The honest answer: nobody knows how common it is, because no honest number exists — and any page telling you what percentage of house cleaners steal invented it. What you can evaluate is process: who was screened, what is in writing, and exactly what happens if something is ever missing.
Why there is no honest number
Think about where that statistic would have to come from. From the cleaning companies, which do not publish incident counts. From their insurers, which do not break claims out into a category called “theft by house cleaner”. Or from some public agency — and none counts that as its own category. None of the three sources publishes the number — so when a website confidently asserts that “only a small percentage” or “most cases”, ask where it came from. It will not cite a source, because there is none.
Reasoning from stories does not work either. A normal visit produces no anecdote; the visit that went wrong produces a building group-chat thread that travels all the way to Kendall. That tells you nothing about whether theft is common or rare — only that the stories in circulation are not a sample of anything. And let us be clear about our own interest here: we are a cleaning company, and it would be extremely convenient for us to tell you theft is vanishingly rare. We are not going to, because we cannot cite a source either. What we can show you is the machinery that exists for the day trust needs paper.
“Any company can tell you its people never steal. The question is what exists on paper for the day you are not sure.”
What a serious company does before anyone holds your key
It starts before the first visit, and it starts in writing. Ours is published on a legal page, not in a phone call: $2,000,000 general liability coverage · every cleaner background-checked. The value of that sentence is not the sentence — it is that it is published, at a fixed address, and you can forward it to anyone you like. A claim that only exists on the phone cannot be forwarded. What exactly to ask about that screening — who was checked, when, and whether they will confirm it in writing — has its own article: do cleaning companies run background checks?
The second serious question is the employment model: is the person coming an employee of the company, or an independent contractor matched through an app? The answer decides who screened whom and where a complaint lands. And something needs saying plainly here: none of this means an independent cleaner is a risk and a company is safe. Plenty of independent cleaners hold keys to the same Coral Gables homes for years, and a logo has never made anyone honest. The difference is not the people — it is the process: what is written down, who answers, and what you can verify without leaning on your gut.
What the insurance sentence does — and does not do
The same page carries the route to the document: email bookings@jascleaning.com with “COI” in the subject line and the entity name, and most certificates are returned within 2 business hours. That turnaround is worth timing on any company you are considering, not just on us. But let us be equally clear about what a policy does not do: it is not a promise that nothing will happen. It is the answer to who responds when something does. How that works when something gets broken — the far more ordinary case in practice — is told in full in if a house cleaner breaks something, who pays?
And before any insurance policy or any conversation can resolve anything, something more basic has to exist: a record of the visit. Our eligible completed visits include a CleanCheck report, and the Terms say it in these words: our team photographs work areas before and after the clean to document the service in your CleanCheck report. A visit is not a black box — there is a record of which team came, what was done, and what the work areas looked like on the way in and on the way out.
The exact route if something is missing
First, look. That is not an insult — it is the first thing any claims process asks, and for good reason: cleaning moves small things. The ring that lived beside the kitchen sink is now on a shelf; the remote turned up inside the drawer that finally got tidied. The ordinary explanation is the ordinary one, and ruling it out first spares you the most uncomfortable conversation there is.
If it is genuinely missing, the route is published in our Terms, and it is the claims process itself: if something is damaged during a clean, tell us within 24 hours at support@jascleaning.com — damage is documented in your CleanCheck and resolved through our insurance. That is what it is for. That same 24-hour window and that same address are the route when something is missing: write what is missing, where it lived, and when you last saw it. The sooner you write, the fresher the record of the visit.
And one thing no serious company will argue with you about: a police report is always your call, for any suspected theft, by anyone. Our process runs alongside yours, never instead of it. If a company ever asks you to “hold off on that”, that answer is telling you something too.
Prevention that does not insult anyone
The habit that works treats nobody as a suspect, because it is not about cleaners: it is about any service visit. Jewelry, cash, documents, and spare keys go into one put-away spot before anyone works in your home — the cleaning team, the AC tech, or the parade of adjusters and repair crews a hurricane season sends through nearly every South Florida household between June and November. It is not suspicion: it is knowing exactly where everything was, which is precisely the first thing any claim will ask. And a crew works better and faster with fewer precious things in the way.
Access works the same way: you do not have to be home, and you do not have to leave the door to chance either. The Terms put it as four options — a code, key, smart-lock invite, or someone home. Pick the one that leaves you at ease. A temporary code or a smart lock also gives you its own record of who entered and when — one more piece of paper on the pile that replaces gut feeling.
Quick answers
How common is theft by house cleaners, really?
Nobody can honestly tell you, because no honest number exists. The companies do not publish incident counts, insurers do not publish claim breakdowns for it, and no public agency counts "theft by house cleaner" as its own category — so any page quoting a percentage invented it. What you can evaluate instead is process: who was screened before holding your key, what the company puts in writing, and what its published route is if something is ever missing.
Are maid services more trustworthy than independent cleaners?
That is the wrong axis. Plenty of independent cleaners hold keys to the same homes for years, and a company logo has never made anyone honest. The real difference is what exists on paper the day trust has to be checked: a published screening claim you can forward, an insurance certificate you can request, a per-visit record, and a written claims route. Ask for those four from anyone you hire — a company or an individual — and weigh the answers, not the business card.
What does JAS publish about the people who enter my home?
One sentence, on a public page rather than in a phone call: $2,000,000 general liability coverage · every cleaner background-checked. The same page carries the route to the document — email bookings@jascleaning.com with "COI" in the subject line and the entity name, and most certificates are returned within 2 business hours. You can forward that page to your building, your landlord, or your partner without asking us for anything.
What should I do if something is missing after a cleaning visit?
Look first — cleaning moves small things, and the ordinary explanation is ordinary. If it is genuinely missing, use the published route: contact JAS within 24 hours at support@jascleaning.com and say what is missing and where it lived; on eligible completed visits your CleanCheck report documents the visit itself. And a police report is always your call, for any suspected theft by anyone — a serious company will never discourage you from filing one.
Should I put my valuables away before the cleaners come?
Yes — as a habit for every service visit, not as a verdict on cleaners. Jewelry, cash, documents, and spare keys live in one put-away spot before anyone works in your home: the cleaning team, the AC tech, or the parade of adjusters and repair crews a South Florida hurricane season sends through between June and November. It is not suspicion; it is knowing exactly where things were, which is what any claims process asks first — and a crew works faster around fewer precious things.
The short version
Nobody can honestly tell you how common theft by house cleaners is, and anyone handing you a percentage invented it. Judge what is checkable instead: a published, forwardable screening claim, an insurance certificate that shows up when you request it, a record of every visit, and a written claims route with its 24-hour window. Compare processes, not promises — and hold a company and an independent cleaner to the same four questions. What we actually do on a visit is on the residential cleaning in Miami page; what we publish on insurance and screening is on the insurance page.
This guide is part of the JAS operating playbook — written to answer in public the question the rest of the industry answers with a statistic nobody can cite.