You're sending someone into a client's home, often alone, with access to their belongings -- skipping a background check to save time catches up with cleaning businesses more than most industries.
Few service jobs involve as much unsupervised access to a client's personal space and belongings as residential cleaning does. Clients are trusting you with that access, and a single bad hire can cost you far more than the money saved by skipping the check -- in liability, reputation, and in the worst cases, an actual crime committed on your watch.
A standard criminal background check (county, state, and often national-level records) is the baseline. Many owners also verify identity and, where the role involves driving between jobs, a motor vehicle record check if the cleaner will be driving a company vehicle or transporting supplies.
Basic background check services for small businesses are generally inexpensive per candidate -- commonly well under $50 -- which is a small cost relative to the risk of placing an unvetted person inside a client's home.
Background checks are regulated -- you generally need the candidate's written consent, must use a compliant screening provider (not an informal web search), and in many states can't automatically disqualify someone for certain older or unrelated offenses without individualized consideration. Check your state's specific rules, since this varies more than owners expect.
A clean check at hire doesn't guarantee a clean record years later. Some owners re-run checks periodically for long-tenured staff, particularly before expanding someone's access or responsibilities (a crew lead role, for example) rather than relying solely on the original pre-hire check indefinitely.
Have a clear, consistent internal policy before you ever get a result back -- what disqualifies a candidate, what doesn't, and how you document the decision -- rather than deciding case by case in the moment, which opens you up to claims of inconsistent or discriminatory treatment.
A background check is one of the cheapest risk-reduction steps available in this industry relative to what a bad hire can cost -- pair it with a solid interview process rather than treating either one alone as sufficient.
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