Privacy Policy | Maid In Blyth

Last updated: 8 October 2026

Who we are

Maid In Blyth provides domestic and small office cleaning in Blyth and the wider South East Northumberland area. In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Grace Fitch, a sole trader trading as Maid In Blyth, based in Blyth, Northumberland.

We are responsible for looking after the personal information described below.

You can contact us at [email protected] or on 07904 023 887.

What information we collect

When you get in touch. If you phone, text, email, message us on WhatsApp or Facebook, or use the quote form on our website, we collect your name, phone number, email address or messaging profile name, postcode, the type of clean you are interested in, and anything else you tell us.

When you become a customer. We also keep your address and contact details, the arrangements for the clean (days, times and any special requests), access arrangements such as keys, key-safe codes and alarm codes, and a record of the work we have done and what you have paid. Customers pay us by cash or bank transfer, and we send invoices using QuickBooks. We do not collect or store payment card details through this website.

Things you tell us about your home or circumstances. Sometimes customers tell us things that help us do the job safely and considerately, such as pets, who is usually at home, or health or mobility needs. We only make a note of these if you choose to tell us, we use them only to look after you and your home properly, and you can ask us to remove them at any time. If someone else deals with your cleaning arrangements for you, such as a relative or carer, we also keep their name and contact details. Please make sure they are happy for you to give them to us.

Reviews. Our website shows reviews that customers have publicly posted on our Facebook page. These include the reviewer’s name and public profile picture as shown on Facebook. We keep a copy of the profile picture on our website so that it displays correctly.

When you visit our website. Our website is delivered and protected by Cloudflare, which processes technical information such as your IP address to keep the site fast and secure. Our website loads its fonts from Google Fonts, which means your IP address is also shared with Google when a page loads. Our website does not currently set any cookies on your device and does not use website analytics.

How we use your information, and why

To reply to your enquiry and prepare a quote or arrange a free home visit. This is at your request, before entering into a contract with you.
To provide your cleaning service, arrange visits and manage payment. This is to carry out our contract with you.
To keep accounting and tax records. This is to meet our legal obligations.
To look after you and your home properly, using the things you tell us about pets, health or mobility needs and so on. We do this with your agreement.
To show customer reviews on our website and to keep our website secure. This is in our legitimate interests as a business, and we have considered the effect on you.

We do not sell your information and we do not use it for automated decision-making.

We do not send marketing by email, text, WhatsApp or phone. We sometimes post leaflets through doors across the area we cover, which may include the homes of former customers. If you would rather we did not, just tell us and we will make a note.

Who we share it with

Our employed cleaners, who visit your home. They only receive what they need to do the job, such as your address, access arrangements and any special requests. This may be on paper, in a shared Google Calendar, or sent to them on WhatsApp.
Intuit QuickBooks, which we use for our invoices, accounts, VAT and Making Tax Digital returns.
Dropbox, where we store our customer records and spreadsheets and our key and access code records.
Google (for our calendar), and WhatsApp and Facebook (both owned by Meta), which we use to schedule work and to message customers.
Rackspace, our email provider, and our website host and Cloudflare, who process data on our behalf to run our email and website.

We may also share information with HMRC or others if the law requires us to.

Some of these providers are based outside the UK. Where they handle your information, they do so under the safeguards that UK data protection law requires.

Keys and access

If you give us a key, key-safe code or alarm code, we look after it like this:

Keys are labelled with a code number, not your name or address.
A record of which key belongs to which customer, and any key-safe and alarm codes, is kept in a document in our Dropbox account. It can only be opened on password-protected devices.
Keys and codes are passed only to the members of our staff who need them for your visits.
When the service ends, your key is returned to you or destroyed, and we delete the codes.

How long we keep your information

Enquiries that do not lead to a booking: 12 months, then deleted.
Copies of emails sent by our website, such as quote form enquiries, are kept in the website’s email log for 14 days and then deleted automatically.
Customer records: while you are a customer, and then for 7 years afterwards, to meet accounting and tax record-keeping requirements. The exception is any notes about health or mobility needs, which we delete when the service ends.
Keys and access codes: returned or destroyed, and the codes deleted, when the service ends.

Your rights

You have the right to ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, to ask us to correct it, to ask us to delete it or restrict how we use it, to object to our use of it, and, where it applies, to ask for it in a portable format. To use any of these rights, contact us using the details above.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We would appreciate the chance to put things right first.

Keeping your information safe

We take reasonable steps to keep your information secure. Our devices are locked and password-protected, including every device that can open our Dropbox records. We limit who can see customer records and key and access codes to the staff who need them. We also keep our website up to date and protected by Cloudflare.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will always be on this page, with the date it was last updated shown at the top.