Move-In Cleaning in Sammamish, WA: A 3,000 Sq Ft Home That Looked Easier Than It Was

The request came from someone JenyClean already knew. The client had been on a recurring cleaning plan in the past, had recently moved to a new home of about 3,000 square feet, and asked for a move-in cleaning. The estimate, based on the size of the house and a first impression, was about 13 labor hours. The job took 22.5.

Below are the questions this job answers best, because they are the ones people ask before booking a move-in cleaning for a large house.

Why clean a house before anything is moved in?

Because it is the only time every surface is reachable. Once furniture, boxes and clothes arrive, the inside of the closets, the window tracks behind the sofa and the blinds in every room are covered or blocked for years. A move-in cleaning deals with whatever was left behind while the rooms are still clear.

How is a move-in cleaning estimated?

From square footage, the number of rooms and bathrooms, and what the house looks like at first glance. For a 3,000 square foot home that seemed to be in reasonable shape, 13 labor hours was a realistic starting number.

Then why did it take 22.5 hours?

Because the house turned out to be deceptive. The deeper the team got into it, the more hidden dirt and slow, detailed areas they found. Three things drove most of the extra time: the blinds, the windows, and a very large walk-in closet.

What was wrong with the blinds?

They were heavily soiled, and there were a lot of them. A house with many windows usually means many sets of blinds, and each one is dozens of horizontal slats with dust and grime settled on top of every slat and along the cords.

There is no fast way to do this properly. Each blind is cleaned slat by slat, by hand, top and bottom, so the dust is removed instead of pushed onto the window sill below. The blinds alone took more than an hour.

In the photo above, one set of blinds is raised to show the glass and the sill, with the spray bottle still on the sill: a window mid-job, with its blinds, glass, frame and sill all part of the same zone.

Why would a closet take so long?

Because a large walk-in closet is mostly edges. Rods, shelf fronts, corners, the floor along the walls. And when the shelving is wire, every wire is its own small surface.

This wire shelf from the house shows what that means. Before cleaning, the wires were speckled with rust-brown spots and dust, there were brown streaks along the front rail, and a piece of old felt pad was stuck to the shelf. The floor underneath was spotted too. None of it can be wiped in one pass. A cloth skips over wire shelving; it has to be worked wire by wire, and the front and back rails and the wall clips done separately.

After cleaning, the shelf is bright white end to end and the tile floor underneath is clean. Multiply that by every shelf and rod in a large walk-in closet, and the hours add up quickly.

Was the extra time worth it?

The client thought so. They were very happy with the result, and said that once the move was finished, they would come back to JenyClean for recurring cleaning.

Recurring cleaning is the core of JenyClean’s work, about 70% of revenue, and for this client the move-in cleaning is where it restarts: once a house has been brought to a clean baseline, keeping it there on a regular schedule is a much lighter job.

What should you expect for your own move-in?

A starting estimate built on the size of the house, and the honest possibility that it grows once the team sees the details. Houses with many windows, lots of blinds, or large closets with wire shelving are the ones most likely to run over, because that work cannot be rushed without leaving dust behind.

Moving into a new home in Sammamish?

We clean the house while it is still empty, including blinds, windows, closets and shelving, and every job comes with a free re-clean within 24 hours. Book online or request a quote for move-in cleaning in Sammamish and across the Eastside.