Moving into a new home? Thinking what about the move out clean. Read on…
You’d think getting your new (or old) home clean and ready for living-in should be the least of your worries.
Yet time and time again, we run into clients that are feeling anxious and stressed about their move out or move in cleaning.
Most of the stress is understandable, moving your life into a new home is a very big deal. – but some of that stress could’ve been avoided had they known about our 3 simple tips for a smooth and successful move out cleaning.
Tips From The Trenches
These tips come from years of experience in the trenches – both as a customer and as a house cleaning service.
Today, we’re pulling back the curtain so you’ll be better informed about the proper steps to hiring a move out cleaning service.
This way you’ll actually enjoy the full benefit of a stress-free house cleaning service.
In fact, you’ll realize just how much a cleaning service makes your life easier, you’ll be doing this for big parties, before or after trips, or even when your in-laws decide to stay for a week or two.
Our 3 Best Tips For Booking A Move Out Cleaning Service
Book Early
If there’s only one take away you actually get from this post make sure it’s this: book you move out cleaning appointment as early as possible!
This isn’t just for your peace of mind, it’s also for the good of your wallet. Why?
The Sooner, The Cheaper
First of all, some house cleaning services actually raise the prices of their move out cleaning services as the days get closer towards the end of the month. And it all has to do with the law of supply and demand.
They know that the closer it gets to the end of the month, the more booked up other cleaning companies are and therefore, the less choice you’ll have when choosing a cleaning service.
There’s also the fact that many move outs have, as one of the conditions, that the home passes an inspection before and is professionally cleaned (with receipt required).
Bookings Fill Up FAST!
Finally, the most obvious reason to book early is because move out cleaning bookings fill up fast.
We’ve lost count the number of times we’ve had to turn down clients desperately searching for a house cleaning service two or three days before their move out date.
We’ve even seen people call the day of their cleaning!!! (Those ones hurt the most).
The other things is that you get to choose the day and time that works for you the best. This doesn’t mean that you have to be there for the entire time of the clean, but you do have to be able to let us in to the home and you should be there to do a final check before the cleaners leave.
Our recommendation: When is the best time to book a house cleaning service for a Move Out clean? We recommend at least 3 weeks in advance to ensure that you get the best price, with the cleaning company that you trust, and at a date and time that works best for you.
Movers First, Cleaners Second
Life Is Hard To Predict
Movers are great and they’re amazing at what they do, but they are notorious for being behind schedule.
But it’s usually not a fault of their own.
A lot of times clients aren’t as organized as they should be which means there’s a lot of time wasted with them waiting around for goods to be packed or driving to different locations to pick up the customer’s stuff.
There’s also weather factors, trucks breaking down, etc.
Give Yourself A Buffer
This all means that it’s really, really hard to predict when they’ll arrive.
So what happens then?
A lot of times we’ll be in homes where we’ve cleaned the house and finished with all the floors, only to have the movers come after we’re done, messing up the floors with their dirty shoes or spreading dust that’s piled up on top of the boxes.
That means you’ll have to pay for even more time to have the cleaners stay and re-clean the floors, or you may have to re-do the floors yourselves.
Our recommendation: As much as possible, schedule to have all the items in the home moved out before the cleaners arrive. The clean will go much smoother and you’ll be less stressed about handing over your keys if you do.
Bonus recommendation: Book the movers a day or two before the cleaning service comes in – and BOTH OF THEM AT LEAST one day before you have to hand your keys in.
Thanks to Murphy’s Law, anything that could go wrong will go wrong. In other words, if you leave everything for the very last day you’re playing with fire. Little things can happen that you would never expect like: the home is dirtier than you thought, the movers get held up and can’t make it that day, the power goes out in your area or the water gets shut off, – we’ve seen it all.
Having at least a one day buffer gives you some margin for error and some peace of mind.
Watch Out For “Man Hours”
If It’s Too Good To Be True
Think you got a great deal on that house cleaning because you’re only paying “$15 per man-hour”?
Well before you make vacation plans with all that money you think you’ll be saving, make sure you understand that ” $15 per man-hour” is NOT the same as “$15 per hour”.
If a company is charging you $15 per man-hour, that means they’re charging you $15 per hour for every person that they send. So if they’re sending a team of 4 to your home, they’re actually charging you $60 per hour (or $15 x 4 people), not $15.
Why More Isn’t Always Better
What’s worse is that the more people they send, the more inefficient the job is. This is a little counter-intuitive but from our experience, when you send more than one person, the tendency is for the cleaners to chit chat, get in each other’s way, or miss cleaning some things because they each assumed the other person was going to clean it.
Our recommendation: If they are quoting you in “man-hours”, make sure to confirm how many people they are sending. Luckily, most of the bigger cleaning services don’t do this anymore, but do make sure before you book.
TIP: Try to have them send one person, two at the most. Find out why here: Why Less is More In Housecleaning.
Other Tips and Tricks to Facilitate Your Move
The high moving season usually falls between the months of April and September. Therefore, the first tip is to consider moving when it’s less busy. You’ll have more advantageous prices which will lower your cost of moving. If this isn’t possible, here are a few other tips to move seamlessly:
Plan Ahead and Get Organized
Planning ahead will save you a lot of time and stress. You will know the items you need to take with you and those you no longer need that should be left behind. So you don’t forget any important aspect of your move, it will be smart to get your hand on a complete moving checklist. This checklist will let you know where you are in your moving process and let you know what you need to do next.
Book the Best Movers
Another major step to take is to book the services of a local moving company or a reliable long distance mover. The best movers are not hard to find. You can do a general search online to find them. Reputable companies have good ratings and positive reviews from clients they have worked for in the past.
Buy the Moving Supplies You Will Need Ahead of Time
You won’t be able to move without moving supplies. In fact, you’ll need items such as boxes, wrapping papers, tape and more. Buying them ahead of time will avoid you of having to do multiple last-minute visits at the store which will not only save you valuable time but money as well. You can easily order what you’ll need online and it will be delivered at your front door in no time.
Why Book A Move Out Clean?
Why would anyone want to book a move out cleaning anyways? Here are a few reasons:
- You can actually save a lot time and hard work by booking a move out cleaning service, especially when you’re moving in. If you’re moving into a previously owned home, there may be surfaces in there that haven’t been cleaned in years. You can just imagine how dirty it can be – NOT the type of experience you want moving into your new home.
- The second is that, more often now, we’re seeing move out cleanings as a requirement in your rental contract when you’re moving out. Sometimes it’s actually required that you hire a professional service if you want to get your deposit back, cleaning it yourself may not good enough. Many landlords are going this route because they want to make sure the rental property is cleaned properly before showing it to prospective renters. If the previous renter didn’t keep the place in good shape, most times even a month’s deposit won’t be enough to cover the cost of fixing and cleaning the rental property.
- It’s physically hard work and if you’re recovering from an injury or if you’re retired, you don’t want to be scrubbing bathtubs and washing the insides cabinets yourself. You may want to think of outsourcing your cleaning to some professionals
Get a FREE Quote
As a house cleaning service we’ve helped all sorts of people in different situations:
- Entrepreneurs running their own businesses
- Business professionals working tough hours
- Growing families busy with careers, children’s activities, etc.
- …and much more.
If you value your time the way our customers do,CLICK HERE to head over to our homepage where you can get a FREE, no-obligation, no-pressure quote from one of our booking concierges.
More Information
Before you bring in those cleaners for the move out, check out more of our insider tips on the Zoocasa or Liv Edmonton Real Estate blogs and make your professional house cleaner experience is a positive, mistake-free one. Just click one of the links below:
Moving Out? Here’s How To Hire A House Cleaning Service – Zoocasa
4 Steps for a Successful Move Out Clean – Liv Edmonton Real Estate
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3 Comments
those are great tips thank you.
Thanks for the great post on moving out cleaning! As someone who is about to move, I really appreciate the advice.
It really helped when you suggested we hire cleaning services for our move with anticipation. Next month, my family’s moving to another house, and we’re just starting to pack our things. We’re so glad you mentioned we could hire a professional agency to help us clean our house, so we don’t do it ourselves, so we’ll look into it right now. Thanks for the advice on how we could speed up our move out without dealing with our house’s cleaning.
