More and more people are hiring house cleaning services to clean when they move in or out of a home. One reason is to obviously save themselves the time and hard work of cleaning surfaces that haven’t been cleaned in years. Another is that it’s usually a requirement in your rental contract to hire a professional service if you want your deposit back. Before you bring in those cleaners, here are some insider tips to make your experience a positive, mistake-free one.
Timing is Everything
● You’ll want the house to be empty with no boxes or furniture in the way by the time the cleaners arrive. If they are in the way the cleaners may not get to clean everything or it will just slow them down, costing you money.
● Schedule the cleaners to come in after the movers have already removed everything out of the home. If the movers walk all over already-clean floors with their dirty shoes, you’re just going to end up paying more to get them cleaned again.
● Book the cleaner a day or two before your inspection. This gives you a little leeway just in case there’s an unexpected problem or if something was missed during the clean. Many reputable house cleaning services have a service guarantee but that does you no good if there’s no time for them to go back and fix the problem.
Preparing for the Move Out Clean
Here are a few quick pointers to get your home ready for the clean.
● All boxes and furniture should be out of the way
● All the cupboards and the fridge should be empty
● If your oven is self cleaning, make sure to run it the night before. The cleaning cycle typically takes 4 hours plus it’s several more hours for the oven to cool down so the cleaner could be long gone by the time the oven is cool enough to open.
Final Notes
● Before the cleaner is set to leave, do a quick walk through with them to make sure that nothing was missed or not properly cleaned. Closely check mirror and floors at an angle, especially if they’re cleaned at night.
● Be wary of man-hours: $20/man-hour does NOT mean $20 per hour. It actually means $20 per hour per person. So if the company is sending 4 cleaners that equates to $80 per hour.
● Book far enough in advance so that you get the house cleaning company you want at the price that’s best for you. You’re limiting your options if you decide to wait and the prices tend to go up as you get closer to the end of the month.
Background info provided by Scrubbi
