Our Housekeepers

Everything else on this site is a claim about people. A specification is only as good as whoever works to it, and continuity is not a system — it is the same person choosing to stay another year.

Employed by us, not introduced to you

Most of this industry works by introduction. An agency finds you a cleaner, takes a fee, and steps back — and the working relationship, with everything that comes attached to it, sits between you and that individual.

Ours are employees. We pay their wages, their employer's National Insurance and their pension. We provide their training, their equipment and their insurance. We handle their holiday and their sick pay, and we provide cover when they are unwell. If something goes wrong, the responsibility is ours and the recourse is to us.

This is the single largest reason we cost more than an hourly arrangement, and the single largest reason our housekeepers stay. Those two facts are the same fact.

How we recruit

We recruit slowly and mostly by referral from housekeepers already with us, which is both the best source and a reasonable indicator of whether people are happy here.

Experience in private households is what we look for — hotel and commercial backgrounds are welcome but need unlearning, because the standards are different and the discretion required is entirely different. We hire for care and judgement rather than speed. Someone who notices a mark on a ceiling and reports it is worth more to a client than someone who cleans a room ten minutes faster.

Every candidate works a paid trial in a supervised setting before any offer is made. References from private households are taken up by us, by telephone, and spoken to rather than filed.

Vetting

DBS. Every housekeeper holds a current Basic DBS check before their first visit, which discloses unspent convictions. Where a role is eligible for a higher level of check — households including children or vulnerable adults, or where duties extend beyond cleaning — we obtain an Enhanced check instead. We are precise about this because the levels are not interchangeable, and a company claiming Enhanced checks across all domestic staff is describing something the scheme does not permit.

References. Two, from previous private households wherever possible, taken up by us directly and by telephone.

Right to work. Verified for every employee, documented, and re-checked where any permission is time-limited.

Identity. Photographic identification carried on every visit. We provide staff lists and identification to buildings and security teams in advance, and we expect to be asked.

Training

Training is about materials rather than motions. Our housekeepers are taught what the surfaces in prime London houses actually are and what damages them: that an acidic product etches marble permanently, that a beater bar destroys an antique rug in one pass, that water leaves a ring on silk that cannot be removed, that plastic storage turns a moth problem into a mould one.

They are also taught where to stop. Recognising that a textile wants a conservator, that damp is structural rather than atmospheric, or that a stain needs specialist drawing rather than more effort — knowing the limit is a skill, and it is the one that protects your house.

New housekeepers work alongside an experienced colleague before taking a house of their own. Training continues on the job, led by supervisors who work to the same specifications.

Pay, and why people stay

We pay above the London Living Wage, with holiday, sick pay, pension and paid training time. Travel between houses is paid. Equipment and materials are provided rather than deducted.

None of that is generosity; it is the mechanism. A housekeeper who is paid properly, trained properly and treated properly stays, and a housekeeper who stays is the only way a household gets the same person in year three that it had in year one. Every claim we make about consistency rests on this and nothing else.

If you would like to work with us, our current positions are here.

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