In a bricks and mortar lab you may see some equipment or even just the reception counter and if it looks clean and tidy, well maintained, and no one eating or drinking coffee (or cats)
It may be a particularly bad sign if they are eating cats.
Regional considerations aside, of course
.
Stuff happens in a lab environment.
The Kodak lab where my dad worked had a full set of protective water filters protecting the Kodachrome and Ektachrome lines. They also had protocols that required shut-down and monitoring whenever our municipal water systems were shut down or otherwise adjusted for maintenance purposes.
Tragically, one day someone committed suicide by defeating all the protective barriers and drowning themselves in the huge lake that served as a reservoir. To permit retrieval of the body, the water authorities lowered the reservoir levels by both lowering the flood gate and, without the normal notice, starting the higher than normal volume purge of the water system.
The resulting increase of sediment in the water supply overwhelmed the filter systems at a number of commercial sites, including the Kodak lab.
A significant number of customer films were damaged before the problem was noticed and the machine shut down.
A whole bunch of customers got letters and replacement films.