Move Out Cleaning Timed to the Key Handover

An empty unit is a different job from a house with furniture in it. Nothing is in the way, so everything is in scope: the inside of every cabinet and drawer, the shelf and the rod in each closet, the back corner of the pantry, the top edge of every door frame. Appliances come apart as far as they are meant to. The refrigerator gets stripped of shelves and bins, washed, dried and put back together. The oven racks come out, the door glass gets cleaned on both faces, and the drip pans under the burners either scrub up or get called out as needing replacement. The dishwasher filter comes out. The washer gasket gets folded back and wiped. None of that is possible with a family living around it, which is exactly why this list only exists on an empty unit.

The date is the other half of the job. Nobody schedules this for a convenient Tuesday. It runs backward from the key handover, after the last load goes out and before somebody walks the unit with a clipboard, and sometimes that window is a single day. Give us the date first and you will get a straight answer about whether we can hold it. Tenants book this because a deposit inspection is a checklist and most of the checklist lives inside things: the cabinet interiors, the range, the refrigerator, the bathroom exhaust cover. Landlords and property managers book it because a unit shows better empty and clean than empty and lived in, and because a turnover that slips a week costs more than the cleaning ever did. Both sides get the same written scope.

What the visit covers

• Clean inside every cabinet, drawer and pantry shelf
• Wash closet shelves, rods and the floor of each closet
• Strip the refrigerator shelves and bins, wash them, dry them
• Clean the oven, the racks and both faces of the door glass
• Scrub burner grates, drip pans and the range hood filter
• Pull the dishwasher filter and wipe the washer door gasket
• Wipe the marks left on the wall where furniture stood
• Clean window glass, tracks, sills and any blinds left behind
• Wash baseboards, door frames, switch plates and light covers
• Vacuum and mop every floor last, working out toward the door

Turnover timing and what we flag

Turnovers run on a tight calendar and everybody in the chain knows it. A unit handing over on the first has movers out on the thirtieth, a cleaning crew that same day or the next morning, and an inspection before new keys change hands. We book to that, evenings and Saturdays included, because a crew arriving two days late has helped nobody. Property managers holding several units in one building usually hand over the whole list at once and we run them in order. On a single apartment, one crew and a written scope is normally the entire conversation. Either way the price gets set after somebody has seen the unit, or, when it is still occupied, after a walkthrough of the layout and a straight answer about what shape it is in.

Plenty of empty units do not need cleaning so much as they need paint, and no amount of washing hides that. Nail holes, a scuffed hallway, a bedroom somebody painted a color nobody else wants, a ceiling still marked where an old leak came through. We paint as well, so that comes back to you as a number while the unit is still empty, which is the only easy time to paint anything. Same with a back stoop losing mortar or front steps that will not pass an inspection. Use the number or ignore it, that part is yours. What you will not get is a crew scrubbing one wall for an hour to avoid telling you it needs a coat.