Is a national background check enough?

Usually not on its own. National databases are aggregated from sources that do not include every county, and recent filings often have not reached them. A county criminal search covering where the person has lived is the check that finds things.

Can I run a background check on a cleaner myself?

You can pay a screening service, but running one for a hiring decision brings obligations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, including disclosure and consent. The FTC publishes what those are. In practice, asking what the company already ran is simpler.

Should I refuse to hire an independent without a check?

Not automatically. Most solo cleaners have not paid for one, and verifiable references from long-standing clients tell you more about reliability than a clean database result does.

How recent should a background check be?

Ask when it was run. A check from several years ago describes the record as it stood then. Some companies re-screen annually; many screen once at hiring and never again.

What if a company will not say what they checked?

That is an answer. A company running real checks can describe them, because it pays for them and knows what it bought.

Does a background check cover the person who covers a sick day?

Ask, because often it does not. Cover is where screening claims thin out: a substitute may be a subcontractor, a temporary hire, or somebody from another crew. A company that screens everyone will say so without hesitating.

Are cleaning background checks required by law?

Not generally for domestic cleaning. Some states license particular trades and some settings such as childcare or care homes carry their own statutory screening, but a house cleaner in most of the country is under no legal obligation to be checked. Where a company screens, it is a business choice.

What should I do if a check turns something up?

Read what it actually says before deciding. Records vary in age, seriousness and relevance, and identity mix-ups on common names are more frequent than people expect. If you obtained the report yourself for a hiring decision, the Fair Credit Reporting Act sets out steps you must follow before acting on it, including giving the person a copy and a chance to respond.

Hiring guide

Background checks and references for house cleaners

Almost every cleaning company advertises background-checked staff, and the phrase carries no fixed meaning. It might describe a thorough county-level search, an instant database lookup that misses most records, or a claim nobody ever verified. Here is what the different checks actually cover, what an independent cleaner can reasonably offer instead, and the reference questions that tell you something useful.

Published August 31, 2026, last updated September 9, 2026. No prices on this page are quotes — request one from cleaners serving your exact ZIP code.

Short answer

Ask what was actually checked, by whom, and when. "Background checked" is not a defined standard: it can mean a national database scan, a county court search, or nothing at all. A county-level criminal search where the person has lived is the meaningful one. References matter more than most people think, because the useful question is not whether someone is honest but whether they turn up.

What the different checks actually cover

These are not grades of the same thing. They search different records, and the cheap one misses what the useful one finds.

Check	What it searches	What it misses
Instant national database	Aggregated records bought from various sources	Counties that do not sell records, and anything filed recently
County criminal search	The court records where the person has actually lived	Convictions in counties you did not search
Statewide repository	One state's central records, where the state keeps them	Everything outside that state
Sex offender registry	Public registries	Any other offence
Identity verification	That the person is who they say	Conduct entirely
Driving record	Licence status and violations	Relevant only if they drive for work

A national database search is a screen, not a search. The county-level criminal search covering the last several addresses is the one that finds things.

What to ask a company

The question is not "do you run background checks". Everyone says yes. The question is what the check consisted of and when it was run.

Which check was run — national database, county criminal, or statewide?
Which counties were searched, and do they cover where the person has lived?
When was it run? A check from four years ago describes a different person's record than today's.
Is it re-run periodically, or once at hiring?
Does it cover subcontractors and trainees, or only direct employees?
Who will actually be in my home, and were they the person checked?

Independent cleaners, and what to ask instead

A solo cleaner usually has not run a check on themselves, and that is not evasion — it is a cost with no obvious buyer. You can ask, and some will have one from a marketplace or a previous employer.

What an independent can offer is more useful anyway: a work history you can verify, and clients who will speak to you. A cleaner three years into a round of regular customers has a record, even if it is not a database record.

The reference questions that tell you something

Most reference calls ask whether the person was good, and get a yes. These questions get answers you can use.

How long have they cleaned for you, and how often?
Have they ever missed a visit, and how was it handled?
Are you home while they work, or do they have access?
Has anything ever been damaged or gone missing, and what happened next?
Would you leave them with your keys again?
Why did you stop, if the arrangement ended?

Reading the answer, not just collecting it

A reference who says something went wrong once and was put right is more reassuring than one who says nothing ever happened. Nobody cleans houses for years without breaking something, and the useful signal is how it was handled.

Treat a refusal to give any reference as information. Treat a reference who cannot describe the work in specifics as no reference at all.

Who was actually checked, and who turns up

A screening claim describes the people a company screened. It does not always describe the person standing in your hallway, and the gap between the two is where the claim quietly stops meaning anything.

Larger companies run teams, cover absences with whoever is free, and take on seasonal help at the busy end of the year. Franchises screen to the standard the individual franchisee applies, which is not necessarily the standard on the national website. Subcontracted crews are screened by their own employer, if at all, and a company that subcontracts often has no visibility into what that involved.

So ask about the person, not the policy. Will it be the same cleaner each visit? If they are away, who comes instead, and were they screened to the same standard? That question is answered easily and confidently by companies who really do screen everyone, which is exactly why it is worth asking.

What a check cannot tell you

A criminal record search answers one narrow question: whether this person has been convicted of something a particular court recorded. Almost everything that actually goes wrong in domestic cleaning sits outside that.

It says nothing about reliability, which is the most common failure by a wide margin. Nothing about care with your belongings. Nothing about whether they will tell you when something breaks. Nothing about the substance problem that has not reached a courtroom, or the dispute settled privately with a previous client. A clean result is the absence of one kind of record, not the presence of trustworthiness.

This is why references do more work than most people expect. A person who has cleaned the same four homes for three years has been observed, repeatedly, by people with something to lose. No database holds a signal that strong.

Running one yourself, and the rules that attach

You can pay a screening service to check someone you are considering hiring, and for a directly employed household worker some people do. It comes with obligations that surprise most households.

A report obtained through a screening company for a hiring decision is a consumer report, and federal law requires written disclosure and the person's consent before it is run, plus a defined process before you decide against someone because of what it says. The Federal Trade Commission publishes what employers must do. Skipping those steps because the arrangement feels informal does not make them stop applying.

For most households the simpler route is to ask what the company already ran and to check references properly. The screening obligations then sit with the employer, which is where they belong, and you spend your effort on the checks that predict the outcome you actually care about.

What HouseGlow verifies

HouseGlow runs no background-check programme, and no listing here should be read as a screening claim. Where a business describes its own checks, that is the business speaking, not us.

That is worth stating plainly on a page about verification. Ask the questions above of whoever you hire, wherever you found them.

Frequently asked questions

Is a national background check enough?: Usually not on its own. National databases are aggregated from sources that do not include every county, and recent filings often have not reached them. A county criminal search covering where the person has lived is the check that finds things.
Can I run a background check on a cleaner myself?: You can pay a screening service, but running one for a hiring decision brings obligations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, including disclosure and consent. The FTC publishes what those are. In practice, asking what the company already ran is simpler.
Should I refuse to hire an independent without a check?: Not automatically. Most solo cleaners have not paid for one, and verifiable references from long-standing clients tell you more about reliability than a clean database result does.
How recent should a background check be?: Ask when it was run. A check from several years ago describes the record as it stood then. Some companies re-screen annually; many screen once at hiring and never again.
What if a company will not say what they checked?: That is an answer. A company running real checks can describe them, because it pays for them and knows what it bought.
Does a background check cover the person who covers a sick day?: Ask, because often it does not. Cover is where screening claims thin out: a substitute may be a subcontractor, a temporary hire, or somebody from another crew. A company that screens everyone will say so without hesitating.
Are cleaning background checks required by law?: Not generally for domestic cleaning. Some states license particular trades and some settings such as childcare or care homes carry their own statutory screening, but a house cleaner in most of the country is under no legal obligation to be checked. Where a company screens, it is a business choice.
What should I do if a check turns something up?: Read what it actually says before deciding. Records vary in age, seriousness and relevance, and identity mix-ups on common names are more frequent than people expect. If you obtained the report yourself for a hiring decision, the Fair Credit Reporting Act sets out steps you must follow before acting on it, including giving the person a copy and a chance to respond.

Sources

Using consumer reports: what employers need to know — Federal Trade Commission