What to Do Before Your Cleaners Arrive (From the Cleaners Themselves)

Joseph here. The most common sentence I hear walking into a home is "I'm so embarrassed about the mess." Please hear me: you hired cleaners because there's a mess. If the house were already clean, we'd all be standing in it awkwardly with nothing to do. That said, a little prep means we spend our time scrubbing instead of relocating laundry — and you get more clean for the same money.

The five things that actually matter

• Pick up floors and counters. We clean surfaces — we can't clean what's under a pile of mail, toys or laundry. Ten minutes of tidying buys you a much deeper clean.
• Secure or tell us about pets. Friendly dogs are welcome coworkers, but a nervous cat and an open front door is a bad combination. A quick note about who lives here is perfect.
• Leave out clean sheets if you want beds changed. We'll happily strip and remake beds — just set the fresh linens on the bed so we're not guessing in your linen closet.
• Point out priorities and no-go zones. "Focus on the kitchen, skip the office" takes one text and changes your whole result.
• Make sure we can get in. Key, code, lockbox, garage — whatever works. We're happy to work with lockboxes and keep your entry details private.

What you don't need to do

• Pre-clean. Truly. That's the job.
• Be home. Most of our clients aren't — many prefer it.
• Apologize. Ever. We've seen worse, I promise, and we don't judge — we scrub.

Ready to hand it off? Get a quote and leave us a note — dramatic cats and all.