Every guide to hiring help skips the same step. They tell you to compare quotes and check reviews, then hand you a person and a date, as if the only thing left is the work. If you live on your own, the part they skipped is the part you were worried about.
Nothing here assumes anything terrible is going to happen. Almost always it does not. But "almost always" is a statistic, and you are not living in a statistic — you are deciding whether to open your door on Thursday.
Before you book
Talk to them once, out loud
A five-minute phone call tells you more than an hour of messages. Not because of anything they say — because of pace, whether they ask anything about the job, whether they listen to the answer. You already have this instinct. Text takes it away from you.
Ask who is actually coming
This is the single most useful question and hardly anyone asks it. On the bigger platforms the account belongs to a business, and the person who turns up may be an employee nobody has ever mentioned to you. Ask plainly: is it you doing the work, or someone else? Then ask for their name.
Knowing the name of the person who will be in your hallway changes the whole encounter. It turns an unknown into someone specific, it makes it easy to check that the right person arrived, and it tells whoever you hired that you are paying attention.
Look for evidence rather than credentials
Badges travel poorly. A photo or video of a job this person actually finished tells you about their hands, their care, and whether they clean up. It is also much harder to fake than a profile.
The day itself
- Have somebody know. One text to a friend — who is coming, when, roughly how long. Not because you expect to need it. It costs nothing and it changes how the day feels.
- Book mornings on a weekday if you can. Neighbours are around, it is light, and nobody is in a hurry to be somewhere else.
- Check the person matches the name. If someone different arrives, it is entirely reasonable to say "I was expecting Dan — who are you?" before stepping back from the door. A legitimate crew will answer it easily.
- Decide in advance which rooms are in scope. Not to hide things. So that you are not making decisions on the spot with somebody standing in front of you.
- Keep the door to the street unlocked-and-closed, not locked behind you. A small thing that means you are never the person fumbling for keys.
If it feels wrong
You are allowed to end it. At the door, an hour in, halfway through. You do not need a reason that would stand up in an argument, and you do not owe a stranger a debate about your own comfort in your own home.
The script is short and it works: "Something has come up — I need to stop here for today. What do I owe you for the time so far?" Pay for the time, close the door, and do not book them again. Paying for an hour you did not need is a very small price.
The pressure to be polite is the thing that gets people into rooms they did not want to be in. Being rude to somebody who has done nothing wrong is a minor social cost that you will forget in a week. Ignoring your own read on a situation is not.
Where platforms actually help, and where they do not
Being honest about our own side of this: a marketplace badge does not make anyone safe. Most platforms, including ours, do not check the person who ends up in your kitchen. On Angi and Thumbtack the screening covers the business owner, not the crew. We check nobody at all — locals verify a phone number and that is it.
What a platform can genuinely do is reduce how much of a stranger the person is before they arrive: real profiles, work you can look at, a record that follows them, and messages in one place instead of a phone number you cannot trace. That is a smaller claim than "safe", and it is the true one.
Frequently asked questions
Is it safe to have a stranger in your house when you live alone?
Usually, and it is reasonable to take precautions anyway. The steps that help most happen before the day: speak to the person once by phone, ask for the name of whoever is actually turning up, look at work they have really done, and tell one friend the plan. None of that assumes anything bad — it just means you are not making decisions on the doorstep.
What should I do if a worker makes me uncomfortable?
End the visit. Say that something has come up, ask what you owe for the time so far, pay it, and close the door. You do not need a reason that would win an argument, and paying for an hour you did not use is a very small price for not spending the afternoon uneasy in your own house.
Should I hide valuables before someone works in my home?
Put small, portable, sentimental or medical items somewhere out of the way — mostly so nothing is ambiguous later. Prescription medication is the one worth being deliberate about. This is not an accusation; it removes the situation where something is mislaid and nobody can prove anything either way.
How do I check that the person at my door is the right person?
Ask for their name when you book, and confirm it at the door before you step back. If somebody different arrives, ask who they are and who sent them. A real crew answers that in one sentence. If the answer is vague, you are allowed to reschedule.
Do you run background checks on locals?
No. We verify a phone number and nothing more. We do less screening than TaskRabbit, Angi or Thumbtack, and we would rather you know that before you hire than after. What we give you instead is video of real work, so you can form your own view of the person.