People sometimes book this visit and a move-out clean as if they were the same job with the calendar flipped. They are related, and they are not interchangeable. A move-out is often aimed at a landlord walkthrough: empty cabinets, appliances, and a standard someone else will judge. A move-in is for the person who is about to unpack. The finish line is a home you can put dishes into without wiping the shelf first. If you are leaving one place and entering another, the two visits can be scheduled as two scopes. The move-out cleaning page describes the walkthrough side. This page stays with the home you are about to live in.
Before the truck
The useful day is the one when the unit is vacant and the truck has not unloaded. Tell us when you receive keys, when the building allows a move, and whether an elevator has to be reserved. In a house, that may be a driveway and a side door. In a multiunit building, it may be a freight elevator, a loading dock hour, and a rule about padding the walls. Those details belong in the quote, because they decide whether the crew can finish before boxes close the baseboards. If the previous occupant is still removing furniture on the morning of the clean, say so. We clean open rooms. We do not haul sofas, break down beds, or decide which items are trash.
Move in cleaning services also depend on what the last person left behind inside the fixtures. An empty refrigerator can be washed. A refrigerator still holding food cannot be treated as part of a vacant-home clean. An oven that is cool and clear can be wiped through. An oven mid-cycle, or one with someone else's pans still inside, waits. The same rule covers closets. Rods, shelves, and the floor of a closet are in reach when the closet is empty. If bins, garment bags, or a stacked mattress fill the space, the written scope will name what we can touch and what we will leave. Guessing in a doorway wastes the arrival window you reserved.
Cabinets and dust
Cabinets are the reason many people book the visit at all. Shelf paper, crumbs, a film of grease above a stove, and hairline dust on the top edge of a door are easy to miss when you are carrying lamps. The inside of drawers, the hinge side of doors, and the light kick of a lower cabinet are part of a normal move-in scope when those spaces are empty. We do not refinish wood, replace shelf paper, or repair a swollen cabinet bottom. If a shelf is loose or a hinge is broken, we leave it and note it. Paint drips, torn contact paper, and a stain that has changed the color of the shelf are conditions, not something a wipe is obligated to erase.
Dust from the previous occupant shows up in places a quick walkthrough skips. It sits on window sills, on top of the door trim, inside the bathroom fan grille you can reach without tools, and along the shoe molding. Floors are vacuumed and then washed in a way that matches the material: hardwood, vinyl, tile, or a sealed concrete pad in a garden unit. If a rug is staying and it needs a different method, that belongs on the floor cleaning conversation, not as a silent add-on. Interior glass and sills can be included. Exterior panes above a safe reach, and any glass that needs ladders off a balcony, are a separate limit described on the window cleaning page.
Access and the building
Keys, a lockbox, a doorman list, or a person who will meet the crew has to be settled before the arrival window. A vacant building does not always let a cleaning crew upstairs because someone called from the sidewalk. If the home is an apartment or a condo, building rules sit beside the room list: quiet hours, the elevator you are allowed to use, where the crew may park, and whether a service entrance is required. Those rules are the building's, and we follow the ones you send. A house with an alley gate and a condo with a concierge desk are both ordinary work. They are not the same arrival. If you want a recurring visit after you move in, that is a later scope, closer to house cleaning or apartment and condo cleaning, once furniture is in place and the checklist changes.
What the visit covers
The checklist below is the usual shape of a vacant move-in. Your written scope can add a room or take one off. Bathrooms follow the fixtures that are actually in the home. A powder room and a primary bath are both in range when they are empty. We do not repair caulk, replace hardware, or promise that a worn finish will look new. Construction dust from a renovation is a different visit, described under post-construction cleaning, and it should be booked as that scope if trades are still sanding or painting.
- Empty cabinets and drawers wiped inside, with doors, pulls, and the top edges of reachable uppers.
- Refrigerator, oven, microwave, and dishwasher when they are empty, cool, and staying with the home.
- Sinks, counters, backsplash, and the stovetop, including the film a previous cook left on the hood's exterior.
- Bathrooms: toilets, tubs, showers, tile, mirrors, fixtures, and floors.
- Closets, rods, shelves, and closet floors when nothing is stored in the way.
- Baseboards, door casings, switch plates, and dust on empty walls and sills.
- Interior glass you can reach from the floor, and tracks that open without tools.
- Floors vacuumed and washed for the material in each room.
- Light fixtures only when they are cool and reachable without a ladder beyond ordinary step-stool height.
Questions
Yes, when they are empty. Inside cabinets, drawers, the refrigerator, the oven, the microwave, and the dishwasher are part of a normal move-in scope because that is where the previous occupant's crumbs and dust remain. If food, pans, or cleaning chemicals are still inside, we skip that cavity and record it. We wipe surfaces. We do not repair shelves, replace liners, or disassemble a gas range. A stovetop and the exterior of a hood are ordinary. Duct cleaning and any work inside a flue are not. If an appliance is warm, in use, or tagged out of service, it stays closed. Write down anything you know is broken so the crew does not treat a damaged drawer as a surface they were supposed to force open.
Say what is still in the rooms when you request the quote. A bed, a sofa, or a wall of boxes does not cancel the visit, but it changes the result. We can clean baths, the kitchen that is clear, and the open floor. Baseboards behind furniture and closet floors blocked by bins will not match a vacant-home finish. We do not move heavy furniture and we do not sort personal property. If the previous occupant left a pile you were not expecting, the crew cleans around it and leaves it where it stands. If you need the full cabinet-and-edge result, the better plan is to wait until those rooms are clear and to keep the truck for the following day. The written scope should name the rooms that are reachable.
Yes. Quiet hours, elevator choice, service doors, and parking are part of the job when the home is in a managed building. Send the house rules with the quote, including any hour when vacuuming is restricted and any rule about liquids in the hallway. We use the elevator the building assigns. We do not prop a passenger car against the rules so a crew can move faster. If a doorman needs names in advance, send that request early enough to be useful. A house with a private entrance is simpler, and we still want to know about alarms, dogs on the property, and where the crew may park. Building paperwork, if the manager requires it, should be requested in writing rather than assumed from a brochure.
A move-in clean uses the empty room. Drawers can come all the way out, the refrigerator is bare, and the baseboard is a straight line. A deep clean after you unpack is still valuable, and it is a different map: furniture stays, some cabinets are full, and the work has to respect belongings. If you already live in the home, look at house cleaning rather than forcing this page's checklist into a furnished room. Move in cleaning services are at their best when the previous occupant's dust is the main problem and your own boxes have not arrived. If painters or a floor contractor just left, ask for a post-construction scope instead. Sanding dust and sticker residue are not the same film as ordinary move-out grit.
