Just who are you letting into your home?

Flipping through various on-line forums, there are various schools of thought when it comes to letting a cleaner into your home.

Do you work from home whilst they are there?

Do you arrange for a relative to house sit whilst they are cleaning?

Do you leave the key under the proverbial plant pot? (we don't recommend this!)

Do you get them an extra key cut and leave them to it?

Most of our domestic cleaning customers fall into the last category, the ones who are working at least, but you can appreciate why people are apprehensive when you read articles like this -

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/cleaner-facing-jail-stealing-oap-14420710 which details the sad case of a cleaner who was caught on camera stealing from a 91 year old woman with Alzheimer's in sheltered accommodation.

At Sparkle Sisters, we keep a small, tight knit team where we know everyone, some are family, some are friends, some have become friends since they started working for us. Some of our team are young men which raises an eyebrow with some customers until they see their work, another team member has severe learning difficulties but that doesn't stop her wielding a duster and a tin of polish!

All of our cleaners have an enhanced DBS check as we have contracts where our cleaners may come in to contact with children or vulnerable adults. We also interview all of our cleaners face to face and assign them to an existing contracts for a couple of weeks so we can get to know them and how they work and they can get to know us and what we expect.

In the race down to the lowest price, a lot of this has been lost, big companies advertise continually for cleaners and send them straight to customers sites without ever having seen a manager or supervisor. Minimum wage, zero hour contracts, no holiday or sick pay, it's not surprising some cleaners don't have a great deal of commitment to their employer or their clients.

By staying small, not having plush offices and multiple layers of management we believe we can be price competitive, whilst at the same time bringing back a bit of the personal touch.