Moving out is a week of boxes, deadlines and a final walkthrough you’d rather not think about. The cleaning is the part that decides how that walkthrough goes. This is the checklist for an empty home: everything a landlord, a property manager or a buyer will look at.
Start when the rooms are empty
Clean after the furniture is out, not before. Empty rooms show every mark, and you’ll reach the floors and walls the furniture was hiding. Leave yourself a full day, more for a larger home.
Kitchen
- Inside every cabinet and drawer: crumbs out, shelves wiped.
- Inside the oven, racks included.
- Inside the fridge and freezer, shelves and drawers out and wiped.
- The outside of every appliance, and the gaps beside the stove and fridge.
- The sink, faucet, counters and backsplash.
- Floors, mopped right into the corners.
Bathrooms
- Inside the vanity and the medicine cabinet.
- The toilet, the tub or shower, the tile and the grout.
- Scale and lime on the glass and the fixtures.
- Mirrors, the exhaust fan cover and the floor.
Every room
- Inside the closets: shelves, rods and floors.
- Baseboards, door frames, doors and light switches.
- Window sills, tracks and blinds.
- Floors, edge to edge, now that nothing is in the way.
Before you hand over the keys
- Walk through with your lease’s move-out checklist, if it has one.
- Take dated photos of every room once it’s clean.
- Give your landlord your forwarding address in writing.
In Pennsylvania, your landlord has 30 days after your lease ends to return your deposit, or send a written list of anything taken out of it. Photos and a forwarding address make that conversation easy. (This isn’t legal advice: your lease and the state’s Landlord and Tenant Act have the details.)
Moving in? The same list works in reverse
A home that was “cleaned” before you arrived can still have last year’s crumbs in the drawers. Running this checklist before the boxes come in means you start fresh.
On a deadline? We can take it
Our move-in and move-out cleaning is deposit-ready or listing-ready: inside the cabinets and drawers, inside the oven and the refrigerator, kitchens, bathrooms and floors, on your deadline. It starts at $340 for a home with up to two bedrooms and one bathroom, a flat price agreed before we start.
We clean in Chambersburg, Fayetteville, Greencastle and Shippensburg. See your price, or call or text (717) 496-9538.
