When moving out of a home or apartment, it’s important to clean thoroughly before leaving to ensure the space is spotless and sanitary for the next occupants.
In this post, we’ll explain what move-out cleaning is, what’s included in it, how much it costs, how long it takes, and how DIY move-out cleaning compares to hiring a professional cleaning service.
Key Takeaways
Move-out cleaning is cleaning a home or apartment before moving out. It usually involves deep cleaning because the person moving out wants their full security deposit back.
While it’s possible to do move-out cleaning yourself, many hire professionals to ensure a thorough and efficient cleaning.
What Is Move-Out Cleaning?
Move-out cleaning is an umbrella term people use to refer to any cleaning done before a move-out.
Sure, you don’t have to clean a home or apartment before moving out, but there are several reasons why this is a good move.
First and foremost, it’s the right thing to do. The people occupying the space you’ve been occupying deserve to receive it in good condition, especially if it was in good condition when you received it.
Moreover, a move-out deep clean can help you get your whole security deposit back from your landlord.
To ensure the effectiveness of move-out cleaning, it’s important to create a checklist of tasks and prioritize them to maximize your time.
If you don’t want to do move-out cleaning on your own, you can hire a professional cleaning service to do it for you.
Professional cleaners will dust, vacuum, and sanitize your home or apartment from top to bottom to ensure it’s 100% clean for the next occupants.
What’s Included in Move-Out Cleaning?
Kitchen
The kitchen is one of the most important rooms in any home, so you should give it a thorough cleaning before moving out.
Start with the basics. That is, mop the floor, wipe down countertops and cabinets, scrub the walls, and make sure any doors and windows are free of stains.
After thoroughly cleaning the main components, proceed to the appliances. Disinfect the refrigerator, stove, and oven. Anything used to prepare food should be deep cleaned before you move out.
Removing caked-on grease, grime, etc. from kitchen appliances can take a couple of hours, so give yourself enough time to do a good job.
After cleaning all the appliances, remove any cobwebs from the ceiling, wipe down light fixtures and door knobs, ensure cabinet and drawer handles are spotless, and take out the garbage.
Once everything on your kitchen cleaning checklist is complete, give it a final inspection to make sure nothing was missed.
Bathroom
Bathroom cleaning is just as essential as kitchen cleaning, so you’ll need to devote time and energy to making all the bathrooms in your home spotless and sanitary.
Once again, it’s good to start with the basics. Mop the floor, scrub the walls and windows, wipe down countertops, shelves, mirrors, and cabinets, and clean the shower from top to bottom.
Next, clean the inside and outside of the toilet. Once that’s done, wipe down the faucet.
Finally, clean the small components, including door knobs, lights and light switches, vents, cabinet and drawer handles, towel rods, soap dispensers, and tissue boxes.
Of course, any trash should be removed before you move on to the next room.
Note: If there’s any mold on your bathroom walls or ceiling, it’s best to hire a cleaning team, as they’ll deliver a deep cleaning service to remove the harmful growth.
Bedroom
Since the new tenant will be spending a large portion of their day in the bedroom, it’s only right that you make this space immaculate before they move in,
Step one is mopping the floor. If there’s wall-to-wall carpet in the bedroom, steam clean it.
Once the floor is clean, scrub the walls. If there are any stains on the molding or baseboards, make sure they’re completely removed.
If you’re leaving the bed frame, wipe it down before moving on to the room’s other fixtures, namely doors, windows, dressers, mirrors, lights, nightstands, and curtains.
Have a ceiling fan? Dust it. Are there built-in shelves? Dust these as well. Cobwebs on the ceiling? Remove them.
Many people don’t give their bedroom a detailed cleaning before moving out, but this is a mistake. If your landlord sees a dirty bedroom, they’ll probably use a portion of your deposit to hire cleaning professionals.
Living Room
Cleaning the living room should be less time-consuming, especially if you do regular cleaning.
Start by moving all furniture to one corner of the room. This way the space is easier to clean. If some furniture is too heavy to move, just clean around it.
Mop the floor, steam-clean and vacuum the carpets and rugs, wash the walls, and make sure all the small fixtures get a decent wipe-down.
If there are HVAC vents in the living room, vacuum out the dust before wiping them down. Is there a ceiling fan? Make it dust-free.
Shelves, TV stands, end tables, lamps, overhead lights—dust and clean them all.
If there’s any pet hair on your couch, chairs, etc., vacuum it up and then spray some fabric freshener so all your living room furniture smells nice.
Extras
If you rented an entire home, you might need to declutter and clean the basement and/or attic. Additionally, you should clean and organize the mudroom.
Finally, don’t forget about the exterior. However, tidying it up may not be your responsibility, so check with your landlord in advance.
That said, if your apartment has a deck or patio, it won’t hurt to do some cleaning. Wipe down any furniture (chairs, tables, awnings, umbrellas, barbecuing equipment, etc.), but don’t worry about touch-up painting.
How Much Does Move-Out Cleaning Cost?
Professional move-out cleaning may cost $100-$150, but the overall cost of hiring pros is determined by a range of factors, including the property’s size, the kind of cleaning needed, and the time it takes to clean.
If you choose to do cleaning on your own, you could spend as little as $30.
How Long Does Move-Out Cleaning Take?
If you hire a team of professional move-out cleaners, expect the cleaning process to take 1-3 hours. However, the service may take longer if there’s a lot of ground to cover.
DIY move-out cleaning, on the other hand, can take up to 24 hours, especially if you’re handling things on your own and you only have the most basic cleaning equipment.
DIY Move-Out Cleaning vs Professional Cleaning
Cost
Doing move-out cleaning on your own is cheaper than hiring a cleaning company, mainly because you won’t have to pay for labor.
Sure, you’ll have to spend some money on appropriate cleaning products and equipment, but that’s it. Plus, anything you don’t use can be taken to your next place, where you may have to do move-in cleaning.
Just remember that while DIY move-out cleaning is cheaper upfront, it may be more costly in the end. For example, if you don’t do a good job, you may not get your full security deposit back.
Also, if you damage anything you don’t own while cleaning, you may owe hundreds or even thousands when all is said and done.
Time
A team can handle house deep cleaning faster than one person. Therefore, if you don’t want to spend several hours cleaning, bring in the pros to clean your home.
Professionals know the difference between a deep clean and a superficial clean, and they’ll take the time to ensure every inch of the space is clean before you move out.
Moreover, if they show up with state-of-the-art gear, they should be able to clean everything in just a couple of hours.
Of course, how long it takes them depends on the size of your home, available manpower, and other factors.
Quality of Clean
Professionals typically produce superior outcomes compared to DIYers, but that doesn’t imply you can’t achieve excellent results independently.
That said, it’ll take a DIYer more time to clean, and they may need additional services before the house can be considered 100% clean.
Standard move-out cleaning services will follow a detailed cleaning list to ensure no spot is missed, and they’ll handle everything from carpet cleaning to dusting.
If you need a deep clean done right, it’s best to hire the pros!
Final Thoughts
Move-out cleaning refers to any cleaning that’s done before someone moves out of a home or apartment, and it’s mainly done to secure a full security deposit.
During move-out cleaning, it’s wise to clean the kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, and living room, though other rooms may need to be cleaned as well.
Some renters like performing a move-out cleaning on their own because it saves money, but hiring a professional service to handle this cleaning job is more likely to yield the return of a full security deposit.
