Before You Let a Cleaner Into Your Home, Ask These Questions

That level of access deserves more scrutiny than most people ever apply. We are Alex and Justin from AJPresentations, and we would rather you ask us hard questions than book anyone on trust alone. These are the questions worth asking, including of us.

Why this matters more with cleaning than almost any trade

Cleaning is the most intimate service a household buys. The person cleaning learns your routines, sees every room, and knows when the house is empty. With many companies, you did not choose that person. A roster did, and the roster changes.

There is also the matter of frequency. A one-off trade visit is a single point of exposure. A recurring cleaner is in your home week after week, which turns whatever risk exists from a single event into an ongoing relationship. That is all the more reason to get the vetting right at the start, because these questions are far easier to ask before the first visit than after the tenth.

None of this means cleaners are untrustworthy. The overwhelming majority are honest people doing careful work. It means the vetting matters, and the company doing the vetting deserves as much scrutiny as the person holding the mop.

The insurance question

Start with public liability insurance, which covers accidental damage to your property during a clean. A knocked television, a scratched floor, a product used on the wrong surface: insurance is what stands between an apology and an argument about a repair bill.

Ask to see the certificate rather than settling for a verbal yes. A legitimate business can produce it without friction, usually the same day. Hesitation, excuses or a change of subject are answers in themselves, and they should end the conversation.

It is worth asking what the policy actually covers, too. A professional operator can explain the cover in plain terms rather than hiding behind the word insured, and can tell you the level of cover they carry. If the answer is vague, the cover often is as well.

The police check question

Ask whether the people entering your home hold national police checks, who exactly was checked, and when. Recency matters, because a check from five years ago says nothing about the five years since.

With larger agencies, add one more question: is the person who arrives the person who was checked? Rosters shift and jobs get reassigned. A company that vets its office staff but not its field workers is offering you paperwork instead of protection.

The subcontractor problem

Much of the cleaning industry runs on subcontracting. The brand sells the job, takes a margin, and passes the work to whoever is available that week. The person in your home may have no direct relationship with the company you vetted, and may never have read the standards on its website.

If subcontracting does apply, ask one more thing: who actually carries the insurance and the police check, the brand or the individual doing the work? Sometimes the company's cover does not extend to the subcontractor at all, which leaves you relying on paperwork that was never really yours.

There is nothing illegal about that model, but you deserve to know whether it applies to your booking, because it decides whether your vetting meant anything. We run the opposite model. AJPresentations is founder-led, which means the two owners do every clean personally. The people you vet are the people who show up, every single visit.

Red flags that should end the call

Some warning signs are reliable enough that we suggest treating any one of them as a dealbreaker.

Cash only, no ABN, no invoice

A business with nothing in writing is a business you cannot hold to anything. Insurance claims, guarantees and disputes all rely on paperwork that starts with a simple invoice.

They cannot name who is coming

If the office cannot tell you who will be inside your home, the vetting conversation is already over, because there is nobody to have been vetted.

Vague insurance answers

Anything short of a certificate produced on request should be treated as no insurance at all.

No re-clean policy

A cleaner confident in their work will put a guarantee in writing. No policy usually means no intention of ever coming back.