Do I Need to Be Home When the Cleaners Come?

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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

If you have ever stood in your kitchen holding a spare key, wondering whether you can really hand it to a cleaning company, that hesitation makes sense. Letting someone into your home while you are out is a real act of trust, especially if a past cleaner gave you a reason to think twice.

For most of our recurring clients across greater Victoria, you almost never need to be home. Plenty of our weekly and biweekly clients are at the office, on the school run, or away for a week when their cleaner arrives, and they walk back into a finished house. Here is how that works, and what keeps your home protected while you are gone.

How do cleaners get into my home if I’m not there?

You arrange access once with our office, and it stays the same every visit after that. Most recurring clients use a keyless entry code, leave a key in an agreed hiding spot, or leave a door unlocked on cleaning day. You pick whatever you are comfortable with, and we note it on your file.

If meeting your cleaner first would put you at ease, you are welcome to be home for the very first visit, show them around, and then hand over a code for every clean after that. Plenty of clients do exactly that and never think about it again.

The one thing we need from you is reliable access on the day. If our cleaner arrives and cannot get in, your slot is already blocked off and the cleaner still has to be paid for that time. A lockout means a $79 charge, or 50% of the job for a move in or move out clean. Accidents happen and we know that, which is why a keyless code is the option we recommend most. It does not depend on anyone remembering to unlock a door.

Is it safe to give a cleaning company a key or door code?

We do not keep physical keys. There is no drawer of labelled house keys in an office somewhere, because we never collect them in the first place.

When you share a door code, it lives inside your customer file, and only your assigned cleaner and our management team can see it. The setup we recommend is a keyless entry system with a code set aside just for your cleaner. You stay in control of it, you can change it whenever you like, and you only need to send us the current code so we have it on file. If you would rather hide a key each visit, that works too. Text or email us a photo and a short description of where the cleaner will find it, and we will add it to your file. If you ever pause or end recurring service, you simply change your code, and nothing of yours stays behind with us.

Your billing details are handled with the same care. Payments run through Stripe, so we never store your actual credit card number, only a secure token that lets us charge the card once your service is complete.

What happens if something goes wrong while I’m out?

A rare accident is ours to solve, and that starts with the coverage we carry. Oak Bay Clean holds $2 million in general liability insurance.

Every person who walks into your home has also cleared a serious vetting process. We run an RCMP criminal record check that covers the whole country, we check professional references, and we put every cleaner through a test clean where anything short of a five-star result is a fail. About one in ten applicants makes it through.

If the result is not what you expected, tell us within 24 hours and we will send a cleaner back to make it right within seven days. There is no charge for the return visit, and we focus it on the specific spots that missed the mark. That is the same promise whether you were working from home during the clean or away on vacation.

How will I know the clean was done right if I wasn’t there to see it?

For weekly and biweekly clients, you see the same cleaner every visit. They learn your home, your preferences, and the small things that matter to you. For monthly clients we aim for the same cleaner as well, though weekly and biweekly schedules take priority and can occasionally shift a monthly visit to a different name.

When your regular cleaner is sick or on holiday, we send someone in their place and aim to give you a heads-up beforehand. Your preferences and history are saved in our system, and every cleaner follows the same detailed checklist for your home, so a substitute works straight from your notes. The checklist is identical from one visit to the next, so the standard holds whether your regular cleaner is there or someone is filling in.

When the work is done, your cleaner packs up and leaves with their tools, and you come home to a finished house. Some clients like a quick text when the cleaner is almost finished. We can set that up if you give us express permission to share your number with your cleaner, since that message comes from them rather than our office. Treat it as a courtesy rather than a guarantee, and we keep your number private unless you ask us to share it. If anything looks off when you walk in, the 24-hour window has you covered.

Can I be home during the clean if I’d rather be?

Of course. Some clients like to be home, and working from home during a clean is completely normal. One practical note makes the visit smoother if you are around.

We vacuum the whole home in one sweep near the end of the clean, rather than going room by room in a custom order. So if you have a baby napping, asking us to vacuum that room first usually will not help, because the vacuum still comes through at the end. Knowing that ahead of time lets you plan your day around it.

What about my pets during the cleaning?

Pets are part of the house, and we ask that they be secured somewhere away from the cleaner, in a separate room or a crate. Even the gentlest dog can feel anxious with a new person moving through the house, and we have seen enough real bites to treat this as a firm safety rule. There is a $25 pet fee for homes with animals, which covers the extra dirt on floors and nose prints on glass that come with them. It applies whether your pet sheds or not.

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You set up access once, you keep control of your own code, and you come home to a clean house. Being home or being out is entirely your call.

Ready to set it up? Tell us your number of bedrooms and bathrooms on our home page and your price appears in seconds. Or call or text us at 778-800-2767 and we will sort out the access details together.

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