CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Police are sending an urgent warning to check who is working on your home.
This warning comes just before spring cleaning as families become eager to get their houses fixed.
For homeowners, the sound of water dripping is also the sound of money leaving somebody's bank account.
But police say homeowners must do their homework before welcoming just anyone into your house.
"It could be a friend of a friend or it could be a company, but at the end of the day it's a stranger," said CMPD's Jonathan Frisk.
Nowadays people immediately go to social media for recommendations. On Facebook for example, a person can call somebody to check out their dryer. Then on NextDoor, there's a whole section for recommendations.
Lorraine Nance, 83, learned this lesson the hard way. She hired someone to fix up her home but instead, she was scammed by her employees.
"They locked me out," Nance said.
That's why CMPD says to double and triple check who you are inviting in.
Two tips: go to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office and see if that person has any priors or check the Better Business Bureau's website.
Two years ago, a Gastonia woman fell for a landscaping scam.
If she did her homework, she would've seen the business got an "F" rating by the BBB and a quick check on Google might have turned up his mug shot.
The guy was arrested not once, but twice and was charged four times with obtaining property under false pretenses.
"We always want to take extra security measures to make sure that the person that is coming into our home they're on the up and up," Frisk said.