Should My Housekeeper Get a Key to My House
Introduction
Your house is usually your greatest asset and acts as a vault for all your prized possessions. It needs frequent cleaning. To hire a housekeeper, you can search for “cleaning services near me” and contact a reputed cleaning company near you. However, you may be in a dilemma about leaving a key to your house with the housekeeper. Let’s solve that issue:
The Discussion
- Your schedule – Your schedule is the primary factor that decides the necessity of leaving a key to the house to your housekeeper. The time you and your family members spend in your home can affect this decision.
For instance, if you live alone and mostly work from home, you don’t even need to consider this. When you work from home you have a lot of flexibility and that allows you to reschedule your appointments and delay other activities till the housekeeper cleans your home. However, things are drastically different when you have a busy schedule and stay out of your home most of the time.
Similarly, you don’t need to worry about leaving the house key to the housekeeper if you have a family. You can arrange your schedule so that there’s at least one family member in your home at all times. It’s best if you can afford to reschedule and manage your time to match the housekeeper’s schedule. No one wants to leave their prized possession to a stranger.
- Trust level – Trust level also plays a key role when deciding to leave the house key with the housekeeper. If you’ve been hiring the same housekeeper for a few months and know a lot about them and have had a pleasant experience with their service and professional behavior you may have been inclined to leave the key with your housekeeper. The same doesn’t hold true if you’ve recently hired the services of a housekeeper from a local cleaning company for cleaning chores.
Apart from familiarity you also need evidence of honesty from your housekeeper. Housekeepers who are paid well and have been in the industry for a long time would gain your trust in no time. On the other hand, those who are new to the profession may not be great at their job or at conveying their intentions.
- License, insurance, and background checks – If you’re a very busy individual, leaving the house key to the housekeeper may be the only option to keep your home hygienic and clean. In that case, you need to make sure that the housekeeper has the proper licenses and insurance. If your housekeeper is an individual who isn’t under the payroll of a company, you need to ask for their licenses and insurance. This allows you to recoup a portion of your loss if something happens.
That’s why it’s best to get a housekeeper from a reputed cleaning company. These companies have a reputation to maintain and are legally required to operate with proper licenses and insurance. Moreover, these companies are usually held responsible in legal proceedings if something goes wrong with your property. That’s why they often do background checks of their employees at the local, state, and federal levels.
Before you hire a housekeeper, always ask the company for background checks. Make sure that your contract with the company has details about the liability of damage and theft. You’ll always be able to hire an unlicensed and uninsured housekeeper for a fraction of the cost of a licensed housekeeper. However, the risks are equally high especially when you need to trust them with your house keys.
- Ask for references – People usually trust their friends, family, and acquaintances more than a company. You can do the same and ask for references from your friends, family, colleagues, and relatives. Ask them about the housekeepers they have hired in the past and enquire about their professional behavior and quality of service.
It’s important to remember that very few housekeepers may check all the boxes. Remember that your priority isn’t quality of service, but their honesty. It’s ok as long as the housekeeper can do a decent job. Prioritize these questions for your references:
- Has the housekeeper even looked into your personal belongings?
- Are they too curious about your personal matters?
- Has the housekeeper broken your belongings?
- Have you been robbed while having the housekeeper?
These questions should answer you a lot about the honesty of the housekeeper candidates.
- Install a home security system – When you decide to leave the key to the house to your housekeeper you can take more precautions with a home security system. You can install hidden security cameras in your home that activate while detecting motion. Privacy isn’t an issue here as long as you don’t have cameras in the bathroom and activate the security system remotely only when the housekeeper arrives at your home.
Moreover, leaving your house key under a mat or in the plant pot isn’t a great option in general. That’s the usual place where most people leave their keys and allow anyone to rob your home. Instead, a decent security system allows you to open the door remotely when you get a text or call from the housekeeper.
Leaving the key to your housekeeper is not recommended even if you trust your housekeeper. He or she may lose the key and put your home’s security at risk. The same holds if they abruptly stop working and don’t return your key. Instead, it’s best to get a decent home security system. You can also eliminate this risk on a budget with a smart lock for your door. These doors allow entry or exit with a fingerprint or numeric key that can be pressed into the keypad. You can change the password and authorization whenever you want.
Conclusion
As you can see there are several factors that dictate whether you should leave your house key with the housekeeper and there are necessary precautions that you need to exercise. Start by searching for “cleaning services near me” and hire the services of a housekeeper from a reputed cleaning company that does thorough background checks of its employees.
