How to find a local business, check reputability?

[ha98ed14]

My mom lives alone in another state with no family nearby and is getting older. For Christmas, I would like to buy her deep clean for her home. I know she would not want someone coming every week. It would just stress her out. But she knws she needs a good cleaning so, how do you go about finding a local business that is reputable? I know I could call Merry/ Molly Maids, but I know that they pay their employees jack and I'd rather patronize a local small business first. I was thinking that, when people go to sell their homes, they probably have someone come in a do a deep cleaning to make it look nice. How would go about finding someone like that? That is the level of clean I am looking for. I don't have Angie's List, so any ideas are much appreciated!

[lowrioh]

Is she in a larger metro area? Here in DC we have 2 services Washington Checkbook and Angie's List which use reviews by their readers to rate companies. There might be a service like that where she lives.
You could also call her church and see if the secretary or minister might be able to suggest someone.

[mousemom]

PP had good suggestions. When I look at a local business I normally check the local Better Business Burea reports at bbb.org (I believe the category is Cleaning/Janitorial Service if you want to find a list of local accredited business and start from there). Thay way I can see if they are a BBB accredited business, how long they've been in business, if there have been any complaints against them, etc. Once I have a name, I normally google it and I often come up with reviews from places like Yelp, Google Maps, Yahoo Local, etc. I also sometimes check to see if they are a member of their local chamber of commerce, but that is hit or miss.