Before You Let Anyone Into Your Apartment: What To Ask

The four questions

• Who is coming: one person or a crew, employees or contractors, and will it be the same people each visit on a recurring booking.
• Is the company insured, and does that cover damage to the apartment as well as injury to the person working in it.
• Is any of this subcontracted to another company or an individual, because that changes who is actually accountable.
• How will I know it is the right person: a name in advance, a photo, a company vehicle, an ID.

All four are ordinary questions that any established company answers without hesitation. The information matters, and the willingness to answer matters at least as much.

Why the same-people question is worth asking

On a recurring booking, a rotating cast means starting over every visit: your preferences, the trick with the bathroom door, the shelf that is not to be touched. Consistency is why people describe recurring cleaning as low effort and why others describe it as a permanent management task.

It is also a fair thing to ask about rather than to expect silently. Small companies often can promise it and larger ones often cannot, and knowing which you are dealing with prevents a low-grade annoyance that lasts months.

Insurance, in plain terms

The point is not the certificate, it is what happens if a mirror gets broken or a floor gets marked. A company with cover has a process for that, and one without it has a conversation with you about it.

Ask whether they are insured and what happens if something is damaged. You do not need to see documents to learn a lot from how the answer arrives: a company that deals with this regularly gives you a short, unbothered process.

Access, and what you are actually agreeing to

• Decide whether you will be home, and say so when booking rather than on the day.
• If you will not, agree how they get in: lockbox, smart lock code, concierge, building office.
• Change a temporary code afterwards if you used one, which most smart locks make trivial.
• Ask what happens if nobody can get in, since that is usually a charged visit.
• Tell the building if they require notice for contractors, which many do.

Reasonable precautions on your side

Put away cash, documents, jewellery, medication, and spare keys before any first visit. This is not an accusation, it is the same thing you would do before any tradesperson comes, and it removes an entire category of ambiguity for both sides.

It also protects the cleaner. An item that goes missing in a week when someone was in the apartment becomes an uncomfortable conversation for a person who did nothing, and the simplest way to avoid that is for the item never to have been out.

The signals worth paying attention to

• A quote given without any questions about the apartment, which usually means it will change on the day.
• No written confirmation of what is included.
• Reluctance to say who is coming or whether the work is subcontracted.
• Payment demanded in full in advance for a first visit with a new client.
• No way to contact anyone other than the person doing the work.

None of these are proof of anything on their own. Two or three together are a reason to keep looking, and the pricing page plus the cleaning checklist are what a straightforward answer to the scope question looks like in writing.