[OneFishTwoFish]

Hello,
I have a small private show dog kennel and I am a professional show dog handler. The problem I have is that I have to keep live-in kennel help to take care of the kennel dogs when I am on the road. They live in an apartment above the kennel but they have full access to my house and every building on the property too.
In the past we have been robbed by our help ( two different times ) and have not been able to do anything about it as they took off right before we returned home from a working trip. It turned out that one couple gave us false names and even though we had license plate numbers and copies of the others drivers licenses they were not found and neither was any of our stuff.
They each seemed so nice and actually did a good job right up until they left! The only really good thing I can say about them is that they did not leave until right before we were to return so the dogs were not ever neglected.

I am once again trying to find new help and would like to know how protect myself from bad people. Should I do a background check and can I do it without spending lots of money or if I should require them to be finger printed or something, maybe bonded? At least the last one didn't rob us but did leave with only one days notice.
I hope someone can offer some help and I thank you for your time.

[ScottGem]

I am once again trying to find new help and would like to know how protect myself from bad people. Should I do a background check and can I do it without spending lots of money or if I should require them to be finger printed or something, maybe bonded? At least the last one didn't rob us but did leave with only one days notice.
I hope someone can offer some help and I thank you for your time.

Which is better; doing a through background check or being robbed? You are providing too much access to these people to not protect yourself. Possibly getting them bonded would be the best bet. The bonding company will do the background check.

[OneFishTwoFish]

Thank you for your help Scott. It isn't that I don't want to spend the money I just don't have a lot to spend. I am very tired and frustrated with finding new people to do this job.

In the past I tried using background check companies and they did not offer any real help, they just kept wanting you to keep upgrading their service ( pay more money ) to get you one more piece of info. A waste of time and nothing to prove the people were who they said they were or if they actually had a record or anything. I tried more than one too. Maybe I was really bad at picking companies too as well as people.

I will look into bonding. Thank you for responding so quick and Thank you again for your time.
If there are any other suggestions on how I go about finding the new help that would be great too, but I don't know where I would ask for that advise on this forum.

[Fr_Chuck]

Background check, and also , what about changing the doors and locking up your part of the house

[OneFishTwoFish]

Is there a legitimate online service for background checks?
Or what is the best way to do a real background test. I don't want to subscribe to a years worth of service, I just want to do a check while I am trying to find a new tenant/live-in.
The live-ins need access to the house and out buildings to do their job. We do lock up our bedroom and office but that is all we can block access to and even then since we live in a rural area there is nothing to stop them from breaking in to those areas with no one able to see or hear it. Thus even more reason to need to know who they really are legally.