Generally, no — no Florida law requires you to announce a visible, video-only camera in the common areas of your own home. But two lines are real: recording audio without everyone’s consent runs into Florida’s two-party consent law, and cameras never belong in bathrooms or anywhere privacy is reasonably expected. Then tell your cleaner anyway. Here is both halves of that answer.
Where Florida draws the lines (per the people who are lawyers)
First, the disclaimer we owe you: we clean houses for a living — we don’t practice law. What follows is the outline Florida legal guides publish with remarkable consistency, in plain language; for your exact setup, the right call is a Florida attorney. With that said, the published outline splits into three rules:
- Video in the common areas of your own home: generally lawful. Your living room, kitchen, and hallway are yours, and a visible camera watching them is the ordinary case the guides treat as unproblematic — no announcement required.
- Audio is different. Florida is a two-party consent state — in practice, all-party: its wiretapping law (Chapter 934, Florida Statutes) gets summarized the same way everywhere — recording a private conversation requires the consent of everyone in it. A camera silently capturing your cleaner’s phone call can cross a line that video alone does not.
- Privacy spaces are out, period. Florida’s video-voyeurism statute (§810.145) covers secretly recording people where they reasonably expect privacy — the bathroom and the changing area are the textbook examples. A crew on a multi-hour visit will use your bathroom. No camera there, ever.
One practical detail the guides repeat and homeowners discover late: many home cameras ship with the microphone on by default. The honest homeowner’s audio problem is almost never an intention — it’s a factory setting. The two clean exits are the same in every guide: turn the microphone off, or disclose the recording and let people consent. And disclosure happens to also be the professional move — which is the rest of this article.
“The law tells you which cameras you may have. Trust is decided by the camera you choose to mention.”
The better question: why wouldn’t you tell them?
A disclosed camera reads as a system; a hidden camera reads as an ambush. Same lens, two different stories about you as a client — and two different reactions from the company you hire. A reputable company doesn’t flinch at cameras, because a camera and a good process want exactly the same thing: a record. Which hands you a free hiring filter — mention your cameras and watch the reaction. If the answer is discomfort or evasion, that reaction is information too.
We can say that concretely because we already work on the record. Our published Terms state it in these words: our team photographs work areas before and after the clean to document the service in your CleanCheck report. A customer’s camera points the same direction as our own paperwork. And what a visit actually involves — a 2–3 hour visit · 2-person team, 28 items verified by photo, starting at $189 — is on the residential cleaning in Miami page.
Worth naming what the camera usually is, in most homes: the theft worry, wearing a lens. We’ve written about that worry without anesthesia — do house cleaners steal, and how common is it really? — and the short version is that no honest number exists, so process has to substitute for statistics. A disclosed camera is part of your process. The record of every visit is part of ours.
How to say it: one sentence is enough
No formal declaration needed. One line in the booking notes or at the door does it: “Heads-up — there are cameras in the living room and by the entry; audio is off.” What does a professional crew do with that information? Nothing dramatic — an experienced Miami crew already assumes cameras in most homes it works in. The heads-up doesn’t change how anyone cleans; it changes the tone of the day: nobody works better while wondering whether they’re being watched in secret.
Two courtesies keep it professional in both directions. First: don’t direct the visit through the camera’s two-way speaker. If you see something you’d change, a message after the visit through the published channels lands far better than a voice from the ceiling mid-clean. Second: keep your side of the recording honest — microphone handled, and no camera anywhere someone expects privacy. The trust you’re asking of your crew through the camera is the same trust they’re asking of you behind the lens.
Cameras also soften two older decisions from this same family of questions. Whether to be home when the cleaners come loses its drama: you can be away without the house becoming a black box. And whether it’s safe to hand over a key pairs naturally with a camera at the entry: the key answers how the crew gets in; the camera keeps its own record of when.
Questions about your place specifically? No need to finish the article — call, text, WhatsApp, or email us and we’ll take it from here.
Quick answers
Is it legal to record my house cleaner in Florida?
The outline Florida legal guides publish is consistent: a visible, video-only camera in the common areas of your own home is generally lawful; recording audio without the consent of everyone in the conversation runs into Florida’s two-party consent law; and recording anyone where privacy is reasonably expected — a bathroom, a changing area — is off-limits under the video-voyeurism statute. We are a cleaning company, not a law firm: for your exact setup, ask a Florida attorney.
Do I need to turn my cameras off when JAS comes?
No — leave them on. Our published Terms already commit us to photographing work areas before and after the clean for your CleanCheck report, so your camera and our own process point the same direction. A heads-up about where they are is welcome, mostly so nobody jumps when a speaker says hello.
What about video doorbells — do those need announcing?
A doorbell or driveway camera is so common in Miami that no crew expects an announcement — at the front door it is the assumed default. The caution that survives is sound: many doorbells record audio, and Florida’s consent rule does not care what shape the device is. A one-line heads-up still costs nothing and reads as courtesy.
Can a cleaning company refuse to work in a home with cameras?
Any company can decline work it is not comfortable with, and a few do. But what professionals actually object to is not visible video in living areas — it is hidden audio and cameras in private spaces, which put them inside a recording they never agreed to. A disclosed, video-only, common-area camera is a normal working condition for a reputable crew.
The short version
You most likely don’t have to announce a visible, video-only camera in your own living areas — Florida’s published rules save their force for undisclosed audio and for cameras where privacy is expected, and for your exact case the final word belongs to an attorney, not to your cleaning company. Announce it anyway. It costs one sentence, it filters for exactly the companies you want — the ones that don’t flinch — and it turns the camera into what it should be: one more record of a visit with nothing to hide.