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Professional cleaning services clean houses and make life easier for their clients. You may have already realized this, so you may have hired a home cleaning service. However, it would be best to take proper measures so your house cleaners can do an excellent job when they arrive. Here is how to organize your home before a cleaning service comes.
This guide also contains cleaning tips and precautions before cleaning companies arrive. You can also learn what not to expect from your cleaning service and what services to expect from your cleaning company. The post ends with tips on how to find a reputable cleaning service.
Things to Do Before House Cleaners Arrive
Both you and your house cleaners have the same objective. You both want a smooth, adequately executed cleaning job. To achieve this, you need to follow proper house cleaner etiquette. Read on to learn what you must take care of before your house cleaner arrives:
Declutter your home
Professional cleaners need enough room to sweep, mop, vacuum, and clean surfaces. You can ease their work if you pick up clutter, clear the floors, and tidy up the counters. Pick items such as children's toys and put away clothes, shoes, and stray items on counters.
House cleaners do not usually organize personal belongings and may have to skip sections of your home that they cannot access easily. Moreover, you will not be too careful if you put away expensive electronics, valuables, and important documents.
Take care of your dirty dishes
Different cleaning companies have different tasks that they include in their house cleaning services. However, many house cleaners prefer to avoid washing dishes or cleaning food messes even if they help you load the dishwasher. Your house cleaner can more easily access areas such as your sink and countertops if you wash and put away your dirty dishes before your house cleaner comes.
Secure your pets before a house clean
You may not have to secure your pets if your pets and professional cleaning staff are familiar with each other. However, securing your pets or taking them out of the house is advisable if your cleaning person is having a first-time visit.
Ensure safe and clear entry and exit routes
It is undoubtedly unproductive for your cleaning lady to arrive and be unable to access your home. Likewise, the hallways and entrances should be clear of obstructions for easy movement. This also means you must ensure first-time house cleaners have relevant access codes to clean your home.
On a parallel note, you should be sure to hire a reputable cleaning service so you are more confident that they perform adequate background checks on their cleaning staff. You should not have to worry about the safety of your belongings even if you are not present during the cleaning.
Give adequate instructions and guidelines
You may need to leave special instructions for the professional cleaning staff as you prepare your home for their visit. The home cleaning team needs to be able to handle any problem areas in your home. You can communicate your wants and needs verbally, in a hand-written note, or do a video.
What to Do Before Cleaning Company Arrives
Apart from tidying up before the home cleaning service comes for the actual cleaning, it would help if you did the following:
- Prepare a checklist of cleaning tasks you need your house cleaner to do. You may also prepare a separate one for yourself.
- Discuss the cleaning tasks with your cleaner and agree on their time commitment and fee as necessary.
- You can also go through the whole place and discuss the cleaning process when the cleaner comes.
- Make special arrangements to move or secure fragile items. At the very least, inform the cleaning company if your cleaner wishes to take care of such items.
- Before the cleaners arrive, you should preferably not use strong chemicals or cleaners on surfaces. The cleaners may use a different cleaning product that may not react well and cause damage to the surfaces.
- Avoid leaving out dangerous or hazardous items such as uncapped insulin syringes, IV bags, and weapons.
- Also, put away sensitive personal belongings.
- Using a well-planned cleaning checklist when you clean houses is always worthwhile.
- You may spread your cleaning tasks across a multi-day cleaning schedule rather than try to tackle the whole house in a day.
What Not to Expect from Your Cleaning Service
Professional cleaners are different from professional organizers. You should be able to draw the line between what you should do and your cleaner's cleaning tasks. At the same time, you can take steps to make professional house cleaners comfortable as they do their job.
Additional cleaning services
You will likely need to pay for services that go beyond the scope of a standard cleaning service. Your home cleaning service may not have the required license, or they may have limited insurance to offer such services. Similarly, specific cleaning tasks may simply be too arduous to perform as standard cleaning tasks.
Some specialty cleaning services that may not come under regular house cleaning include the following:
- Deep cleaning
- Move in and move out cleaning
- Seasonal or spring cleaning
You may also need a specialty cleaning service for the following:
- Window washing
- Laundry services
- Doing dirty dishes
- Cleaning inside of refrigerators
Lifting or moving heavy furniture
House cleaners are usually not responsible for lifting or moving heavy furniture pieces. After all, they may not want to risk potential back injury, pulled muscles, or damaged tendons. As such, you may not expect them to move your large couch in order to clean underneath it.
Services to Expect from Your Cleaning Company
Using a full-service package, a professional cleaning service can make your home look clean and organized.
Floor cleaning
Floor cleaning is a cleaning task that is usually within your cleaning lady's routine. As such, you do not necessarily have to clean your floors before the cleaning lady arrives. Your house cleaner can vacuum and mop floors. However, you likely need to take care of anything that may pose an infection risk. This includes blood and animal poop.
Surface cleaning and disinfection services
Your professional house cleaner can clean and disinfect toilets, showers, tubs, sinks, doorknobs, and light switches.
General cleaning services
Some areas that you can expect your cleaning service to dust and clean include cabinets, baseboards, blinds, and window sills. They can also dust and clean furniture, lamps and lampshades, picture frames, and mirrors. You can also expect them to make beds, clean microwaves, clean your kitchen table, and remove cobwebs.
Emptying out trash
Depending on the specific cleaning service package that you opt for, you can expect your house cleaner to take care of getting rid of your trash. However, you may have to take steps to manage your kitchen or bathroom trash if they are overflowing all over the floor. You may also decide to empty out your trash yourself for privacy reasons.
Hire a Reputable Cleaning Service Today
You have now read up on organizing your home before a cleaning service arrives. You now know more about home cleaning tips and precautions before cleaning companies come, as well as services to expect and services to not expect from your cleaning service.
Your next step may be finding a cleaning service near you, but you must do it carefully. You must ensure you get the right one. Do proper online research or get good referrals of reputable cleaning services from your colleagues or friends.
Be sure to get multiple quotes from several home cleaning services and choose the best. Your final step is preparing your home before the cleaning service arrives to do an excellent job.