8 questions to ask before you hire a warehouse cleaner

Every facility manager we meet in Commerce City or Central Park has a story about a cleaner that started strong and fell apart by month four. The pattern is almost always the same: the first walk-through was slick, the first month looked great, then the crew changed three times and nobody could tell you why the dock hadn't been mopped in two weeks.

These 8 questions are what we'd ask if we were buying cleaning instead of selling it. Copy them into an email and send them to every bidder. The vendors who answer fast and clean are the ones you want on your building. The ones who hedge or ghost are showing you exactly what they'll do once the contract is signed.

1. Are your cleaners W-2 or 1099?

Right answer: W-2. Every cleaner on your floor should be a direct employee — payroll taxes withheld, workers comp in place, unemployment paid. 1099 janitors are almost always misclassified under IRS and Colorado DOL rules, and if one gets hurt on your property, the liability picture gets ugly fast. Ask for proof of workers comp coverage and name Clean Works (or whoever) as the insured.

Bonus check: ask what the base wage is. In 2026 Denver, a serious janitorial operator pays $20–$23/hr for W-2 crew. If the answer is $15 or 'depends on the contract,' they're using 1099s with a different label.

2. How do you document that each shift got done?

Right answer: photo-verified QC, uploaded before the crew leaves the lot. The bar is time-stamped photos of the scope areas, shared with you in a folder or via the QC app, every shift. Not 'we'll do spot checks.' Not 'our supervisor will call you.' Photos or it didn't happen.

Why it matters: you can't walk the building every night. A photo log is the only way to hold a vendor to a scope without becoming your own QC manager.

3. What's your callback guarantee when cleaning slips?

Right answer: 2-hour callback during business hours, 24-hour resolution at no charge. Anyone who says 'we'll get to it next shift' is telling you that a missed scope item is a scheduling problem, not a trust problem. A vendor that treats a missed restroom like a fire is a vendor you can build a multi-year relationship with.

4. Who am I actually talking to if something goes wrong?

Right answer: the owner, or a named operations lead who answers a direct cell phone. Not a dispatcher. Not a 'client success manager.' Not a call center.

The big national franchises route every complaint through a regional office — and that regional office doesn't care about a 30,000 sqft warehouse in Aurora. Owner-managed crews have a short escalation path because there's nobody to escalate past.

5. Can I see the written scope of work before I sign?

Right answer: yes, here it is. A real scope is a one- or two-page document that lists every area of your facility and what happens in each area on each visit. It distinguishes nightly items from weekly items from quarterly items (like high dusting and wall spot-cleaning).

If a vendor sends you a bid without a written scope — or if the scope is three bullet points long — they're buying flexibility at your expense. Month four, when you ask why the break room microwave hasn't been wiped in weeks, the answer will be 'that wasn't in scope.' Better to pin it down now.

6. How do you handle crew turnover?

Right answer: a documented onboarding process, a consistent crew lead on your account, and a 24-hour notice to you when there's a personnel change.

Turnover in commercial cleaning is brutal industry-wide — 150%+ annually at some national operators. What separates a serious vendor from a revolving door is whether there's a crew lead who stays on your account even when the crew behind them rotates. That continuity is how your restrooms stay consistent even when the roster underneath changes.

7. What chemistry are you using, and do you have the SDS?

Right answer: we can name the products, we carry SDS sheets in the truck, and we can provide them to you on request. If they talk in generalities — 'we use green-safe products' — push harder. 'Green-safe' is meaningless without a GreenSeal GS-37 certification or equivalent named on the bottle.

This matters twice: once because OSHA walk-throughs check for SDS on-site for any chemicals used in the building, and again because a vendor who can't name their own products is using whatever was cheapest at the supply house that week.

8. Show me one reference from a Denver warehouse the same size as mine.

Right answer: here's a name, a phone number, and what we do for them. Not 'we can provide references on request.' Not a generic client list with logos and no names. A specific reference, for a specific building type, in the same market.

National vendors have trouble with this one because their reference accounts are in Dallas or Phoenix, not Aurora. Local operators who've been around more than a year should have 2–3 ready to share. If they flinch on this question, they're either too new or too small to honor a serious contract.

The bonus question most people don't ask

What happens on day one when your cleaner's current crew lead quits? If the answer is a plan — 'our backup lead covers your site, I personally walk the floor that night, and you get an email the same day' — you have a real operator. If the answer is a shrug, you have a problem that hasn't hit you yet.

If your current cleaner can't answer these

You know where to start. We run walk-throughs across the Denver industrial corridors — Commerce City, Central Park, Stapleton, Aurora, Montbello, Englewood, Lakewood — and deliver written bids in 48 hours. Twenty minutes of your time tells you whether what you're paying now is in line with the market.