Can house cleaners come if I have pets?

Why it matters

Pets change a cleaning visit in three ways: safety, escape risk and time. Each is easy to handle if the cleaner knows about it first, and each can spoil the day as a surprise.

Here is a visit that goes wrong for no good reason. A couple in Abbotsford books a clean and leaves for work. Nobody mentions Milo, a sweet but anxious rescue who barks at strangers and hates the vacuum. The crew opens the door to a dog who is frightened and loud. They cannot tell whether he is safe to walk past, and every time they carry equipment in from the car there is a chance he bolts through the open door. They do what they can in the rooms he is not in. The couple comes home to a half-finished clean and a stressed dog.

One sentence in the booking notes would have fixed it: "Dog in the laundry room with the door shut, please leave him there."

What matters to a cleaner:

Where the pet will be. A crate, a closed bedroom, the yard or a day out are all fine. Free-roaming is fine too for a relaxed animal. The crew just needs to know which it is.

Doors and gates. Cleaners go in and out to the car and take bins outside. An indoor cat that slips out is the most common pet problem on a cleaning visit.

The vacuum. Many dogs and most cats dislike it. If yours panics, say so and the crew can plan the order of rooms around it.

Hair and mess. A shedding dog can add real time to floors, stairs and upholstery. Litter areas, food stations and nose prints on glass doors are all normal work, but accidents on carpet are a different job and worth mentioning.

Cleaners do not expect to clean the litter box, cages or tanks themselves. They clean the floor around them.

How Honourable Cleaning helps

Pets are welcome, and there is no pet fee. When you book, the notes box asks about pets alongside the buzzer code and parking. Tell us who is home and where they will be, and the crew keeps doors and gates shut while they work. If a pet is nervous around strangers or vacuums, write that down and we plan the rooms around it.

There is also a "Pet hair" option in the focus step of the booking. Tapping it tells the crew to give extra attention to the places hair collects: along baseboards, under furniture edges, stairs and soft furnishings.

Our flat prices assume a normally kept home, and a home with a pet is a normal home. Where it changes is heavy pet mess, such as repeated accidents or months of built-up hair. That can need more time than the booking allows. If it does, we email you the extra time and cost first, and nothing extra is charged unless you approve it.

For homes with shedding pets, a biweekly plan makes the biggest difference. Hair that is removed every two weeks never gets the chance to work into carpet and corners.

Key takeaways

• Yes, cleaners can come with pets at home. Just tell them what animals, and where they will be.
• Put anxious or protective pets in a closed room, and say which room.
• Warn the crew about indoor cats and open doors.
• Mention heavy shedding or accidents when booking so the visit is long enough.

Related pages

Recurring cleaning in Langley → House cleaning in Abbotsford and the Fraser Valley →

Keep reading