you have late due payments, or maybe

you're cursing at someone and they know that you're fighting, and maybe you and your spouse

are not getting along.

That's not their business, but a lot of house cleaners will go and they tell other people.

"Oh, you're not going to believe what Mrs. Jones did," and then they nark on the neighbors.

They're telling your neighbors about your personal business.

They're not confidential at all.

It's really important that when you hire a house cleaner, you hire the confidence of

the person that's going to keep your family secrets.

I'm not saying you should have big, family secrets, but every family would like to keep

a few things private from the general public.

They don't want things posted on Facebook.

They don't want social media to know.

They don't want their neighbors to know.

These are personal, everyday things that you have a right to your own privacy.

There are some house cleaners that don't know how to do that, so when a house cleaner comes

to your house and they're bidding their contract and they're giving you a job estimate, listen

to the things that they say.

Are they talking about other homes that they've cleaned?

You might even cue them in.

Say, "Hey, tell me about one of your favorite houses."

Then listen to the words and the choices of words that they use.

Are they talking about people in generic terms?

"There's one family that's just an amazing family and here's what I like best."

"Oh, but there's this one family," and listen to the words they say.

Are they narking on the neighbors?

Are they are rat-a-tat telling on the neighbors?

Are they sharing information that should not be shared?

Just pay extra close attention to that.

Those are five things that house cleaners don't want you to know that you kind of need

to know before you hire house cleaner, because a lot of house cleaners, even though they're

not going to come in and rob you blind, they may not be the right house cleaner for you

at all, right?

It might be that you're just their next car payment or whatever.

Be very careful about the house cleaners you hire, because there needs to be an industry

standard and there's not.

If I do my job correctly, we're going to try to get everybody bonded, and everybody insured,

and everybody trained, and everybody playing on the same page and having boundaries, and

checklists and all these things.

It's about creating consistency across the board so that as homeowners, you don't get

screwed.

Alright, I know this is going to make me really unpopular with even a lot of my friends, but

it's important that, as a homeowner, you have this insight information.

Alrighty?

I hope this helps a little bit.

If it does, pass it on to a friend.

Share it with your mommy and me groups.

Share it with your other Facebook groups.

Until we meet again,

leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.