First step, you want to know how to decide if you're getting a good deal or not. How do you do that? Look at reviews. Now, I mean really look at reviews. Take a look at their profiles, see if the names sound generic. You can actually click into someone's profile and see how many reviews they've left. Normally, the average human being will review a lot of food places and other typical spots. You're going to run into a pattern of average reviews—some good, some bad, maybe a lot bad. That's your first step: check the credibility of the person leaving the review.
Then, going back to the cleaning company, you're going to want to see how many good reviews they have. If you're seeing a good pattern and all the reviews look very specific and not generic, then you're most likely doing good. Next, I would start by looking at their website to see if you can find some sort of average on prices. At Affordable Cleaning Today, we don't believe in fixed pricing. What is fixed pricing? It's coming up with a fixed amount, trying to speculate how much it's going to cost to clean a home without sometimes very little information. If you're dealing with a reputable cleaning company, they should be charging you based on your home's condition. This should make a lot of sense depending on the company you're dealing with. Some of the top companies in our area do not give sight unseen quotes. There are only a couple of factors that really determine if a cleaning is going to take long. We're talking dust, soap scum, mold, mildew, grime, and other things that sometimes fall into a gray area, like roaches, pests, windows (inside or out), carpets, cleaning the fridge, or the oven.
For example, soap scum can be one of the trickiest things to clean. Why? Because if it's dried up, it can take anywhere from 2 to 3 hours to clean. Even a fridge—personally, it took me an hour and a half to clean a fridge one time. The reason was the fridge was actually falling apart, had a lot of hair, food particles, and some of the dirt or food was stuck inside a compartment that wasn't easily reachable. At this point, we had to contact the customer to let them know, "Hey, how do you want us to figure this out?"
Determine the Type of Cleaning: What kind of cleaning are you looking for? Are you looking for maintenance cleaning, a deep scrub, move-in, move-out? What cleaning are you looking for? Are you looking for a checklist-based cleaning? Knowing what kind of cleaning you're getting is going to help you a lot because it will basically play a role in how the cleaner plans out what they're going to be cleaning.
Assess the Current Condition of Your Home: Is there clutter? Will there be things that need to be moved around? Will heavy items need to be moved? How high are your ceilings? Are there delicate items that need to be cleaned? You want to try and make it easy to navigate around your house. Some people actually pre-clean and move things because the easier it is to get to your items, the more money you will save.
Be Honest About Your Home's Size: It may sound like an oxymoron, but if your house is 3,000 sq. ft. and you say only 1,000 sq. ft. needs to be cleaned, try to draw a picture of your home. When in doubt, see if you can send the company pictures of your home so they can make an assessment. There is a chance that the cleaning company will understand that cleaning a 3,000 sq. ft. house is not the same as cleaning a 1,000 sq. ft. house. The rooms are bigger, there's more time involved. The company may send you one cleaner to save you money, but it might end up taking that person twice as long, maybe even more, just because now they're dealing with a lot more items. This can actually latch onto the thing we were talking about before—soap scum and exactly what they're cleaning. If it's a 3,000 sq. ft. house and we're doing a move-in clean, now we got to do the fridge, the oven, inside the cabinets—it's a lot bigger job requiring a lot more individuals.