Move Out
Cleaning Checklist
Below is our comprehensive Move-Out Cleaning Checklist. We've worked with all sorts of landlords over the years and this checklist has consistently passed inspection. If your landlord has a specific cleaning checklist, please email that to support@springintoclean.com before booking so that we can review it and confirm we can complete each task.
Bedrooms & Common Areas​
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Doors and door frames dusted and spot cleaned
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Cobwebs removed
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Ceiling fans dusted
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Mirrors polished
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Window tracks vacuumed out, blinds dusted (except mini-blinds)
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Built-in shelves & other wall fixtures dusted
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Stairs vacuumed/mopped
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Baseboards dusted and spot cleaned
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Floors and carpets vacuumed/mopped
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Carpet edges vacuumed
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Bathrooms​
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Cobwebs removed
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Surfaces dusted
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Shower/tub walls and basins cleaned
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Grout spot cleaned
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Shower doors cleaned
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Counters and sink cleaned
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Mirrors and chrome fixtures polished
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Floors vacuumed and mopped
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Toilets cleaned inside the bowl, outside surfaces, and behind
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Window sills and frame wiped
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Doors and door frames dusted and spot cleaned
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Front of cabinets wiped, insides dusted and spot cleaned
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Vent and ceiling fans dusted
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Baseboards vacuumed a spot cleaned
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Kitchens​
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Countertops cleaned
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Outside of range hood cleaned
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Top and front of range cleaned
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Sinks cleaned and chrome/stainless steel shined
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Fronts of all appliances cleaned
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Floors vacuumed and mopped
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Window sills, frame, and tracks cleaned
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Cobwebs removed
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Microwave wiped out
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Doors and door frames dusted and spot cleaned
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Inside of cabinets and drawers dusted out. Spot clean spills.
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Inside fridge and oven - additional cost.
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Trash
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​Your cleaners will remove small-sized trash. But we are not a trash removal service. We do not dispose of furniture or items that are too large to fit into a residential garbage bin.
Moving out of a home or apartment is stressful!
There are a million details to attend to, from scheduling the mover to packing the boxes, setting up a storage unit account, and donating unwanted furniture. Give yourself a break and let the pros take care of the cleaning.
Move Out Cleaners For Real Estate Companies
​Selling a home is hard. There may be other properties in the area that are competing for the buyer's attention, and you want your property to stand out. If your last homeowner has moved, hiring a move out cleaning service will help you to get the place up to snuff quickly. If you are planning to stage the home, you will absolutely need a cleaner who can come in and get the place showroom ready. Staged and professionally cleaned homes often command a higher price than homes that have not had the professional touch, so it is worth the investment to have a team of cleaners to give the place a facelift before putting the house on the market.
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Real estate companies also find it useful to hire cleaning companies for regular cleanings while the home is being shown to prospective buyers. During the showings, buyers can come in tracking mud and dirt into the home, and your cleaners can stop in periodically and make sure the place stays sparkling.
Move Out Cleaners For Home Owners
Homeowners who are selling their homes often find that the contract states that the home has to be cleaned and ready for the new buyer. This means that you may have to do a bit more than just sweep up before you hand over the keys.
Most people don't realize how much dirt and dust can accumulate over years of living in a home, and it can be overwhelming to try to clean it all while juggling the details of the closing, setting up the new home, and dealing with the million details that come along with buying and selling homes.
By hiring a cleaning company, you can simply pack your belongings and let the clean team come in and take care of the rest.
Photos From Our Move Out Cleanings
Detailed end-of-lease cleaning services for residential properties.
Move Out Cleaning
3 Easy Steps To Prepare For Your Move Out Cleaning
Step 1.
Pack it or donate it? Go through everything and decide what you want to get rid of and what you'd like to keep. Hiring a home organizer for your new home is a great idea! We recommend Amanda Scott.
Step 2.
Schedule a moving company. We happen to love Junk It Move It because they can get rid of your trash and move your items to your new home. They are also run by a wife and husband team
Step 3.
Clean! Once the home is empty, hire us to come in and get it ready for the next tenant. We'll let you know when we're finished so that you can come back and do a walk-through.
Move Out Cleaners For Renters
We've worked with A LOT of landlords. We know what areas are most important to clean and we have the right tools to do it safely and efficiently. That's why landlords like having professional move-out cleaning services work on their properties.
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If you ever want to use your previous landlord as a reference, leaving the home clean will make a great impression and make it easier for you to find your next place. East Bay Homeowners who are moving into a new home and renting out the old one will find that hiring a move out cleaning service in Berkeley makes the process easier. Give your new tenants a positive impression and start the relationship off on a good foot with a spotless home cleaning. Let the professional cleaners do the dirty work so that you can spend time on the things that matter most.
We have used them twice for a move out clean. They came with three people and were very efficient...everything was clean and there was no aggressive perfume smell. The landlord was very happy and could not find anything that was not clean.
Christian H.
Berkeley
Move In Cleaning Services
Finding a new home is a huge challenge. Between viewing hundreds of different properties, setting up appointments with the agent, negotiating with the owners or landlords, and finally signing a lease or making a purchase, you have taken a lot of time to get settled. Moving from your old place is a hassle as well. Packing, organizing, donating, cleaning, and moving can take weeks. Cleaning out the new place doesn't have to be part of that process. By hiring your local Oakland cleaners, for example, you can take one task off of your plate and enjoying moving into a home that shines.​
Received a great cleaning prior to moving into our new home. The team was quick to respond to queries and flexible in terms of scheduling. I'm very satisfied with the service!
Sam R.
Oakland
FAQ
The Answers You Need
We only offer interior fridge cleaning for Move-out and Move-in cleanings. We don't allow our housekeepers to handle food while they are cleaning. Fridge cleaning can take 1-1.5 hours which means that food spoilage becomes a real concern.
Do you clean inside the fridge?
We can, but you'll need to run the self-cleaning cycle on the oven the day before we arrive. This typically takes 2-6 hours. Please see your product's instruction manual for directions.
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We can then wipe up any residue that is left over. We won't use any chemicals on self-cleaning ovens. This is the only way we will clean a self-cleaning oven as using harsh chemicals may void its warranty.
Can you clean a self-cleaning oven?
That's between you and your landlord. Your deposit is dependent on more than just a clean home. But we do promise that your cleaning won't be the reason you don't get your deposit back. If we do miss anything, just have your landlord call us and we'll work with them to get the property clean. That way you can focus on your new home.
Do you guarantee I'll get my deposit back?
We recommend that you come back and do a walk-through of the home once we're finished cleaning it. That way you can catch any missed areas while our teams are still there. But if you're too busy, or more likely, too tired, we have our Worry-Free Guarantee to help you. Just let us know by the end of the next day if we missed anything and we'll come back to clean it at no additional cost.
Do I have to come back for a walk-through?
You can schedule your move out cleaning at any time. The earlier the better!
How early can I schedule my move out cleaning?
It will vary for each home. But a general rule of thumb is that the kitchen and bathrooms will take 2 hours each. And all other rooms in the home will take 1 hour.
How long should a move out cleaning take?
What we don't clean
Some cleaning tasks are best left to specialized services because they require heavy machinery, special training, or must adhere to very specific safety requirements. Below is a list of cleaning tasks that we don't provide. However, we may be able to refer you to someone who can provide these services. Just check out our Shop Local Business Directory.
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Moving large appliances - We aren't able to move large appliances such as the oven or refrigerator to clean behind or under the. This is a safety precaution to help us avoid serious injury or damage. If you would like these areas cleaned, please move these appliances for us. We can then clean behind them. You will be responsible for moving the appliances back.
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Mold - This is a big health hazard and needs to be handled by a mold and remediation specialist.
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Stains on carpets, upholstery, clothing, and other fabrics - You'll need a specialist to come out and test the fabric so that they know exactly what chemicals to use on it. For laundry, we recommend soaking your clothes in Oxyclean then washing them. But your housekeepers are not allowed to treat laundry the stains for you.
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Large grout areas - We clean grout by hand so a large area is best left to someone who has larger machinery and can deep clean it correctly.
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Floor stripping and refinishing - We can clean sealed floors. But if the finish is long gone, you'll need to refinish them before you can clean them properly.
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Walls - We can clean minor spots and spills from walls that use paint that has a glossy finish. Flat or matte paint shouldn't be cleaned using our chemicals.
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Inside fireplaces - The soot and debris from fireplaces will damage our equipment. You'll want to call a chimney sweep.
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Paint - It's common for walls to be painted after a tenant moves out. It is the responsibility of the paint contractor to clean up any spills or spatters as they work. We will not clean paint messes left behind.
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Curtains, mini-blinds - We can lightly dust mini-blinds but any more pressure than this and we risk damaging them. We can't trust that the curtains were installed correctly. The last thing we want is the whole thing coming crashing down on our heads.
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Construction debris - Post-construction cleaning is broken up into 3 phases. We are equipped to handle phase 3. This is when all construction is complete, trash and all heavy debris has been removed, and what is needed is a final cleaning to polish and vacuum all surfaces. For more information read our article titled What is post-construction cleaning?
Move In Cleaning For Landlords
​When your new tenant walks into the home, what kind of impression will you make? A shining and newly cleaned house helps your tenant to feel at home immediately. Your tenant will feel like they signed the lease on a home that has been taken care of and they’ll be more inclined to stay a long time.
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Your last tenant may not have done that great a job of cleaning before they left---most tenants don't. This means that you will likely have to hire a team to do a move out cleanup. Take it a step further and offer move out cleaning services for your tenants as part of their end of lease terms. This way you’re assured to get your properties back to a professional level of cleaning. Hiring a professional move out cleaning service also helps you rent a space faster. We’re more efficient and you’ll only need to have the home cleaned once for it to be done right.
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If there has been significant time between the time the last tenant moved and the time the next one moves in, dust can start to accumulate, requiring another cleaning. In addition, if you have been showing the place to potential renters, there may be tracked in dirt and grime that needs to be eliminated.
Move In Cleaning For Tenants
No one wants to move into a new home while it’s still dirty. Landlords will clean a property when a tenant moves out. But that home may sit vacant for a while or accumulate dirt and other debris as it’s shown to other prospective tenants. A lot of property managers don't take the time to hire cleaning teams but rely on the previous tenant to clean the place before they leave. The previous tenant likely only cleaned well enough to get their security deposit back, and didn't do a thorough move out cleaning.
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They're not going to attend to the fine details like wiping the baseboard, dusting ceiling fans or cleaning the window tracking. They're not going to diligently clean the appliances to get rid of baked on food. We recommend hiring a professional move out cleaning team to give your new home a once-over to make sure it’s move-in ready.
Oven Cleaning
Ovens get dirty! Baked on food and grease hardens over time making it very difficult to clean off. Luckily, we're experts at removing tough baked-on messes.
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Our goal with oven cleaning is to clean the walls, bottom, and door including the viewing glass. We'll make a quick pass across the roof of the oven to remove the easy stuff. But honestly, no one looks at this part of the oven so it's not really worth it to spend too much time on it.
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We'll do the same to the racks. But again, if you're oven racks are really bad, it's cheaper to just buy new ones for about $40 than it is to have us spend an hour scrubbing them.
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Finally, we'll wipe out the warming tray under the oven.
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Wiping down the exterior surfaces of the oven is always included in a Move out cleaning service. We only charge extra if you need the interior of the oven cleaned.
Before
After
Refrigerator Cleaning
We can clean the inside of the fridge and freezer for your move out cleaning. This is considered an add-on service because not all people need it. Some will even do it themselves if it's not too dirty.
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Refrigerator cleaning includes cleaning all interior walls, shelves and drawers. Refrigerators must be empty before cleaning them. Any items left in the fridge will be thrown away prior to cleaning.
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It's best if the fridge is unplugged and defrosted the night before, but we can still clean it even if it's plugged in. It just takes a bit longer.
Window Cleaning
We can clean the interior of the windows only. This is an add-on service as not all landlords require this to be cleaned. Select the number of windows to clean on the booking form.
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Window cleaning includes:
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Glass
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Tracking
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Frame
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Sill
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If you need exterior window cleaning services, call Carlos at Professional Window Cleaning Service, Inc.
Is Move In Cleaning Cost Effective?
It can take hours to clean an average-sized apartment, and for an entire home that has been lived in by a family, the job can be enormous. Most homes have multiple bedrooms, full and half baths, a kitchen, dining area, and common rooms. It can take hours to sweep all of the floors, wash down the baseboards, clean the ceiling fans and mop the floors. You can try to do it all yourself, but who has the time? Will you delegate tasks to your spouse and children? If so, will you have to go behind them and re-clean everything yourself? Our move out cleaners are highly trained and top-rated pros. They have the tools and experience to efficiently clean your home saving you time and money.
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When you break down the amount of time it takes to clean versus the cost of hiring the professionals, you will see that hiring an Alameda cleaning service for your move in is actually quite affordable.
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Your cleaning team will know which areas to tackle first and which should be cleaned last. They will use the right products for the job. From special cleaning wipes for your stainless steel appliances to vacuums, mops, and dusters, they have the tools to get the job done. They use cleaning products that are listed on the EPA’s List N for chemicals that are expected to be effective against COVID-19. In addition, perhaps you are outside the Alameda area, no worries, your move in cleaning Berkeley team will clean on your schedule, so you can book them to arrive right before you do.