Cleaning a home with pets
Pets do not make a home dirty. They make it a different job. Hair behaves unlike dust, it gets into fabric rather than sitting on it, and a vacuum that handles a normal floor can take twice as long over the same area.
Why hair is priced separately
Pet hair removal is a $15 add-on on our card, and something similar exists almost everywhere. It is not a surcharge for owning an animal. It is that hair woven into a rug or a sofa comes out slowly, with repeated passes, and that time has to exist somewhere in the visit.
Flagging it when you book means the time is planned for. Not flagging it means the visit runs long and either the floors get shortchanged or you get a conversation about overage you did not expect.
Where it collects
Rarely where people point first.
- Baseboards, where air movement pushes hair into a line along the wall.
- Under and behind sofa cushions, and along the seam at the back.
- Radiator fins and vent covers, which is also where the smell lives.
- The bottom of curtains and the edges of any rug.
- Stair treads, particularly the back corner of each one.
Smell is a different problem from hair
Removing hair does not remove odour, and masking odour is not the same as removing the source. Most persistent smell in a pet home comes from soft furnishings, the area around a litter box, or a spot on a carpet that dried and was forgotten.
A visit can clean the hard surfaces around all of that thoroughly. What a residential clean will not do is steam clean a carpet, which is a separate trade and one we do not offer. If a smell keeps coming back after a thorough clean, the carpet is usually the answer.
The animal on the day
Dogs mostly want to supervise. Cats mostly want to leave. Both are easier if someone has decided in advance where the pet will be while a vacuum is running.
If your animal is nervous with strangers, or will bolt for an open door, tell us before rather than on the step. A closed door on one room for two hours is not a problem. A dog in the corridor is.
Products
If you want specific products used or avoided around a pet, say so when you book and we will work to it. Some households ask for unscented throughout, which is easy to arrange with notice and awkward to arrange at the door.
Frequency matters more with animals
A home with a shedding dog gets away from a fortnightly schedule faster than one without. Weekly visits suit these households, and weekly carries the largest discount on our card at 15%, which narrows the cost gap more than most people assume before they compare.
See your price before you talk to anyone.
The whole rate card is published, and the estimate form shows your flat rate before it asks for a name, a number or an address. Nothing is booked when you submit it.
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