What actually happens on your first clean

Hiring a cleaner for the first time is oddly uncomfortable. You are letting a stranger into your home, you are not sure what they will judge, and you have no idea whether you are supposed to prepare.

So here is the whole thing, start to finish, including the parts most companies leave vague.

Before: what to do, and what not to bother with

The single most useful thing is clearing surfaces. A counter with twelve things on it takes about three times as long as an empty one, because everything gets lifted, wiped under and put back. Clearing counters and side tables buys real cleaning time.

What you do not need to do is clean. People do it anyway and we understand why, but it is money spent on your own Saturday to make our job easier rather than to make your home cleaner.

• Clear counters, side tables and the bathroom vanity if you can.
• Say what is off limits. A home office mid-project, a guest room, a shelf you would rather nobody touched. We clean around it without asking twice.
• Flag anything fragile or unusual: unsealed stone, waxed wood, a vintage finish, an antique.
• Mention pets, including where they will be and whether they bolt for open doors.
• Sort access once, especially in a condo. That is covered properly in the condo building rules guide.

Why the first visit is often a deep clean

This surprises people and it sounds like an upsell, so it is worth being direct. If a home has not had a thorough clean in the last few months, the first visit is a deep clean and priced as one. After that, recurring visits are standard cleans at the standard rate.

It is arithmetic rather than salesmanship. Baseboards, hard water film on shower glass, the tops of door frames, the inside of the microwave and the grease film behind the hob take hours the first time and minutes thereafter. A standard clean does not include those surfaces at all, so more care on the day would not reach them.

If your home has been maintained, say so, and a standard clean is the right call. We would rather tell you that than take money for work that is not needed. The deep clean or standard clean guide walks through which one applies.

On the day

We arrive with everything: products, cloths, mops and a vacuum. There is nothing for you to buy or store, and if you would rather we used something specific of your own, leave it out with a note and we will use that instead.

The work runs top to bottom and finishes on the floors, because doing it the other way round means cleaning them twice. Bathrooms get started early so descaler has time to work while we are elsewhere. Colour-coded cloths keep bathroom cloths out of the kitchen.

You do not need to be home. Most of our recurring customers are not. For a first visit some people prefer to be there for the opening twenty minutes to point things out and then leave, which is often the best arrangement.

What we will not do, and will tell you about

Every cleaning company has limits and most of them are vague about it until the day. Ours:

• No exterior windows above ground level, and nothing needing a ladder beyond a two-step.
• No mould remediation. We remove surface mildew on tile, grout and silicone. Mould behind drywall or under flooring is a moisture problem and needs a remediation contractor.
• No pest work, no biohazards.
• We do not move heavy furniture. We clean behind and under what can be moved safely by one person.
• Oven, fridge, interior windows, inside cabinets and laundry are add-ons rather than defaults, because most homes do not need them every visit.

If we look at a surface and think the honest answer is a refinisher rather than a cleaner, we will say so. Etched glass, worn varnish and stone that has lost its seal are damage rather than dirt, and no amount of cleaning reverses them.

Afterwards, and the bit that matters most

Walk through it while it is fresh, and tell us within 24 hours if something was missed. We come back and put it right at no charge. That is the entire policy, and it is deliberately simpler than a refund conversation.

Feedback on the first visit is worth more than on any later one, because it sets what gets recorded on your file. Prefer the bathroom done a particular way, want the bins left out, hate a certain smell, need the cat kept in? Say it once after the first clean and it becomes how your home is done.

That is also the argument for a company that keeps notes. A clean that gets better over time is one where the file on your home is being added to. A clean that starts from zero every visit is one where nobody wrote anything down.

Then what

Most Toronto households settle on every two weeks. Weekly suits pets, small children, or a home that gets heavy use. Monthly works for a tidy household of one or two, though a monthly home drifts further between visits, so each one is a slightly bigger job.

Recurring pricing is lower per visit, and you can skip or reschedule with 24 hours' notice at no charge without losing your rate. Here is what the schedules actually cost across a year:

Worked on a 3 bed semi-detached.