How to Inspect Your Home After a Professional Cleaning Team

Having professional cleaners at your home is sometimes necessary, due to the lack of time, which makes it impossible for you to clean everything. Whether you hire an independent cleaning maid or a company for the job, there are always good ways to check if they are thorough in their jobs and clean properly everything. I am here to give you some tips on how to inspect your home by yourself and look for the things cleaners might have missed.

Be realistic

First of all, you should already have a picture in your mind of how things should be looking after the cleaning procedures are done, but try to remember to have realistic expectations.

Realise that bigger properties require more time to be cleaned. You cannot simply ask for a deep cleaning service, for example, of a four bedroom house and expect it to be thoroughly and completely cleaned in just two hours. It sounds ridiculous, unless a team of at least five people will be cleaning it. This strongly depends on whether you seek individuals or whole cleaning companies.

Give simple, yet needed instructions

If you want the cleaning to go as you imagine it, then leave some kind of directions and preferences, or state them over the phone. If you have any particular things in mind, telling them to the cleaner/s will be a good idea, if you want everything to be done the way you want. You cannot expect to have deep cleaned and organised kitchen cupboards, if you don’t specifically note it.

What should you be looking for

The first look of your home surfaces is not what you should be looking at after a cleaning service has been delivered. Whoever cleaned the house will probably not leave dirty kitchen surfaces or soap residue in the bathroom sink. Look for harder to reach or difficult to clean surfaces – they will show you if the cleaning procedures were properly done:

• Inspect the highest shelves in the rooms. If dust is gone, then whoever cleaned probably did a good job. People tend to get lazy for upper shelves and thinking that these are too high for someone to notice if they are clean, can sometimes make cleaners neglect them.
• Check your refrigerator shelves and its top. If someone really did a great work, the fridge will be spotless not only outside, but inside, too.
• Check the toilet base. Good cleaners spend some time in cleaning bathrooms and the toilet base will tell you whether or not the work is properly done.
• Check the skirting boards and window ledges. These are sometimes difficult to clean parts and they speak for the whole cleaning.
• Look at the blinds on your windows, apart from the windows themselves. If the blinds are clean, it will be easy to notice.
• The same rules apply for the ceiling fan.
• Check the sinks. If they are just wiped you will see it. There is a big difference between thoroughly cleaned sinks and just wiped ones.
• If you commonly use a cleaning service for your home, then you should have an idea what gets cleaned and it will be easy to notice if something is done not quite right.

Some tips

Apart from giving you tips on which parts to check to find out if the cleaning procedures were done correctly and thoroughly, we have a few tricks on how to know if the people who clean your home are really reliable and trustworthy:

• Leave some money on the table or in a pocket on your jeans. Valuable items also work great. Leave them to be easily seen and check if something is missing after the cleaner/s is/are gone. You wouldn’t like to have your cleaners stealing from you, so this is a very efficient way to find out. The good thing is that you can commonly use this type of checking, if you want to make sure they haven’t gotten any less reliable.
• Don’t forget to communicate with them. If something is not properly done or half-done, leave a note or tell them over the phone. If you want clean surfaces, you will have to require them of your cleaner/s, because when you do not make a remark, they will think it’s fine and keep going like this.
• If needed, a background-check is not a bad thing. Whether you’ve hired a professional cleaning company or a private cleaner, it’s good to know their story. After all they enter your home, know where you live, know which is your bedroom, etc. You should know the ones who clean your home, you don’t want any criminals or skeletons in their closets.

Finally

The last thing, you need to remember, is that you can always hire another person/company for the job, if you are not satisfied with the service you get, for the money you pay. If your expectations are not met, a change needs to be done, and it’s probably not your fault. Remember, also, to be polite to those who clean your home. Being bossy is definitely not nice, while saying or writing “please” can change lots of things.