Move In Cleaning in Seattle

There is exactly one day in the life of a home when every cabinet is empty, every floor is clear, and nothing has to be moved to get behind it. It’s the day before you move in. After that, cleaning the inside of a cabinet means emptying it first, and cleaning a floor means moving a couch.

That’s the whole argument for a move-in clean. Not that the place is dirty — often it looks fine — but that it will never again be this easy to reach.

What a handed-over property actually has on it

A house that has been shown, photographed and closed on has usually been tidied rather than cleaned. What’s left behind falls into a short list, and none of it is visible from the doorway.

• Inside cabinets and drawers. Crumbs, liner paper, the residue of somebody else’s kitchen. This is the single most common thing people ask us to redo themselves later, once they’ve unpacked into it.
• The bathroom, at close range. Behind and around the toilet, the seal at the base of the shower, the underside of fixtures.
• Dust from standing empty. A property vacant for a few weeks builds a fine layer on every horizontal surface, including the tops of doors and the insides of window frames.
• Whatever the last trades left. If anything was repaired or repainted before closing, there’s dust and sometimes adhesive residue in the corners.

Getting in when you don’t live there yet

Move-in cleans almost always happen in a house the client doesn’t have furniture in and often isn’t standing in. That means handing keys or a lockbox code for an empty property to people you’ve never met, sometimes before you’ve spent a night there yourself.

So the hiring matters more than usual here. Nobody joins us without a background check, and nobody works alone until they’ve done ten days alongside a supervisor. Where an agent or the title company is holding the keys, say so and we’ll arrange it with them directly rather than through you.

Timing it against the move

The clean wants to land after the last trade leaves and before the movers arrive. That window is often narrow and it moves — closings slip, keys come late.

Book early, and give us the day you expect keys rather than the day that would suit you. Dates move; the moment yours does, say so. Two days’ warning and we move with you at no cost, and a shorter slip than that goes unpunished the first time it happens.

What it doesn’t include

This is a thorough clean of an empty property, not repair work and not renovation. Walls get spots taken off rather than a full wash, unless you add wall washing. Carpets get vacuumed rather than extracted. And if the property has only just had trades in it, that’s heavier work under a different name — post-construction cleaning — better said at booking than discovered on arrival.

Beyond that there’s a standing list of what a cleaning visit can’t take on, whatever the property. It’s set out in full further down.