It is not "how much" — it is "who is this person and what happens to my key". So: every cleaner is employed by us, DBS-checked before their first visit, and introduced to you in person before they ever come alone. Keys live in a numbered safe at the workshop, tagged with a number that means nothing to anyone who is not holding our list, and never with an address. Two people hold the list. If a key is lost we pay for the locksmith and the barrel the same day, which has happened once in fifteen years and cost us £180 we did not argue about. We carry £2 million public liability, and the certificate is on the wall by the kettle if you would like to read it rather than be told about it.

It takes longer than the ones after it, usually by an hour or two, because a first clean carries whatever the last twelve months left behind — and we estimate that at the walk-round and cap it in writing rather than discovering it on the day. Your cleaner arrives with everything: vacuum, mop system, colour-coded cloths, products. They will ask where to fill a bucket and where the bins go, and then you can leave them to it or stay, whichever you prefer. At the end there is a note on the side saying what was done and anything that needs an eye on it — a slow plughole, a window catch, a bit of damp behind a cistern. That note is how most of our clients find out about small problems while they are still small.

Plant-based and pH-neutral is the default: Bio-D and Ecover for most things, plus a citrus-and-vinegar descaler we mix at the workshop in refillable bottles — about nine hundred plastic bottles a year we simply never buy. No bleach in bathrooms unless you ask for it in writing, because it damages grout over time and it is almost never necessary. Nothing acidic goes anywhere near limestone, marble or terrazzo, and nothing wet is left on wax or oiled wood. The one exception is oven cleaning, where the dip tank uses a caustic solution — outside your kitchen, in the van — and we say so plainly rather than pretending the whole business is made of vinegar.

Do you check up on them? Not by app, no. There is no GPS tracking and no photo-of-every-room routine, because treating adults like suspects is how you end up with a workforce nobody would want in their house. What we do is a quarterly visit from Nell to every regular client, unannounced to the cleaner and arranged with you. Has anyone ever stolen anything? Once, in 2014, and we told the client before they noticed, replaced it, and dismissed the person the same day. Will you put the price up? Four times in fifteen years, each with a month’s written notice and a letter explaining why. Do you take on hoarded or neglected houses? Yes, without judgement and without a surcharge, but we will insist on a realistic number of hours and we will not pretend it is a one-visit job.