You’re moving! That’s fantastic. Now what? You’ve heard that you need to have your house deeply cleaned prior to the new owners moving into your old residence. Yet, you’re not sure if you merely need a deep clean or a more in-depth move-out clean. Despite their similarities, there are key differences to consider. So, how do you know which cleaning is the one you need for your move out?

Let’s break down the similarities and differences to better support you in moving forward.

The Cleaning Similarities

The easiest place to start is understanding the similarities between deep and move-out cleans.

Typically, the same amount of time for cleaning is involved, often resulting in the same price. Remembering that this is physical labour, we often send two-three cleaning professionals to divide and conquer the dust and grime. The key is to get the cleaning done all in one day. This tends to be better for both you - the customer - and our team. The reason is that it:

ensures ease in scheduling and coordinating of people (including your family’s schedule)
reduces the days that cleaning is on your mind
gives you your space back so you can focus on other things…like MOVING!

Whether a deep or move-out clean, both typically involve cleaning things that are not included in regular cleans, such as washing your doors, baseboards, and walls.

The Cleaning Differences

Now, for the fun part - breaking down the differences between these types of cleanings.

Deep Cleaning

The primary difference between a deep cleaning and a move-out cleaning is that, with a deep clean, you still live in the house. All your furniture and other possessions are still in your home.

While the deep clean details depend on the customer’s needs, it typically involves:

A top to bottom, left to right thorough cleaning of (almost) everything. When thinking “deep clean,” many people liken this to Spring Cleaning. Learn more about what’s involved in this type of clean here.
Cleaning behind/under appliances. If these items are not on sliders or wheels, we ask the customer to pull these away from the wall so we do not inadvertently harm the floor. Note that we recommend that you clean behind your appliances at a minimum of once per year, especially if you have pets.
Detailed blind cleaning. Yep - we clean even the blinds. This is quite time consuming as we have to wash each one separately, getting in between each vane to remove the dust, dirt, and grime that’s accumulated over the year(s). This is an arduous task as the cleaner tends to have their hands above their head the majority of the time. From a time perspective, if there are 10 blinds in a house we have to clean, this takes roughly two-three hours because of the detailed nature of this cleaning.
Braving the bathroom. This goes beyond the regular bathroom cleaning with items such as washing the walls, vacuuming the vent, and deep cleaning the toilet beyond our regular scrubbing. However, we do not go into cabinets as this is where personal items, such as medications, are stored.
Closets, closets, closets. Rarely do families think about cleaning the holder of their shoes, jackets, and mittens…which is why they tend to need a deeeeeeeep cleaning at least once a year. Here, we pull everything out and get to work, washing the walls, vacuuming the dirt/stones/grime/hair and other “interesting” things that accumulate over the year. Don’t worry - we always put things back (and in an organized fashion).
Sofa and other seating fun. Oh, the goodies we find when we lift and clean within cushions and under the couch - money, candies, toys, and ALL the lost socks. If the couch is made of leather, we wipe it down with a cloth, removing any stains or stickiness that may be long forgotten about. If made of fabric, then we get our vacuum out and vacuum away. Here is where those fancy vacuum attachments come into play.

The basic premise for deep cleaning is that anything we can move without damaging property, we move. Anything we can get underneath, we get under.

There are a few specialty items that a deep clean does not include:

Inside of cabinets. Like the bathroom medicine cabinet, cabinets in the kitchen or laundry room typically still contain your items because you are occupying the property (e.g., dishes, pots, utensils, etc.). Therefore, we don’t clean them.
China cabinets and other specialty display cases. These tend to contain highly sentimental and breakable items. If a client requires us to clean the items in the cabinet, we ask them to remove them from the cabinet and put these items on the table for us to clean. The customer is responsible for putting the items back in the cabinet itself.

Move-out cleaning

For move-out cleans, the house is now empty. Furniture is all removed, cabinets are empty, and every single corner is cleaned. The biggest misconception surrounding a move-out clean is that because it’s empty, cleaning will go faster. This is not the case. When a house is empty, this is when all dirt and scuffs are exposed. This rarely involves a simple wipe for all to be suddenly clean. Rather, we often have to “wipe” multiple times - with extra arm grease - to remove years of untouched dirt, oil spatters, hidden bugs, and long-forgotten spills. A few items that further separate the move out clean from a deep clean include:

Kitchen Cleaning!

○ Have you ever looked at the top of your cabinets? This is where alllllll the years of grime collect, taking extra effort to remove.

○ Have you looked in an empty pantry? We have and it sometimes frightens even the toughest of cleaning professionals, particularly if the pantry contains wireframes. Like cleaning the blinds, this is time-consuming as it requires going in between each individual wire, wiping down and removing any spills - often sticky thanks to the bottles that once sat there (e.g., oil, dressings, vanilla, and other common baking/cooking items).

○ Have you ever truly looked behind your stove or fridge? You’d be surprised at what you’ll find…and how much effort it takes to remove the caked-on gunk. Washing the walls and the appliances themselves (often inside and out) is required prior to the new owners taking possession.

Cabinet cleaning. Unlike deep cleaning, we can now go into the empty cabinets and wash the insides, removing any food bits, soap scum, and other friendly critters (e.g., dead bugs) that may be lingering.

Walls walls walls. With your furniture completely out of the space, we are able to see where the furniture may have rubbed the wall, leaving a bit of dirt, fingerprints, and more. A thorough and detailed washing is what’s needed.

Lights and other overhead fixtures. With a move-out clean, we remove light fixtures and wash them with soap/water, often finding dead bugs and dust balls within them.

Ultimately, a move-out clean is a deep cleaning x10! We do everything, top to bottom, corner to corner, until the house sparkles for the new owners.

One thing that reduces a move-out cleaning time is if you require a staging clean to support your house selling efforts. Here, we do the top of the cabinets, wash the outside of the cabinets, and the inside and outside of appliances, particularly since potential buyers often look inside of these. If you invest in a staging clean, then the final move-out clean typically requires a touch-up of the baseboards and a simple dusting. This breaks the cleaning into two parts.

To learn more about the ins and outs of the differences in our deep and our move-out cleaning, download our checklists below.

While a deep clean and a move-out clean are similar, it’s important to know the differences between the types of cleanings so you can book and budget the proper cleaning for you.

If you are looking at booking a cleaning for your home, connect today and book away.

If you have further questions, visit our FAQ page for answers.

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