There is no single right answer, and the people who tell you there is are usually selling a camera. What you are actually trading is time off work against how much of the job you need to see. Those weigh differently depending on the work.
The short version
| Kind of job | Be there? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| First visit with anyone new | Yes, at least the first ten minutes | You are deciding whether to keep working with this person. That decision is made in the first conversation, not from a review. |
| Anything priced by the hour | Be there or check in | Not because people cheat. Because scope drifts, and an hourly job with nobody to ask questions of turns into a longer job. |
| Work that opens up walls, roofs or plumbing | Yes | These are the jobs where the price changes mid-way. You want to be the person who hears about it first. |
| Recurring cleaning, lawn care, dog walking | Not after the first few | The whole point is that it happens without you. If you do not trust them alone, the arrangement is not working yet. |
| Deliveries, assembly, mounting, hauling | Briefly, at the start | Mostly so you can point at where things go. After that you are furniture. |
If you genuinely do not want to be alone with someone, that is not paranoia
It gets treated as though it were. A woman living alone, an older homeowner, a parent whose kid gets back from school at three — all of them get told they are overthinking it, usually by people who have never had to think about it.
You are allowed to arrange the day so you are not alone. In practice that looks like:
- Book the first visit for a time somebody else is around. A partner, a neighbour, an adult kid, anyone. You do not have to explain why.
- Ask a friend to be there instead of you. Being present is not the same as supervising. Someone reading a book in the kitchen changes the room.
- Say it out loud when you book. "I would rather not be here on my own, so I have asked my neighbour to let you in" is a completely normal sentence. Anyone who reacts badly to it has told you something useful for free.
Watch what happens when you set a boundary before the work starts. Good workers do not care. It is a scheduling detail to them, and they have heard it a hundred times. A bad reaction to a reasonable request is the cheapest information you will get all week.
Being there also has a cost, and it is not only your time
Hovering makes work slower and worse. Someone who is being watched checks in more, explains more, second-guesses the decision they were about to make. On a fixed-price job you are paying the same for a longer day; on an hourly job you are paying for the interruptions.
The useful version of being present is: available, not adjacent. Be in the house. Do not be in the room.
Cameras: what they do and what they do not
An indoor camera is a reasonable thing to own and a bad thing to rely on. It records what happened. It does not stop anything happening, and reviewing footage afterwards is a poor consolation for the situation you were worried about.
Two rules if you use them:
- Tell people they are there. Recording someone working in your home without saying so is a bad way to start a working relationship, and in some states audio recording without consent is illegal. Rules vary — check your own state before recording sound.
- Do not put them in bathrooms or bedrooms. Obvious, and worth writing down anyway, because the rooms people worry about are exactly the rooms where a camera is not acceptable.
The decision underneath the question
People do not really search this because they are trying to plan a Tuesday. They search it because they have already booked somebody they are not sure about, and they are looking for a way to make that feel manageable.
If that is where you are: the question to fix is not whether to stay home. It is how you ended up unsure. You can usually get most of the way there before anyone is scheduled — a short call instead of only messages, a look at work they have actually done, asking who exactly is turning up rather than which company is sending them.
Being home is a reasonable precaution. It is a poor substitute for knowing who you hired.
Frequently asked questions
Is it safe to leave a contractor alone in your house?
Usually, and it depends far more on who you hired than on whether you are there. Most people doing this work have a reputation in a small area and nothing to gain from a bad afternoon. If you are not confident enough to leave, that is worth treating as information about the hire rather than a scheduling problem.
Should I stay home for a house cleaner?
For the first visit or two, yes — mostly so you can show them what matters to you and agree what is in scope. After that the arrangement only works if it happens without you, and cleaners generally work faster and better in an empty house.
Can I ask someone not to be alone in my house with me?
Yes, and you do not owe anyone an explanation. Arranging for a friend, neighbour or family member to be present is common and reads as completely ordinary to anyone who does this for a living.
Do I have to tell workers about security cameras?
For video in shared living areas, telling them is good practice rather than a legal requirement in most places. Audio is different — several states require the consent of everyone recorded. Check your own state rules before recording sound, and never put a camera in a bathroom or bedroom.
Does GigNGo check the people on the platform?
No. Locals verify a phone number and that is the whole of it. We do not run background checks and we do not confirm licences. What we show you instead is video of work they have actually done, so you can judge the person yourself before they are standing at your door.