What to Do When Items Go Missing and Cleaners Are Suspected

A client rang us on a Monday morning about a missing tablet. Last seen on a desk on Friday afternoon, and our team had been in that Friday evening. It is not a comfortable call to take, on either end of the phone. We sent our sign in records and the names of the two operatives who worked the site that night before lunchtime, and asked one thing in return: search properly before anyone draws a conclusion. The tablet turned up on Wednesday, in a meeting room drawer, moved during a desk reshuffle nobody had written down.

If items go missing and cleaners are suspected, do not accuse anyone. Search thoroughly, ask colleagues, and check whether the item was moved or borrowed. Then contact the cleaning company's manager, who should share attendance records and cooperate fully. Involve An Garda Siochana for valuable items, and let evidence, not suspicion, lead.

First, Pause: Why Accusations Are the Most Expensive Mistake

We understand the instinct. The cleaners were the last people in the building, so the mind goes there first. But in nearly a decade of working unsupervised in Dublin offices, the overwhelming majority of missing item calls we have been involved in ended with the item being found.

The cost of getting this wrong is high and it lands in several places at once.

An accusation aimed at a named individual, spoken to colleagues or put in an email, carries real reputational and legal risk for you. Naming someone as a thief without evidence is not a neutral act.

If the person is your own employee, skipping fair procedures creates exposure at the Workplace Relations Commission regardless of whether the suspicion turns out to be well founded. Process failures are what tribunals look at.

And there is the quieter cost. A cleaning team that feels accused stops feeling like part of your building. The relationship rarely recovers fully, even after an apology.

None of that means you should ignore a genuine loss. It means the order of operations matters. Facts first, conversations second, conclusions last.

The First 48 Hours: A Calm Step by Step

Write down exactly what is missing. Item, description, serial number if it has one, where it was last seen, and the last confirmed time and date someone saw it. Vague losses are impossible to investigate and impossible to claim on.

Rule out the innocent explanations before anything else. In our experience this is where most cases end. Was there a desk move, a clear out, a visitor, an IT swap? Did someone tidy it into a drawer? Was it handed to reception? Check coat pockets, bags, the meeting rooms and the lost property point.

Ask your own team quietly. Not an announcement, not an email to all staff. A few direct, calm questions to the people who sat nearest it. Colleagues borrow things far more often than anyone admits.

Check who else had access. In most Dublin buildings the cleaning team is one of several groups on site after hours. Deliveries, maintenance contractors, building security, IT, other tenants' visitors. The building sign in book is often the most useful document in the whole exercise.

Preserve CCTV footage properly rather than circulating it. If you have cameras, secure the relevant period so it is not overwritten. Do not send clips around the office or to a group chat. See the section below on why that matters.

Ring the cleaning company's manager with facts, not allegations. There is a way to have this conversation that gets you information rather than defensiveness. There is a script for it in a moment.

Report valuable items to An Garda Siochana. For anything significant this is a normal step, not an escalation, and you will usually need the report reference for insurance.

Notify your insurer if you intend to claim. Most policies have notification windows, and most require a Garda report reference.

Follow that order and you will either find the item or have a proper evidence base. Skip to step six and you will have neither.

What to Say to Your Cleaning Company (and What to Expect Back)

Keep it factual. Something like: "A tablet has gone missing from the second floor, last seen Friday at four. Your team was on site that evening. We are still searching and we are not accusing anyone, but can you confirm who attended and what times they signed in and out?"

That phrasing gets you cooperation. An accusation gets you a solicitor.

What a professional provider should offer without being pushed: the names of the operatives who attended, sign in and sign out times, confirmation that those staff were screened and trained, the supervisor's direct involvement, and a commitment to cooperate with any Garda inquiry. If a provider bristles at a straightforward factual question, that tells you something on its own.

When to Involve An Garda Siochana

For anything of real value, report it. A laptop, a phone, cash, keys, client equipment, personal property belonging to a member of staff. Reports can be made at your local Garda station and you should keep the reference number.

Two practical reasons. First, insurers almost always require a Garda report reference before they will process a theft claim. Second, a report creates a dated, independent record, which protects you and everybody else if the matter goes further.

There is also a statutory dimension worth knowing about. Section 19 of the Criminal Justice Act 2011 creates an obligation to disclose information to An Garda Siochana where a person knows or believes it might be of material assistance in relation to a schedule of relevant offences, which covers a range of theft and fraud offences. Whether a particular incident sits inside that schedule is a legal question rather than an operational one, so if the value involved is significant, get advice rather than guessing either way.

CCTV, Privacy and Doing It Legally

This is where well intentioned employers most often trip up.

CCTV footage is personal data. Under Irish data protection law you can generally only use it for the purpose people were told it was collected for. Most workplace cameras are installed and signposted for security and crime prevention. Using that same footage for a disciplinary process is where problems start.

This is not theoretical. In the Doolin case, which reached the Court of Appeal, footage recorded for security purposes and then used in a disciplinary investigation was found to be incompatible further processing. The principle is now well established.

So before you treat footage as an investigation tool, check what your own CCTV policy and signage actually say, and check who in your organisation is authorised to view it. Never publish, post or forward footage of an identifiable person. If you are in any doubt, the Data Protection Commission publishes guidance for organisations, and it is worth ten minutes of reading before you press play.

If the Suspected Person Is Your Own Employee Instead

The same care applies, with an extra layer.

An employee facing an allegation is entitled to fair procedures. In practice that means telling them clearly what is alleged, giving them the evidence, giving them a real opportunity to respond, allowing representation where appropriate, and having someone impartial decide. Suspension, if used at all, should be neutral and carefully handled rather than presented as a punishment.

Shortcuts here are what generate Workplace Relations Commission claims, and a claim can succeed on procedure alone even where the underlying suspicion had substance. If you are heading towards a formal process, take HR or legal advice before the first meeting, not after it.

How Professional Cleaning Companies Protect You (and Their Own Staff)

Working in an empty building at night is a position of trust. We treat it that way, and the systems exist as much to protect our people from unfounded suspicion as to protect our clients.

Screened and trained staff. Our operatives are recruited and vetted before they ever work unsupervised on a client site, and they are trained on conduct as well as cleaning. We carry full insurance for the work we do on your premises.

Consistent named teams. This is underrated. When the same two people clean your office every week, you know them by name and they know your building. Rotating strangers through a site is where anonymity, and suspicion, breeds.

Sign in and attendance records. Our management system records who attended which site and when. That means we can answer a question about a specific evening with a record rather than a memory.

A found item rule. Anything our team finds out of place is logged and left at an agreed point, not moved to a drawer or tidied somewhere sensible. Sensible tidying is how half of all missing item scares begin.

Immediate supervisor escalation and full cooperation. Catalin, who founded the company, has a standing rule that any client query about our team gets records the same day, not after a discussion about whether we should. We would always rather be examined and cleared than defended and doubted.

If your current provider cannot tell you who was in your building last Tuesday, that is worth raising with them.

The Monday Morning Call We Remember

Back to the tablet.

What made that week work was not that we were innocent. It was that both sides had something to work with. Our records showed two named operatives, in at 18:40, out at 20:15, both on the site every week for months. The client's building had a sign in book showing a maintenance contractor and a courier in the same window. Nobody was singled out, and nothing was said out loud that could not be taken back.

The client's office manager did the unglamorous work: a full physical search, floor by floor, including the meeting rooms nobody had checked because the tablet "obviously would not be in there". That is where it was, in a drawer, moved by a colleague during a Friday desk reshuffle and forgotten over the weekend.

Two things changed afterwards. The client set up a proper lost property shelf near reception and a short note in their leavers and desk move process about clearing drawers. We added a line to our own site sheets: log anything found out of place, leave it where the client can find it, and tell the supervisor.

The item was never the point. The process was.

Prevention: Making Missing Items Rare and Easy to Resolve

On the client side

• Lockable drawers or a small safe for cash, keys and high value items
• A visible lost property point, and one person who owns it
• Asset tags and a simple register for shared laptops, tablets and tools
• Tell your cleaning provider before any office move, reshuffle or clear out
• Keep the building sign in book current, so the after hours picture is complete
• Do not leave personal valuables on desks overnight, and say so plainly to staff

On the provider side

• Consistent named teams rather than rotating cover
• Sign in and sign out records available on request
• A written found item rule, so nothing is quietly relocated
• Supervisors reachable the same day when a question comes up

The Dublin Context

In a standalone unit the after hours suspect pool is small. In a Dublin multi tenant block it rarely is.

Managed buildings around the city see deliveries, maintenance crews, IT contractors, security patrols, building services staff and other tenants' visitors moving through shared areas most evenings. The cleaning team is simply the group whose visit you happen to know about, because it is scheduled.

That is why the building sign in book and any managed reception log are worth requesting early. Building management will usually provide access details for a specific window if you ask properly and explain why. And for reporting, your local Garda station handles it as routine business.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I do first if I suspect a cleaner of stealing? Search thoroughly and document what is missing before anything else. Rule out desk moves, borrowing and lost property. Then ring the cleaning company's manager with the facts and ask for attendance records. Do not name or accuse an individual at this stage.

Can I accuse a cleaner without proof? You should not. Naming someone as a thief without evidence carries reputational and legal risk for you, damages a working relationship that may be blameless, and makes any later investigation harder to run fairly. Gather facts, share them calmly, and let evidence lead.

Do I have to report theft to the Gardai in Ireland? Report genuine suspected theft, particularly for valuable items, and keep the reference number since insurers usually require it. Section 19 of the Criminal Justice Act 2011 also creates disclosure obligations for a schedule of relevant offences, so take legal advice where significant sums are involved.

Can I use CCTV to investigate missing items at work? Only in line with the purpose your CCTV was notified for and with data protection law. Irish case law has found that using security footage for a disciplinary investigation can amount to incompatible further processing. Check your CCTV policy and take advice before relying on footage.

Are commercial cleaners vetted in Ireland? Reputable contract cleaning companies screen and train staff before they work unsupervised, and keep attendance records for every site. Ask any provider directly what checks they carry out, whether teams are consistent, and whether they can confirm who attended your building on a given night.

Does insurance cover items stolen from an office? It depends entirely on your policy, what was taken and whether there were signs of forced entry. Most insurers require a Garda report reference and prompt notification. Check your policy wording and speak to your broker before assuming a loss is covered.

Can I ask my cleaning company to remove a staff member from my site? Yes, and a professional provider will discuss it with you. Bear in mind that the operative is somebody's employee with their own rights, so a request based on suspicion alone should be handled carefully by both sides rather than treated as a dismissal.

Trust Is the Product

If you are reading this because you are no longer sure about the people coming into your building at night, that doubt is worth acting on.

We built our processes for exactly this situation. Screened and trained operatives, consistent named teams you get to know, attendance records available the same day they are asked for, supervisors who pick up the phone, and full insurance behind all of it. Our free site survey is where we set all of that out, before day one, and you can read more about who we are on our about us page.

Almost a decade of after hours work across Dublin, and a 5.0 rating from over 113 Google reviews, is the short version of why clients stay. Explore our full commercial cleaning Dublin services to see how we work.

Call 086 083 6141 or email enquiries@premiercontractcleaning.ie for a straight conversation about your site, or get in touch here.

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