Most of the complaints told after a booking could have been avoided by one question before it. These are not tests of honesty; they are tests of clarity, and a serious company answers them without hesitating.
1. Is this price final, or does it change after inspection?
This reveals a great deal. A price given over the phone without knowing the condition of the property is an estimate, and that is fine if it is said plainly. What is not fine is presenting it as final and then revising it at the door.
There is a difference between an estimate that moves for a reason and a number that moves for none. A property in worse shape than described, or a room nobody mentioned, is a fair reason, and it should be put to you before the work starts rather than after it finishes. A figure that changes because nobody asked in the first place is the company's problem, not yours.
The things that genuinely move the number, condition, area, the task list and access, are set out in how a cleaning price is worked out. Knowing them makes your question sharper and the answer you get plainer.
2. Who is coming, your staff, or labour hired in?
The distinction is not cosmetic. A company that employs its crew can train them, send the same people back, and carry responsibility for the work. A middleman assembling day labour cannot do any of the three. Ask directly; a hesitant answer is an answer.
Follow it with a smaller question: if you book again, do the same people come back? The answer tells you what the relationship is between the company and whoever works under its name, and it tells you who you will be speaking to if something goes wrong.
3. How many people, and roughly how many hours?
One person for a large apartment means either a full day or an incomplete job. Knowing the crew size and duration in advance makes the expectation realistic, and reveals whether a low price is built on less time rather than more skill.
Convert the answer into total working hours so two quotes can actually be compared. Two people for four hours is eight hours of work; three people for two hours is six, and the two quotes may still look almost identical. Compare the scope the same way, because what normally falls under a full house clean is not what falls under cleaning a single room or a kitchen on its own.
4. What is not included?
Ask about the exclusions, not the inclusions. The "what's included" list is always written generously; the excluded part, exterior glass, inside the kitchen units, carpets, the balcony, is where the disputes live.
The items that keep reappearing on exclusion lists:
- Exterior glass, and any facade needing a ladder or ropes.
- The insides of kitchen units, the oven and the fridge, usually priced separately.
- Steam cleaning of carpets and upholstery, which is a different job from cleaning floors.
- Balconies, outdoor stairs, and any open area attached to the property.
- Ceilings, fans and high light fittings.
- Moving heavy furniture, and carrying waste out of the building.
- Pest treatment, a separate service with its own inspection first, judged on evidence rather than on sighting anything, as in the signs of bed bugs.
Ask about the ones that matter to you by name. A general list is no substitute for a specific question.
5. What happens if I am not satisfied?
You do not need a grand guarantee, you need a specific answer: does the crew come back? Within how many days? At whose cost? A company that has never considered the question will answer in generalities.
Ask about the window in particular: how long do you have to raise something once the work is finished? A comment made two weeks later about a kitchen in daily use is hard to stand behind, and an organised company sets that window itself. Keep whatever was agreed in writing in the message thread, since a written line settles a disagreement that memory only prolongs.
6. Do you have a commercial registration and a fixed address?
Not a formality: a fixed address and a registration mean there is someone to go back to in a month. A mobile number alone means after-service is unguaranteed by construction.
Ask who is handling the booking, by name. Dealing with one point of contact that stays the same is easier than chasing a number that changes every time.
Three small questions that get forgotten
The first: do the materials and equipment arrive with the crew, or are you expected to have them? The second: does the work need water and power from inside the property? Most of it does, and knowing that in advance prevents a stop halfway through the day.
The third matters most: is a product tried in a corner nobody sees before it goes over the whole surface? That small test is what protects marble, untreated wood and delicate fabric from a mark that cannot be undone once it is there.
And why the cheapest is rarely the cheapest
A very low price is funded from somewhere: less time, a smaller crew, weaker materials, or work that needs redoing in a month instead of six. When comparing two quotes, compare the hours, the crew size and the scope, not the figure alone.
Check first that both quotes are for the same kind of work. A deep clean takes several times as long as a routine one over the same area, so anything sold as deep at routine hours is a routine clean under another name. That distinction is drawn out in routine cleaning versus deep cleaning.
What the first call already tells you
Long before you reach the six questions, the call itself answers most of them.
- Anyone who asks when the property was last cleaned is thinking about the work, not the booking.
- Asking for photos or a short video is a good sign, because an estimate should be built on something seen.
- Questions about parking, the lift and access times mean the job has been thought through.
- A number produced in ten seconds without a single question is a number that will be revisited later.
Before the crew arrives
What you do beforehand saves time you are paying for.
- Clear papers, small items and anything valuable off the surfaces.
- Point out what is delicate: marble, untreated wood, screens, anything already chipped.
- Decide where waste is collected and who carries it out.
- Leave the entrance and a parking space clear, because time lost getting in is time on the clock.
A fuller list of what earns its five minutes before the appointment, and what is not worth touching at all, is in preparing your home before the crew arrives.
At the end, walk through the property with whoever is leading the crew before they leave, in daylight if you can. A remark made while they are still standing there is dealt with in minutes; the same remark two days later needs another visit.
How we answer them
We price after knowing the condition, not before, and we state the exclusions explicitly before booking. If the property does not need the service you asked for, we say so, a visit that was never needed costs us more in trust than it earns in fees.
The scope and the exclusions are set out line by line on the house cleaning page, which is a useful place to start before the call. More about us or get in touch for a price.