First, there are many people out there who call themselves professional house cleaners. Look under 'Maid Services' in the phone book and you will see what we mean…there are tons of house cleaning services listed in each area. Also, there are often 'underground' maid services that are out dropping business cards and trying to get customers. Many times these are individuals who work at various other jobs, but offer themselves as house cleaning services on the side. How do you choose from the hundreds of cleaning services that are available and promoting the same thing?

Second, the barriers to calling oneself a professional house cleaning service are small. People don't necessarily need a lot of fancy equipment or tools to start a maid business. Therefore, individuals that have a vacuum and cleaning supplies can try to trick you in to believing they are a trustworthy, highly skilled, and experienced house cleaning service. If you have a few cleaning supplies and a business card you could fool a lot of people!

Finally, there is the fact that hiring a cleaning service is a very personal decision. You are inviting others to come into your home, sometimes when you are not around. You need to make sure that your comfort level is high with anyone that you allow access to your home.

So what do you do when looking for house cleaning or maid services?

We recommend:

• Asking your friends and neighbors to see if they have had good or bad experiences with local house cleaning services. Simply knowing that another person has had a good experience with a house cleaning service prior to calling them lessens your chance of hiring a problem.

• If you have the time, call a few maid services to look at your house and give you an estimate. This will help you determine fair market price for your job. This does not mean you should always go with the lowest price, you should go with the company you feel most comfortable with and who you feel will do the best job. If an individual is offering a real low price you should ask yourself "why?".

• Make sure the house cleaning company or individual is bonded and has insurance. You could be held liable for injury at your house. Also, if something is broken or stolen you need to make sure the company is financially able to replace it. That is why insurance and bonding is so important. As mentioned above, there are many fly-by-night house cleaning services that may not be insured. Ask them for their insurance company's phone number and call them to prove they are insured.

• Ask if the company performs background checks on its employees. Again, you want to know who you are inviting into your house. Another good indication for a trustworthy company is to ask how long the company's cleaners have been employed by the company. If they have a cleaning force that has been stable, then you can feel better that they are not problem employees.

• Be very specific with what you want cleaned. In order for the company to provide you with an accurate estimate you need to be clear with your expectations. Some customers just want a general cleaning. Others want items individually picked up and dusted and extra care taken in certain areas of the house. These requests should all be figured into the estimate.

• Determine how often you want the maid service to come. Usually, if you become a repeat cutomer your price may go down.

• Always get a statement of work to be performed in writing. Keep this filed away. Make sure the statements clearly state what work is to be performed.

• Ask if the cleaning company's work comes with guarantees. Make sure you get these things in writing. These are all factors to weigh when looking at the total estimates left by different cleaning services.

• Check in on the house cleaning service's progress regularly…try to catch potential problems or misunderstandings early, so that they can correct the situation.

Good luck with your house cleaning needs!

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