No, and most clients are not. The majority of residential cleaning happens while the household is at work, which is generally the point.
What matters is not your presence but the arrangement: how the team gets in, who they are, and what happens if something does not go to plan. Those are worth settling before the first visit rather than on the doorstep.
The common access arrangements
Four arrangements cover almost everybody. None of them is unusual, and none requires you to rearrange your week.
- A key held by the company, logged and tracked between visits
- A lockbox on the property with a code you can change whenever you like
- A smart lock with a temporary or recurring code for the visit window
- Someone at home to let the team in — a partner, a family member, or a building concierge
The one most people prefer
Smart locks and lockboxes are what most people settle on. Control stays with you: change the code whenever you like, and check when it was last used.
If you go the physical-key route, ask how keys are stored, whether they are labeled with your address, and what happens if one is lost. A company that has clearly thought about this will answer immediately.
What to confirm before the first visit
More visits fail on access than on anything else. Not weather, not staffing, not the work itself — a code that changed, a gate nobody mentioned, a fob left on a kitchen counter. Almost all of it is avoidable by confirming a short list in advance.
- 01Gate or community code, and whether it changes periodically
- 02Building entry for apartments — fob, callbox, concierge or leasing office
- 03How the team gets into the unit itself
- 04Where a vehicle can park, and whether visitor parking is enforced
- 05Alarm code and instructions, if there is a system
- 06Whether pets will be loose, and how they react to visitors
Trust, and what to actually check
This is the real decision, and it is not the one most people research. Letting a stranger into an empty house deserves more scrutiny than the hourly rate does.
Ask two things. Are the people entering your home background-checked, and is the company insured and bonded? Insurance covers accidental damage or injury. Bonding covers theft. Companies sometimes say one and mean the other, so it is worth asking about each by name.
Then ask about uniforms, and whether you are told in advance who is coming. Knowing the name of the person at your door is not an unreasonable thing to want.
When being home is actually useful
Sometimes it helps. Once, it actively does not.
Be home for the first visit if you can manage it. Ten minutes walking a team through the house — this counter takes a specific product, that room stays shut, the dog is friendly but bolts for open doors — does more than a page of written notes, and it sets the standard every visit afterwards is measured against.
It helps again whenever something changes. New flooring, a new pet, a room that is now a nursery.
Hovering is the one that does not help. A team works a fixed route through the house, and someone following it around breaks the route without improving the result.
If something goes wrong while you were out
It happens. Occasionally something is missed, and very occasionally something is broken. The question worth asking is not whether that ever occurs — it does, to everyone — but what the company does next.
A reasonable company will tell you proactively if something was broken, rather than leaving you to find it. For missed work, there should be a clear window in which you can raise it and a commitment to come back and put it right at no extra cost.
Ask what that window is before you book. A number is a good sign. A vague answer means the process gets invented the first time somebody needs it.
