Before you let a cleaner into your home: five questions to ask any cleaning company in Johor Bahru

Before a cleaner enters your home, ask five things: who pays if something breaks or goes missing, whether the person at your door is a registered employee, who comes if your cleaner is sick, how you will know the job was done, and what you will get in writing when you pay. Any decent company can answer all five in a few sentences. If the answers are vague, that is your answer.

Why is letting a cleaner in a bigger decision than the price?

Because the price only decides how much you lose if the clean is poor, while the person at the door decides what is exposed if something goes wrong. A cleaner is alone in your bedroom, bathroom and kitchen for two hours or more, often while you are at work. Most visits go perfectly well. But the few that do not are the ones people remember, and they are rarely about dust.

Nobody can honestly promise "zero incidents", and that includes us. What you can do is choose a company whose answers to the five questions below are specific, and set up the first visit so a mistake costs little. The questions work for any provider, including ours, so please ask us the same ones before you book.

Question 1: Who pays if something breaks or goes missing?

Ask for the company's rule in plain words, before the first visit. A good answer covers three things: what happens with a small breakage (a glass, a lamp), what happens with a large one, and whether the company has public liability insurance.

Be careful with the sentence "we are insured". Public liability insurance in Malaysia is generally written to cover the company's legal liability for bodily injury or property damage to third parties caused by its work. Policies also commonly carry exclusions, and one standard exclusion in some wordings is property in the insured's "care, custody or control" (Foundation's Malaysian guide lists it, with extensions available). Whether a cleaner handling your belongings counts as that depends on the exact policy. So the useful follow-up questions are:

• Can I see the certificate, and what is the limit?
• What is the excess, that is, the first amount that is not covered?
• Does it cover my belongings that the cleaner handled, or only damage to the building?
• For small things, does the company just replace or repair them without a claim?

We have not published our own policy details in this article, because we are not going to make a claim here that you cannot check. Ask us and ask others, and treat a company that shows you the paper as being in a different league from one that says "no problem".

Question 2: Is the person at my door a registered employee?

Ask whether the cleaners are employees on the company payroll and whether the company registers them for the contributions the law requires. This matters for two practical reasons.

First, the employer carries the legal risk of who is allowed to work. For foreign workers, the Immigration Act penalties for employing someone without a valid pass are reported at RM10,000 to RM50,000 per worker, with up to 12 months in prison (a legal summary at globallawexperts.com; please check the current figures with a lawyer or the Immigration Department). That is the employer's problem, not yours, but a company that cuts this corner is cutting others.

Second, injury at work. PERKESO says employers with one or more employees must register them for its Employment Injury Scheme, and failing to do so is an offence with up to two years' imprisonment, a fine of up to RM10,000, or both (PERKESO leaflet, 2020; rates and rules change, so ask PERKESO for the latest). If a cleaner slips in your bathroom and nobody has registered them, the person who ends up in an awkward conversation is often you. We did not find a published rule that makes a homeowner legally liable for a company's cleaner, so treat that as a practical risk, not as law.

Question 3: What happens if my cleaner is sick tomorrow?

Ask how much notice you get and whether someone else is sent. This is not really a trust question, but it reveals how the company is run. A company with a bench of trained people says "we send a replacement and tell you who". A one-person operation says "I will call you in the morning".

It also touches trust in one more way: will it be the same person each time? Many people are happy to let one known cleaner in and uneasy about a different stranger every week. Ask whether you can request the same team, and whether you will be told the names before they arrive.

Question 4: How will I know the job was done properly?

The answer you want is evidence, not reassurance. Ask whether the cleaners take before and after photos, whether the photos carry a time and a place, and when you receive them. Our own system asks cleaners to check in with a photo and location, and to upload the required photos before a job can be closed, so the owner and the customer can both see what was done. That is a feature of how we work, not a guarantee that nothing ever goes wrong, and you should hold any company to the same standard of showing, not telling.

Photos have limits. They show what was cleaned, not whether a small item moved. For that, the best protection is on your side: see the next section.

Question 5: What will I get in writing when I pay?

Ask for the company name, the SSM registration number, and an invoice or receipt in that company's name. Check that the name on the invoice matches the name on the website. Also ask what is included in the quoted price and what triggers extra charges, such as extra rooms or work added on the day, so there is no surprise at the door.

Be wary of being asked to pay cash to a personal account with no receipt. It is not always dishonest, but it leaves you with nothing to show if there is a dispute. Our registered name and number are in the footer of our website, and you can compare them to our invoice.

What can I do myself to lower the risk on the first visit?

You can cut most of the risk in ten minutes, and it works with any company.

1. Be home for the first visit, or have someone you trust there. Watch how they work; it tells you more than any reference.
2. Put cash, jewellery, passports and documents in a locked drawer or out of the house. This costs nothing and removes the biggest temptation and the biggest argument.
3. Move fragile or sentimental items out of the work area.
4. Take a quick set of photos of the rooms before they start, especially of anything already scratched or chipped.
5. Do a short walkthrough at the end, and report any problem the same day, while the photos are fresh.

So should I just trust a company, or a part-timer?

Neither is automatically safer. A part-timer you know and have watched for months can be a very safe choice, and for a small flat where you are home anyway the risk is low. A company is better when you are out during the clean, when you need cover for sick days, and when you want records. Our article on part-time cleaner or cleaning company compares the two on cost and liability.

If you would like to put these five questions to us, you can see our services and ask for a booking on our services page. We would rather you ask us the hard questions before the first visit than find out afterwards.