Well a big congratulations, you planned, organized, packed, and moved your belongings out of your current residence. So, now what? If you want to get your rental deposit back in full, you will need to do some elbow work. If you sold your current place, you will need to put in the same effort to assure that things are clean. It is understandable that you want your new place clean when you move in, so, you need to give the same courtesy to the new renters or new homeowners that will be moving into your old place. If you have the budget, and you want to hire professional cleaners, then you can leave the elbow work up to them.
Leaving a dirty place, will not get you your deposit back. Therefore, you will need a cleaning list to tackle before you head out and hand over the keys to your landlord or the new owners. The Molly Maid professional cleaning company is a professional cleaning service that can help. This company offers move out and move in cleaning services. There are several other professional moving services, Merry Maids is another choice. I suggest if you are going to hire professionals then, call and get quotes. As usual and customary, “get it in writing” what they are going to do for you and what your pricing is going to be. You are in the home stretch, and trust when I say this, you do not want any hiccups.
Tips to do the cleaning yourself
Now if you choose to do the cleaning yourself, get your cleaning supplies and tools, turn up your favorite playlist, and get to cleaning. The following is a cleaning list that will help you complete your move out clean up.
To begin, work from the top to the bottom, this allows any dirt or cobwebs, from the ceiling, the ceiling fans, the windows, and the walls from the top to fall to the bottom. Where you will clean the baseboard, floors and carpets, and this will prevent you from sweeping and vacuuming several times.
- Ceilings
Use a broom or a vacuum Shop-Vac attachment to clean the ceilings and pull down all the cobwebs. Remember if you have the popcorn ceilings, be gentle when doing this process, the popcorn can easily be knocked off with a broom. Damaged ceilings could damage the amount of deposit you get back, too.
- Blinds
Get a cloth rag or an old sock and dip it in water and squeeze out the excess. Next, go along the direction of the blinds, wiping all and any dirt off you see.
- Windows
Clean all windows and mirrors with a glass cleaner. Clean all the tracks, the handles, and window locks of all the windows. Windex is a popular glass cleaner that you can use.
- Nail holes to patch
Removing nails is part of the clean-up, and if you clean out all of the nails, you will leave holes. Patch these holes with a commercial-grade putty, like Joint Compound, and use a putty knife. Trust me on this, it will give a smoother finish to the putty. Even if you are not going to paint, make sure you repair the holes.
- Lightbulbs
Check to see if there are any bulbs that need to be replaced. Dust all the light fixtures and clear all the cobwebs off of them.
- Smoke detector
Give the smoke detector the once over, dust it, and make sure the batteries do not need to be replaced. Duracell or Eveready are two good brands to use.
- Kitchen
Wipe all the cabinets and pantries, use your vacuum during this process if you need too.
Clean the inside and outside of the refrigerator.
Clean the oven, if it has an auto-clean use it, if not, well, use an oven cleaner such as Easy-Off, this should help.
Clean the garbage disposal and sinks.
Sanitize the countertops.
- Bathroom(s)
Scrub the tub, the shower, disinfect the toilet and clean the bathroom sink and vanity. Remember to clean the bathroom vent.
- Floors
A Rug Doctor can be rented to clean carpets if you need to clean your carpet, then you can vacuum all rooms that need to be vacuumed, sweep all the floors and finish with mopping.
- Outdoor patio and stoops
Sweep all of these and use a water hose to wash off the remaining dirt.
The above is a sizable list and not all listed will apply to you, but nonetheless a guideline. Happy cleaning!
