Hiring a house cleaner in San Francisco, step by step

Maid, housekeeper, cleaning lady: one job, several names

A "maid," a "maid service," a "housekeeper," "housekeeping" and a "cleaning lady" all point at the same work: a person who cleans a home on a schedule or by the visit.

What sits behind the word matters less than what the visit covers and how the price is set. Both are things to ask on the first call. A maid service is the page that collects the regular version of the work on this site.

Start with what your home needs

Before you call anyone, picture the home as a cleaner would walk through it. Rooms, bathrooms, floors, surfaces that need special care, and the one or two things that have been bothering you for a while. Lead with those on the call, whether that is the kitchen or the baseboards you cannot find hours for, so the visit gets built around what you want fixed first.

What a standard visit covers is a useful read before the call, so the vocabulary is on the same page when the questions start.

Ask how the price is set, and what it is based on

The first real question is how the price is set. Rooms and bathrooms, deep or regular, extras you asked for, and the access to the home are the common inputs, and a company that can walk through them in plain words is a company worth hearing out. The guide on what moves the price covers the drivers in longer form.

Listen for what the number includes and what it does not. A per-visit price covers a defined list, while an hourly rate puts an hourly figure on a visit without naming the work. Neither one is wrong on its own; the question is whether the figure the company says matches what you think you asked for.

Ask what a visit covers and what it leaves out

A standard list and the list of extras are two different conversations. The common standard list is kitchens, bathrooms, dusting from high to low, bedrooms and living areas, floors last. Common extras include inside the oven, inside the fridge, cabinet tops dusted from the floor, baseboards end to end, blinds and interior windows. Say which extras you want on the call, before the day begins.

The list of what a company does not do matters just as much. Outside windows above the ground floor, carpet shampooing, pest work, mold work, and junk hauling are other trades. A clear answer on where the work stops tells you a company has thought about the limits before.

Ask which products get used, and check any green claim

Products are worth bringing up on the call. If you keep a short list on the shelf, say which to use and which to leave alone. If a scent sets off your dog, say so. If a stone counter would etch under an acid, say that too. We go over supplies and products when you call, and we can use the ones you have at home.

A green claim is worth checking. SF.gov's guide to opening a cleaning business names the SF Department of the Environment's Green Business program. The California Green Business Network, led by a coalition of cities and counties, has a public directory of green businesses. If a company tells you it is a Green Business, look it up there. For a visit that follows the City's guidance on products, green cleaning is the page that walks through what SF Environment points to and what it lists to avoid.

Keys, buzzers, front desks and building rules in San Francisco

How a cleaner gets in is a question the home asks every visit, and the answer varies a lot across the city. A single-family house with a key under a planter, a Sunset house where the home sits above the garage up a flight of front stairs, a condo with a front desk and a service elevator, and a two-unit building with a shared entry each have different habits.

Buildings have their own house rules on top of the arrangement with the cleaner. The service elevator may have hours, the garage may have a visitor space, the mailroom may have a sign-in, and the trash and recycling rooms may be on different floors. Ask the building manager once and pass what they say along to the cleaner on the first call.

Pets and the people at home

A pet in the home is a question for the first call. A dog that is friendly can still be in the way of a vacuum, and a cat that bolts out an open door is a problem to solve before the first visit rather than at it. Tell the company what the pet usually does when the vacuum comes out, where it will be during the visit, and whether a bedroom door should stay closed. Pet hair and dander land on floors, rugs and furniture, so the cleaning plan builds around what the pet leaves behind.

People at home matter too. About 39 percent of San Francisco households are one person living alone, and about 29 percent include someone 65 or older, with roughly 12 percent a person 65 or older living alone. A home with an older adult who prefers quiet, a shared place where somebody works from the kitchen, or a studio where sleep and work share a room each shape the visit a little differently. Say what the household looks like on the first call and the plan accounts for it.

The first visit in a San Francisco home, then a rhythm

A first visit can carry more than the one after it when the gap has been long, because the film under the toaster, the dust on top of the cabinets and the grit at the back of a drawer were not put there last week. A home that has gone a long stretch without a thorough clean can start with a deep clean, then settle into a schedule. A home that has been on a schedule in good standing can start on the regular version.

Once the baseline is set, the schedule carries the rest. A weekly schedule suits a busy home with pets or heavy traffic. Every other week can fit a small household. Monthly works when the home stays steady between visits and a deeper visit lands now and then on top of it. On a first call, say which pace sounds right and we talk through it.

What to have ready when you call

A few things are worth having at hand for the first call:

• The number of rooms and bathrooms, with full and half baths counted separately.
• The name of the building and the floor, with any front-desk rules you already know.
• What you want cleaned above the standard list, if anything.
• Pets, by name and by what they do when the door opens.
• Products you want used, products you want avoided, and anything already on the shelf.
• The dates and times that would work for a first visit.
• A short note on what the last cleaner missed, if the home has had cleaners before.

For a condo or a tower, add any building rules you have been given: service elevator times, which door the cleaner uses and where the garbage room sits. How a call with us goes walks through what we do when the phone rings.

Questions to ask any house cleaner

Here are the plain questions worth asking any company. The right column is what a straight answer tends to sound like.

Companies that have thought the six questions above through tend to answer them straight.