We clean inside every cabinet and drawer

We clean from the ceiling down

A move-out cleaning starts at the highest point in each room. We wipe the ceiling fan blades and light fixtures first, then the tops of the kitchen cabinets, because whatever comes off them falls. After that we work down to the counters and the cabinet doors. The floors get done last, one room at a time, as we back out toward the door. Mop first and dust the fan second, and you are mopping twice.

An empty house is the one time every shelf and drawer is bare, so we clean the inside of all of them. Kitchen cabinets collect crumbs and a sticky film of grease from cooking, and bathroom drawers collect hair and dried toothpaste. We vacuum out the loose stuff first. Then we wipe each shelf and both sides of each door. That includes the hinge edge nobody notices until the dishes go in.

Done right, the house looks like nobody has lived in it yet. The oven glass is clear enough to see the racks, and a finger run along the top of a door frame comes away clean. The step that gets skipped most is the refrigerator. A fridge that gets shut off with spills still in it starts to smell, and the next person notices the moment they open the door. We take out the shelves and drawers to wash them, then wipe the rubber door seal where mold starts.

• Inside every cabinet and drawer
• Oven and refrigerator cleaned inside
• Every shower and toilet scrubbed
• Baseboards and window sills wiped by hand
• Floors cleaned last, one room at a time

Landlords check the spots people forget

When you rent, the walkthrough at the end decides how much of your deposit comes back. Most landlords go straight to the oven and the refrigerator. In the bathroom they look for a ring in the tub and grime around the base of the toilet. Burned-on grease under the stove burners is another common one. Those are exactly the spots that get rushed on the last night, when everybody is worn out and the truck is already loaded.

So those are the spots we spend the most time on. On an electric stove with coil burners, we lift the burners and drip pans out and clean the stovetop underneath, where grease hides. In the bathroom we clean the toilet all the way down to the base, and the floor behind it. Under the sink we wipe out the cabinet, where old bottles of cleaner leave sticky rings on the shelf.

If you are selling instead of renting, the buyer's final walkthrough works the same way, and a clean empty house makes a better last impression. Light handyman work is one of the services we offer too. If a cabinet door hangs crooked or a towel bar is loose, ask about it when you call. We can tell you whether it is something we can handle on the same visit.

We clean before your boxes come in

The best time to clean a house you are moving into is the gap between getting the keys and the truck showing up. Once the boxes are stacked in the kitchen, nobody is going to empty them out to wipe a cabinet. Whatever the last people left on the shelves ends up under your dishes, and whatever is on the closet floor ends up under your shoes. An empty house is also easier to clean well, because we can reach every wall and corner without moving anything.

A move-in cleaning is mostly about clearing out what the last household left behind. Their hands touched every light switch and door handle in the house, so we wipe all of them. If they had a dog or a cat, the hair collects along the baseboards and packs into the corners of closets. We vacuum it out before your clothes go in. The air vent covers get wiped too, because dust on them blows back into the room when the heat or air conditioning comes on.

People who skip the move-in cleaning usually end up doing it anyway, with boxes stacked on every counter and no room to work. It is easier to get it done first. When you call, tell us the day you get the keys and the day the movers come. We will look for a time in between. We work Monday to Saturday, 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM and are closed Sunday, so a Monday move means a Saturday cleaning.

Oklahoma weather and houses change the job

Around Shawnee the soil is red clay, and moving day is when a lot of it ends up inside. The front door stands open for hours while people walk straight in from the yard. On a wet spring day that means red footprints down the hallway. Oklahoma wind does the rest. It pushes fine dust through the open door and onto every window sill. That is why floors come last in our order, and why the best time for a move-out cleaning is after the last load leaves.

A lot of the homes around Shawnee and Tecumseh are brick ranch houses with sliding windows and a sliding glass door out back. Those tracks fill with red grit and dead bugs, and a wet rag just turns it into mud. We vacuum the tracks dry first, then wipe them. Older wood-frame houses in town often still have their original hardwood floors. We clean those with a damp mop instead of a wet one, because standing water soaks into the seams and makes the boards swell.

Out in the county there are a lot of manufactured homes, and those need to be cleaned with less water. The cabinets and the floor under the vinyl are often made of pressed wood, which swells if water sits on it. We wring the rags out hard and dry as we go. Summer heat brings its own problem. An empty house closed up in July gets musty fast, so we open the doors under the sinks to air them out while we work.