The answers anyone wants before handing over a house key.
Four questions decide this, and none of them are about groceries: what happens to your key, who spends your money, what happens if something breaks, and whether anyone talks about you. The procedures are below.
Bay House Concierge is one person (Pauliane Stenberg) serving St. Petersburg, the Gulf beaches and the barrier islands. Founded 2026.
How do you start with Bay House Concierge?
A free 45-minute walkthrough, then a free 20-minute sit-down where you do the checking, before she has a key, a code, or a card. The household file is built over the three weeks after that. About 85 minutes of your time, once.
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Pauliane walks your house
Kitchen, pantry, laundry, garage. Which door, which lock, which neighbor has the spare. What you buy, what you would never buy, which rooms are not hers to enter.
45 minutes · your house · no charge -
You check her out before she has a key
A current background check, the certificate of insurance, and the confidentiality and service agreements, on your table, to read before you sign anything. Nobody has a key or a code yet, and the person sitting there is the only person who will ever be in your house.
20 minutes · no charge · before any access -
Your household file gets built
Most of it she fills in herself, because most of it is observable: she is standing in your pantry. You correct it as you go, usually by text.
About three weeks · twenty minutes of your time -
You take a standing slot
A day and a window you choose, held each week. The same person every week, because there is only one. If she is ill or out of town you hear it from her and the visit moves. She does not send someone you have never met.
Ongoing · 24 hours’ notice to cancel, no fee
Cancel the way you signed up: a text, or a reply to any email. If she misses a booked window, that visit is free. See what it costs or what she handles.
What happens to your key?
Your key is tagged with a number, never with your name or your address, and the sheet that connects the two is kept somewhere else entirely. Six steps govern it, and the sixth one costs her money rather than you.
Your key is tagged with a number. Never your name, never your address, never your street. A key found on the pavement leads nowhere.
The sheet connecting number to address is stored separately, in a second locked location. One person can put the two together, and she is the only person who has ever held a key of yours.
Every removal and return is logged: date, time, tag number. It is a log she keeps on herself, and it is yours on request.
If you prefer a smart lock, the code is issued to her and to nobody else, and a written reminder reaches you every time it is due to be rotated.
Ask for your key back at any hour and you have it that day, no conversation required.
If she ever loses a key, you hear about it within the hour and she pays for the rekey. Written into your service agreement, not left to goodwill.
Three ways in: you choose which
Doubt about access is dissolved by choice, not reassurance. All three, with the cost of each.
You are home. She rings.
No key, no code, no arrangement at all. She arrives inside your window and you open the door.
- Nothing of yours is held between visits.
- You have to be there weekly, on a two-hour window; a missed window is still a booked visit.
A smart-lock code that is hers alone.
A code issued to nobody else, rotated on your schedule. Entry and exit timestamps reach your phone from your own lock, not from her.
- You can revoke access yourself, at 11pm, without a phone call.
- Requires a smart lock you own and administer; you do the rotating, she sends the reminder.
She holds a coded key.
Governed by the six steps above. Works with any lock, including the older St. Petersburg doors no smart lock fits.
- Nothing to administer; deliveries and season openings are covered while you are away.
- A key of yours lives in her box between visits: you trust a log rather than watch a lock.
Change tiers at any time, in either direction, without a conversation about why. Starting on the first and ending on the third is the expected path. For access while a house sits empty, see snowbird season service.
How does Bay House Concierge handle your money?
She does not hold your money at all. You set a ceiling on a card in your own name, she shops against it at shelf price, and the charge appears in your own banking app before she is out of the parking lot. No float, no percentage of your basket.
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You set the limit
A card in your own name, virtual or secondary, with a per-transaction and monthly ceiling you choose. She cannot raise it. If a basket would exceed it the card declines and you get a text: the system working, not failing.
Your bank · your card · your ceiling -
She shops
Shelf price on everything, at Publix, Mazzaro’s, Rollin’ Oats or wherever your file says. No markup, no percentage, no delivery fee, no surge. Every receipt is photographed at the register.
Shelf price · mileage included -
You see the charge
It lands in your banking app in real time, from the store, not from her. The itemized receipt reaches you the same day; weekly, it arrives as one ledger.
Same day · itemized · photographed
Two things she refuses
- Never a stored card number. Not in your file, not in a store app under her login, not in anyone’s phone.
- Never account access. She does not want your online banking, has never asked for it, and will decline it if offered.
If you would rather not issue a card, she fronts the money and you reimburse weekly against the ledger: the exposure sits with her, not you.
Any second person you name is copied on the weekly ledger automatically. A son, a daughter, an accountant: the same itemized ledger, the same day, from the first week. Set it up at the walkthrough; not an upgrade, not an add-on.
The fee is separate from what she spends on your behalf: flat, published on the rate card, quoted before she starts. Tips are welcome, though never expected: the published rate is already the whole price.
What does “insured” actually mean for you?
Most companies in this trade say “bonded and insured” as one phrase. They are two different things, and only one of them is honest here. A bond indemnifies you against theft by a company’s employees; Bay House Concierge has no employees, and the standard form excludes the owner, so a bond would cover nobody. Liability insurance covers damage, and that one is real. You should see the certificate before she has a key.
| Cover | What it protects against | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|---|
| General liability | Accidental damage during a visit. | Ask to see the certificate before she has a key, and confirm exactly what it covers. |
How do you get the certificates?
Ask at the walkthrough, or email pauli@bayhouseconcierge.com, and a certificate goes out the same business day, addressed to you or to your HOA, building management or property manager. Carrier names, policy numbers and limits appear on the certificate itself, not on a page nobody keeps current. Hosts and property managers can also request a named-additional-insured certificate and a W-9.
Who is actually in your house?
One person. The person who comes to your house is the person you spoke to on the phone. There is nobody else: no subcontractors, no gig marketplace, no rotating strangers, nobody dispatched in her place.
Before she is given a key, she will provide a current background check on request: national criminal database, county-level search and a motor vehicle record, dated and handed to you rather than summarised on a website. On the first visit she photographs anything already scratched or chipped and sends you the photos.
One person can only hold so many households, so the schedule has a limit: what is open, and when, is discussed at the walkthrough. Read who she is on the about page.
Will you talk about us?
No. The policy is written in the negative because that is the only form of it you can check. There is no client list on this site, no neighborhood attached to a story, no photograph taken inside anyone’s home.
- She does not name clients: not on this site, not in marketing, not to other clients, including the ones on your street.
- Nothing is posted from inside a home. The only photographs taken in your house are your own record: pre-existing condition, and the arrival inventory.
- Your file is read by one person. There is nobody else in the company to hand it to.
- A confidentiality agreement is signed with you before the first visit, and it does not end when the work does. You can read it before you sign anything.
- If you leave, your file is destroyed on request and the deletion is confirmed in writing.
- If she runs into you somewhere in town, she has met you for the first time.
What is the household file, and who owns it?
The household file is one document holding everything your house knows about itself (brands, cuts, ripeness, allergies, access, vendors, dates, the standing slot) so nobody has to keep it in their head. It belongs to you, and it comes back to you as a PDF on request, including the day you leave.
Great estates run on a house book. Most households do not have one; most households are one, usually the same person, usually tired.
By week four, you stop writing lists and start sending three words.
By month three, the substitutions are the ones you would have made.
By the second December, she knows what the holidays look like at your house before you mention them.
It is yours, and leaving with it is easy on purpose. Ask at any point: your first month or your last day. She would rather you go with a good document than stay because leaving is a hassle.
- Access & safety. Entry method, who else has access and on which days, the pets and which one bolts, the water shutoff.
- Standards. Non-negotiable brands and forbidden ones. Ripeness. Coffee, bread, the dog’s food, exact. The never-substitute list.
- People & dates. Members, allergies marked medically critical or preference, standing birthdays, and who besides you may give instructions.
- Vendors. Dry cleaner, pharmacy, vet, florist, tailor, hardware: the ones you like and the ones you tolerate.
- Boundaries. Rooms that are off limits. Whether to answer the door. Whether to open mail. She asks out loud and writes the answer in your words.
The file is what makes the weekly grocery run, errands and returns and arrival stocking one service instead of three. Anything unanswered is on the FAQ.
Book a walkthrough
She will look at your kitchen, your pantry and your week, and tell you honestly whether this is worth it for your household.
Book a walkthroughForty-five minutes. At your house. Nothing follows unless you ask for it, and you keep the household file either way.