Hiring a house cleaning service can feel a little intimidating the first time around. You’re hiring the service to keep your home clean, which is admirable so there’s no need to feel guilty if your home is messy!
However, what many homeowners don’t realize is that the service they order can vary from cleaner to cleaner and even from service to service within the same cleaning company. That means you might need to know how to prepare your condo for your first professional cleaning. Here are our tips to house cleaning service virgins, to make your first time more comfortable.
Understand the Service You Ordered
First, make sure you are clear on the service you ordered. This is important because the condition of your home when the cleaners arrive can interfere with how well they can do their job. For example, our “basic” cleaning service includes the following:
- Bathtub and shower enclosure
- Inside, out and behind the toilet
- Lights, mirrors, sink, countertops
- Vacuum ceiling fan cover
- Light switches, doorknobs
- Empty garbage bin
- Vacuum/mop floors
- Make beds
- Tidy any clothing
- Dust counters, tabletops, picture frames
- Clean mirrors and polish ornaments
- Wipe switches, doorknobs
- Vacuum/mop floors
- If dishwasher empty, start a new load
- If dishwasher full, put away clean dishes
- Microwave inside
- Stovetop
- Fridge front polished
- Backsplash, countertops, cupboard fronts
- Sink
- Wipe light switches & door knobs
- Replace garbage and recycling liners
- Vacuum/ mop floors
- General tidying
- Tidy sofa seating
- Tabletops, picture frames, window ledges
- Clean mirrors and polish ornaments
- Wipe telephones, switches, doorknobs
- Vacuum/mop floors
- Clear air vent
- Clear lint trap
Pretty thorough, right? So an example of something you might need to consider for this type of service would be dirty dishes. Since the cleaning includes cleaning the sink, but not cleaning dirty dishes or loading the dishwasher, having dirty dishes in the sink will mean we can’t clean the sink.
Also while we do some general tidying, a condo that is a disaster area will make it impossible to do everything from vacuuming to dusting. So you need to make sure the tidying is manageable and allows us to get to the floors without tons of dirty clothes, newspapers, toys, or other items all over the place.
Bathrooms are another good example: if your makeup, shaving, and hair products, an open tube of toothpaste, and old toothbrushes are littering the counter and sink, we can’t do much to clean that area either. You get the picture!
What Is Typically Is Considered “Extra”
So based on our basic cleaning service, some of the extras you would have to request would include things like:
- Cleaning inside your fridge
- Washing your sinkful of dishes
- Wiping down extra surfaces like your windowsills, blinds, or baseboards
- Cleaning up after pets like changing kitty litter
- Doing your laundry
- Changing your bed sheets
So the first thing you should do is look at the other packages to see what they cover, or specify what other things you need to add to the package so we can customize the service to suit your needs.
No Judgement
Just remember cleaning services make money by cleaning. So although you might feel embarrassed or even a little guilty about the state of your condo, we’re just glad you called. We clean houses for a living, so we don’t go into your home passing judgment and rolling our eyes at how messy you are. No matter what you throw at us, we can honestly say we’ve seen worse. Almost always.
How far do you need to clean?
As mentioned, the state of your home can make it difficult for us to perform the basic cleaning tasks. To make sure you get your money’s worth, we advise you to prepare for our arrival by taking the following steps:
- Reduce Clutter: Since we are there to clean, not organize your home, we do ask that you reduce clutter as much as possible. Things like clothes on the floor or counters covered with dishes or personal care items make it difficult to do the deep clean we get paid to do.
- Help Us Help You: Let us know where we can put things we can’t find a home for, so we don’t misplace anything we pick up. A good way to avoid this situation in the first place is to clear away clutter before we arrive. This way we aren’t left trying to decide what goes where or even what is garbage and what you need. So if you have a little spot like say the coffee table or your kitchen table where we can put anything without an obvious spot, you can come home, find it, and put it where it belongs.
- Make a Don’t Touch Pile: If you find you are strapped for time, and can’t tidy like you should, feel free to just create a Don’t Touch pile in a corner of the room. Let us know it’s there and we will work around it. This clears the surfaces so we can clean while putting less pressure on you to keep things tidy.
- Have a Pet Plan: We love pets as much as the next guy but they don’t always love us. Pets often view us as unwanted intruders, strangers if you will. And they’re not wrong. If you have pets, consider what can be done to avoid a) Us getting an unfriendly welcome and b) Your pet getting scared or worse “free” when we enter the home.
This is especially important if you know your pet tends to get “territorial”. Some ideas include having someone in the building mind them during the time we are scheduled, designating a room for them to remain in while we work, putting them in a crate while we work, or you taking them out for a while so we can clean without worry.
- Do a Home Sweep: By sweep, we don’t mean with a broom. In this case we mean, check everything in your home that you might be worried could get lost or ahem, broken so we don’t run into any chance of accusations of damaging or stealing goods. We trust our clients won’t try to pull a fast one and accuse of us anything “untoward” and hopefully you’ll give us the same courtesy. This way if something is missing or broken, you’ll be aware it could have been our team. But we’ll tell you if we break something, honest. But we won’t break anything.
Consider Your Priorities
Our packages are based on basic time allotments. We know on average how long it takes to complete the package and charge and schedule accordingly. If you take care of our suggestions above, chances are we’ll get through everything you paid for with time to spare. However, if you don’t take care of our recommendations, we can guarantee we won’t be able to do as good a job. If you do find you can’t prep as planned, leave us a note or give us a call and tell us what areas to prioritize.
Don’t Forget Security!
One last thing. Every condo has its own security system so don’t forget to tell your front desk if we need clarification. If your unit has a security system, make sure it’s off, or that we know how to turn it off.
Contact Maid4Condos for Professional Cleaning
To learn more about Toronto condo cleaning, call Maid4Condos at (647) 822-0601 or contact us here.
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