Move-out cleaning, at a price you can read before you book it.
A three bedroom, two bathroom house, emptied, is $394. Four bedrooms and three bathrooms is $464. That is the whole answer, and you did not have to give anybody your phone number to get it.
A standard one-time clean of that same three bedroom house is $225. The gap is the work: a move-out is the only clean on this site that gets judged by somebody who is not you, so it goes inside every cabinet, inside the oven and inside the fridge, which no ordinary visit does.
If you are reading this with a closing on Friday or keys going back on the 31st, the part you want is when to book it, and the answer is the day after the furniture goes.
What a move-out adds that a regular clean does not
A regular visit cleans the house you live in. It works around your things, and it is judged by whether the house feels right when you walk back into it. A move-out is a different standard: every door gets opened by somebody with a list, so every door gets cleaned. On top of everything in a deep clean:
- Inside every cabinet, drawer, closet and pantry, top shelves included
- Inside the oven and inside the fridge at no extra charge, which on every other visit are priced add-ons
- Behind and under the appliances that move by hand, and the sides nobody ever sees
- Baseboards, door frames, switch plates and vents washed rather than dusted
- Window sills, tracks and interior glass washed out, not wiped over
- Ceiling fans, light fittings and the tops of everything above eye level
- Grout, tile and shower screens scrubbed rather than wiped
- Marks spot-cleaned where the paint allows it, and flagged where it does not
That last one is the honest line and it is worth reading twice. Some marks are dirt and come off. Some are wear, and scrubbing them takes the paint with it. We tell you which is which and leave the second kind alone, because a bare patch is a worse finding than a scuff.
What the move-out clean includes
- Kitchen: inside every cabinet and drawer, inside the oven, inside the fridge, the outside of every appliance, counters, sink, and the floor
- Bathrooms: toilet, bath, shower, glass, tile, grout, mirror, cabinet interiors, sink, floor
- Baseboards, door frames, switch plates, door handles and vents throughout
- Interior glass, window sills and tracks, and sliders inside
- Closets and the tops of closet shelves, once they are empty
- Floors vacuumed and mopped throughout, including where furniture used to stand
- Bins emptied and relined, and every room photographed when we finish
What it does not include
- Junk removal, garage clear-outs, and whatever a previous occupant left behind
- Wall repair, patching and painting. We flag what we find rather than cover it
- Carpet extraction, tile and grout restoration, and terrazzo refinishing
- Exterior windows, gutters, roofs, pressure washing, and anything needing a ladder above head height
- Disconnecting or moving appliances that are plumbed or bolted in
- Pet waste, biohazard, mold remediation and post-construction debris
The last four need a different trade. We will tell you who to call rather than improvise on the one clean that gets inspected.
Move-out and move-in are the same job pointed in two directions
Same scope, same rate, same day's work. What changes is who walks the house afterwards, and that changes when you want it done rather than what gets done.
Moving out
Judged by somebody else, against a list you have probably not seen. Booked between the movers leaving and the walkthrough, which is usually a window of one or two days and is the reason the date matters more than anything else on this page.
Moving in
Judged by you, and nobody is waiting on it. Booked before the truck arrives, because an empty house is the only time the cabinets, the closets and the floor under everything are reachable at all. After the furniture lands, that clean costs more and reaches less.
If you are doing both ends of one move, say so when you send the dates. It is two cleans and two figures off the same table, and the second one is easier to schedule when it is known about at the same time as the first.
What an empty house changes about the work
An empty house is not a smaller job than a full one. It is a longer one, and the reasons are worth knowing before you compare two quotes.
- Everything is reachable, so everything is in scope. The floor under the sofa, the wall behind the dresser, the top shelf of every closet and the sides of the fridge are all suddenly part of the job. In an occupied house most of that is invisible and none of it is billable.
- The movers leave their own mess. Tape residue on door frames, scuffed baseboards along the route to the front door, cardboard dust through the whole house, and a bathroom that got used all day. That arrives after you have stopped looking at the place.
- Dust comes down for hours after the truck goes. It is the reason a clean booked for the same morning as the walkthrough is the one that goes wrong. Give it a day.
- Nobody is there, which is the easy part. A lockbox code, a gate code or a key left somewhere agreed is enough. What access we were given, the time the cleaner assigned to the house arrived, and the time they left all get written down, and photographs of every room come back to you the same day.
- Utilities decide whether the job can happen. Power and water get cancelled for the day the keys go back more often than for any other day of the year, and that is the day the clean is booked for. Leave both on until it is finished.
None of that is a reason to be there while it happens. Most people are already three states away by then, which is the same problem home watch exists to solve on a longer timescale, and the answer is the same one: a timestamped record with photographs, sent whether anything happened or not.
The rate, by the size of the home
One-off and priced by bedrooms and bathrooms, never by the hour. An hourly rate makes you pay for somebody else's pace on the one day you cannot afford it to run long, and it makes the total impossible to know until it has already been spent.
| Home | One-time clean | Deep clean | Move-out or move-in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 bed / 1 bath | $155 | $250 | $295 |
| 2 bed / 1 bath | $175 | $280 | $306 |
| 2 bed / 2 bath | $195 | $312 | $341 |
| 3 bed / 2 bath | $225 | $360 | $394 |
| 4 bed / 3 bath | $265 | $424 | $464 |
| 5 bed / 3+ bath | $310 | $496 | $543 |
| 6+ bed | Quoted after a walkthrough, and the figure we send is the figure on the invoice. | ||
The smallest homes land on a floor of $295 rather than on the size calculation, because a one bedroom move-out is still every cabinet, the oven and the fridge, and pretending otherwise would mean quoting low and invoicing high. Market context, so you can see where these sit: move-out cleans in this area run $250 to $550 (SPEC 4), deep cleans $200 to $600 (SPEC 4).
What moves the figure: home size, visit frequency, condition at the first visit, pets, chosen add-ons. Every rate on the site, including add-ons, and what a regular visit includes if the house is still lived in. Six bedrooms and up is quoted after a walkthrough, because one published number for a house that size would be a guess dressed up as a price.
Where the clean sits against your date
The date is the thing you are actually buying. Everything else on this page is settled in one email. This is the part that goes wrong, and it goes wrong the same way every time: the clean gets booked for the morning of the walkthrough, the movers run late, and there is nothing left in the day to absorb it.
- Send the date as soon as you have one, even if it is still soft. You get a yes or a no the same day. A date we are not sure of gets declined rather than penciled in, because a maybe is worth nothing to somebody with a closing.
- Book the clean for the day after the furniture goes, not the same day. The house has to be empty for the clean to be worth what you paid for it.
- Leave a day before the walkthrough or the closing. A Friday morning closing means a Wednesday or Thursday clean. That one day is the difference between a problem you can fix and a problem you have to explain.
- Tell us the mover's date, not just yours. If the truck slips, the clean moves with it wherever the day allows, and you hear about it from us rather than finding out.
- Keep power and water on until it is done. Then close them. This is the single most common reason a booked move-out clean cannot be finished.
Nobody can promise you what an inspection will conclude, because the person holding the checklist is not us. What is in our hands is that the places they open are already done, and that you have photographs of every room from the day it was finished. If something is missed, call within twenty four hours and we clean it again at no charge. The policy is published in full, including what happens if we cannot get back inside the week.
If the move is not yours
Two readers arrive on this page holding somebody else's keys, and both are buying the date rather than the clean.
- An agent with a closing
A fixed figure you can quote a seller in an email, a straight yes or no on the date before you commit a photographer, and photographs of every room to forward on so nobody has to drive over and look.
- Cleaning for property managers
The same published rates on one schedule and one itemized invoice a month, with the move-out clean, the deep clean and the recurring visit all sized from the same table.
Four bedrooms and up changes what the work is rather than only how long it takes, and a move-out on a two-storey house is a genuinely long day. What changes on a larger home covers the bathroom count, the stairs and the gate registration that wants settling before anybody turns up with a van.
What people ask before booking one
- What is the difference between a move-out clean and a deep clean?
- A move-out is the deep clean plus every door somebody else opens. Inside every cabinet, drawer and closet, inside the oven and inside the fridge, and behind the appliances that move. On any other visit the oven and the fridge are flat-rate add-ons. On a move-out they are part of the job, because an empty kitchen with a dirty oven is the first thing anybody notices.
- Move-out or move-in, and does the price change?
- Same scope and same price. The difference is who is judging it. A move-out is walked by somebody else with a list. A move-in is walked by you, and it is the only moment the cabinets and the closets in your new house will ever be empty again, so it is worth doing before the truck arrives rather than after.
- When should the clean be booked for?
- The day after the furniture goes, and at least a day before the walkthrough. If the closing is Friday morning, the clean wants to be Wednesday or Thursday. Booking it for the same morning leaves nothing between a late mover and a buyer standing in the driveway. Send the date and you get a yes or a no the same day.
- Does the house have to be completely empty?
- It does not have to be, and it is a better clean if it is. Anything still in a cabinet gets cleaned around rather than moved, so a house cleaned half packed has a set of shelves nobody could reach. If a few boxes are waiting on a second trip, tell us where they will be and the rest gets done properly.
- Do you need power and water on?
- Yes, and it is the most common reason a move-out clean cannot be finished. Utilities often get cancelled for the day the keys go back, which is the day the clean happens. Leave both on until the clean is done, then close them.
- Will this get the final walkthrough signed off?
- Nobody can honestly promise you that, because whoever holds the checklist decides, and we have neither met them nor seen their list. What is in our hands is that every place they open is already done, and that you have photographs of every room from the day it was finished, so the conversation starts from a record rather than from memory.
- What is not included?
- Junk removal and whatever a previous occupant left behind, wall repair and painting, carpet extraction, tile and grout restoration, exterior windows, gutters, pressure washing, and anything needing a ladder above head height. Those need a different trade and we will tell you who to call rather than improvise.
Send the date and the bedroom count, and get the figure back today
Bedrooms, bathrooms, the address, and the day the house has to be empty. You get the number straight off the table above, a yes or a no on the date the same day, and a written scope before anybody turns up. If both ends of the move need cleaning, send both dates at once.
Monday to Saturday, 09:00 to 18:00. Email gets answered the same day.