Hiring a professional house cleaner for your home isn’t for everyone, but for some it can be a lifesaver. It frees up so much of your time. You always have a clean, organized house to spend time with the family. When it’s time to cook dinner, you aren’t cleaning for half an hour before and after just to have a clean cooking space.
But you have to be careful about who you hire and the terms. One particular term I’ve learned is important is knowing exactly how many people will be cleaning your home and who they are. Depending on the organization you hire, they may send out individual people. They may send a team of two or three or they may send an even larger group.
One Man (or Woman) Team...
If there’s only one person assigned to work with you and clean your house on a regular basis, then you can somewhat get to know them. If, by chance, something in your home comes up missing or gets broke then you know exactly who to turn to. Work is often done more efficiently, because they aren’t chatting with coworkers and they know that the work is a reflection on them alone. Ah, the chatting... If you work from home, a one-man team is awesome too, because they can more easily work without disturbing you.
Of course, there is one major drawback of having an individual as your cleaning team... the time it takes to get the work done. If there’s only one person cleaning, it’s obviously going to take longer than if there were more. It may be get done faster, but it’s going to be louder and more hectic. If you’re at home while they’re there, you may feel like you’re pushed out of one room to the other to let them get their work done.
Is Hiring an Individual Cheaper than a Cleaning Company?
So your manager’s sister’s friend does house cleaning and is awesome they say. Plus she doesn’t charge near what the local cleaning company does. This might be a good deal, but there’s a good chance it’s not too. Be careful and know what the IRS has to say for your situation. If you hire her and the IRS determines that you’re, in fact, her employer then you’ve got some responsibilities on your hand. You may need to withhold Social Security, Federal Income, Medicare, etc..
Also, any good cleaning company will be licensed, bonded, insured. If something gets broken, you’re in good hands. If the normal person they send is sick one day, they'll make sure there’s an adequate replacement.
Always contact a cleaning company with plenty leeway time. For one, this lets you move on to someone else if something just doesn’t feel right. It also lets you see what their customer service is like before ever hiring them. How helpful are they pre-sale? How quickly do they respond to inquiries? For instance, Synergy cleaning services(NYC) responds to email within 15 minutes over 90 percent of the time. That’s pretty impressive. But others I’ve looked at randomly have no mention about response times.
