Apartment Move Out Cleaning Built for Rentals

An apartment move-out is its own kind of pressure. A leasing office has a written move-out checklist, a set of standards it applies to every unit, and a walk-through that decides how much of your deposit comes back. The place has to be returned empty and clean enough to pass that inspection, down to the oven, the balcony door track and the inside of every cabinet, and you are trying to pull that off in the same week you are hauling boxes out the door.

We are Move Out Cleaning Company, and apartment move-out cleaning is one of the cleans we handle most. We bring the crew and the supplies, clean the empty unit from top to bottom against the standards your leasing office uses, and give you one flat price before we start. This page covers what an apartment clean includes, how the leasing office checklist works, how we price a smaller space, and how the clean ties back to your deposit, so you know what you are getting before you book.

What apartment move-out cleaning covers

An apartment move-out clean is a deep, detailed clean of a rental once it is empty, measured against the move-out standards in your lease or the checklist your leasing office hands out. It is not a quick tidy. It resets the unit to the condition the office expects for the next tenant, so the person doing the walk-through has as little as possible to mark down.

Because a leasing office inspects the same points in every unit, an apartment clean reaches the spots a routine clean skips: inside the oven and the fridge, the insides of cabinets and drawers, the grout in the shower, the window and balcony door tracks, the baseboards and the vents. Those are the lines on the checklist, and they are exactly where a deposit tends to get chipped away.

The leasing office checklist

Most leasing offices clean to a similar list, even if the wording differs from one building to the next. Send us the checklist from your lease and we clean to it line by line. If you do not have one, we work from a standard apartment move-out checklist that covers what offices look for at the walk-through:

• Inside the oven, the stovetop and the range hood, plus inside and outside the fridge and freezer
• Inside and outside every kitchen cabinet and drawer, with the counters, sink and backsplash wiped down
• The bathroom tub, shower, tile and grout, the toilet, and the vanity, sink and mirror
• Floors vacuumed and mopped in every room, with closets, hallways and any carpet included
• Baseboards, doors, door frames, switch plates and outlet covers wiped throughout
• Window interiors, sills and the tracks on sliding and balcony doors
• Light fixtures, ceiling fan blades, vents and closet shelving dusted and wiped

One flat quote, sized for your apartment

An apartment is usually a smaller space than a house, and the flat quote reflects that. We price the job on the size of the unit, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and the condition it is in, then give you one number before anyone shows up. No hourly meter runs while the crew works, and no fees land at the end. A studio or a one-bedroom costs less than a three-bedroom, and you know the figure before you decide.

The quote is free and carries no obligation. You send the address, the size of the unit and your move date, we reply with the flat price and the checklist it covers, and you decide from there. Nothing is owed unless you book, and nothing is added on afterward. Our how it works page walks through the three steps in full.

Cleaning and your apartment deposit

Here is the honest version. Cleaning is one of the most common reasons money is taken out of a deposit, so handing back a unit cleaned to the leasing office checklist removes one of the biggest reasons an office reaches for your deposit in the first place. That gives you your best chance at getting it back in full. We cannot control what a leasing office decides, and we do not promise a particular outcome, but we clean to the standard they inspect against, and if they flag a cleaning item we come back and re-clean it at no charge.

Deposit rules are set by your state and your lease, and they vary from place to place. Treat everything here as general information, not legal advice, and confirm the specifics in your own lease and your current state rules. For a clean aimed squarely at the inspection, our end of lease cleaning and security deposit cleaning pages are both worth a read.

Scheduling around your lease end date

A lease end date is a hard deadline, and the clean has to slot in before it. Most renters have us clean once the unit is empty and before the final walk-through, while the keys are still theirs. Others book the clean for the last day, after the truck is loaded, so it is the final thing done before the keys go back to the office. Tell us your lease end date and your walk-through time, and we schedule the clean into that window. The end of the month is the busiest stretch for move-outs, so a few days of notice helps.

Apartments, condos and the units we clean

We clean studios, one, two and three-bedroom apartments, condos, townhomes and the units landlords and property managers turn over between tenants. The building does not matter, whether it is a walk-up, a mid-rise or a managed complex with its own leasing office. If you are moving into a new place as well, a move-in cleaning at the other end means you unpack into a unit that is already clean, and many renters book both ends at once. Wherever your apartment is, our locations hub lists the metros we cover, including move-out cleaning in Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles.

However you reach us, the quote is free and the decision stays yours. We clean the empty unit to your leasing office checklist, come back at no charge if an item is flagged, and leave you ready to hand the keys back to the office. Send the form above when you are ready, and we will take the cleaning off your moving list.

Questions people ask