Both Customers and contractors often ask us who is actually responsible for cleaning up after the job. The simple answer is: agree that clearly with each other before the job starts. But please make sure first that it is clear how the expert (= contractor) will keep the Customer’s home as clean as possible.
For example, for plastering & painting jobs it is to key to cover the floor properly. One of our floor specialists checked a large number of stains on a Customer’s wooden floor last week and found that a plasterer had caused them. Now the plasterer has to sand & varnish that floor or even replace it!
MrFix has drawn up the following standards based on more than ten years of experience in solving these kinds of problems.
Firstly, before starting the job:
- The expert announces in advance in the WhatsApp group which measures he will take to protect the home: laying protective floor sheeting in communal areas and the home, removing/covering furniture, etc
- The contractor should know the rules for waste collection at the job address. He says in advance whether he expects to need to hire a waste container (and in that case he arranges the permit) and/or to take waste to a collection point
- The Customer states in advance if he/she requires additional measures. For example, a Customer recently asked a painter to close the cracks under doors so that the dust from his sanding work would not get into other rooms
In principle, the expert carries out these preparations and cleans up afterwards, unless he & the Customer agree explicitly that the Customer or a third party will do so. After completion of the job:
- The contractor reports what material is left and the Customer decides whether the expert can/should take it with him
- The expert removes all such material and his tools
- The contractor cleans up. We have not found a legal definition of “clean” but we have found a good starting point: ‘broom clean’, the way a seller should leave a house. Property agent Bart puts it nicely (in Dutch) here: “Just a quick vacuum throughout the house, a broom through the shed and a cloth over the kitchen worktop. So the new owners can not see what was done there before”
- The expert places back any furniture that has been moved and remove any protective material
- The expert shares the ‘After photo’ of the workplace in the WhatsApp group
- The contractor invoices (via MrFix) the time spent preparing, clearing up and cleaning up, as well as any external costs such as the hire of waste containers and disposal costs at the waste disposal station
- Please note that a contractor always has to pay for dumping waste while a private person can often dump his own waste (or even have it collected) free of charge
- If the Customer is not satisfied with the clearing up or cleaning, he should report this in the WhatsApp group within 24 hours of completion and the expert should rectify this at his own expense as soon as possible
MrFix helps the Customer and the contractor to resolve any differences of opinion via the Whatsapp group: we have supported tens of thousands of jobs and note of them has led to a legal dispute. In the worst case, the expert or a professional cleaner (through MrFix or not) comes to clean up at the contractor’s expense.