We tell you the same day, in writing, before you find it. Fifteen years in other people’s houses means the honest number is not zero: it is roughly four things a year. This year: a lamp, a wine glass, two pieces of pottery and one tap washer that was already perished. Anything under £100 we simply replace and do not claim, because arguing about a mug is not a business we want. Above that it goes through the liability policy and you get the claim reference the same week. The breakage log is on the office wall, and any client may read it — including the entries with their own address on.

If a visit misses something, ring within 48 hours and we come back and do it at no charge. There is no form and no debate, and the cleaner is not docked for it — a system that punishes people for callbacks is a system that hides them. It happens perhaps a dozen times a year across the round, and when we look into it the cause is nearly always a brief that changed without anyone telling us, which is a fault of ours rather than yours.

We will not promise your house will look like a photograph, because photographs are taken in empty houses by people paid to style them. A lived-in house that is properly cleaned still has post on the table and shoes by the door. We will not promise a fixed price without seeing the rooms, and we will not promise a start date we cannot make just to keep you off somebody else’s list — which is exactly what the coverage checker on this site is for. What we do promise is the same person, the hours you were quoted, and a note on the side telling you what was done.