We clean inside every cabinet and drawer

We work from the ceiling down

A move in or move out clean happens with the furniture gone, and that changes the job. Every wall and corner is out in the open now, and so is every line of dust where a couch or bed used to sit. We start up high with ceiling fans, light fixtures, air vents and the tops of door frames. Dust falls as we go. That is why the floors always come last, and why mopping first means mopping twice.

Next come the surfaces at hand height. We wipe light switches, outlet covers, door handles and the doors themselves, where fingerprints build up around the knob. Blinds get dusted on both sides. Window sills and the tracks of sliding glass doors get vacuumed out before anyone wipes them, because a wet rag on dry sand just makes mud. Closets get the same care as the bedrooms, right down to the floor at the back where nobody looks.

Floors are the last step, and baseboards come right before them. We wipe baseboards by hand, since a mop only pushes dirt against them and leaves a gray line along every wall. Then we vacuum the edges and corners, where most of the dust in an empty room ends up. Hard floors get mopped from the far side of each room toward the door, so nobody walks across them wet. Done right, you open the front door and the house smells like nothing at all.

• Ceiling fans and air vents dusted
• Every cabinet and drawer wiped inside
• Oven and fridge cleaned inside and out
• Bathrooms scrubbed down to the toilet base
• Baseboards wiped by hand, floors done last

Kitchens and bathrooms take the longest

The kitchen takes more time than any other room. We clear the crumbs out of every cabinet and drawer first, then wipe the insides and the fronts. Grease settles on top of the upper cabinets and on the range hood, and in a warm kitchen it turns sticky and holds dust. The oven gets cleaned inside, and so do the racks. The fridge gets wiped on every shelf, in the door bins and along the rubber seal around the door.

Skip the fridge seal and the next person opens the door to a sour smell. Skip the cabinet tops and a landlord running a hand along them at the walk-through finds a gray film. These are the spots people check, because they are the spots most people miss when they clean on their own. A kitchen that looks clean from the middle of the room can still fail up close, and up close is exactly how an inspection works.

Bathrooms come next. Water around here leaves white mineral spots on faucets and a cloudy film on shower glass, and soap scum builds on top of that. We scrub the tub and tile with the grout lines included, then clean the toilet down to the bolts at its base. That base is where most of the smell in a bathroom actually lives. The exhaust fan cover gets dusted too, since a clogged fan is part of why bathrooms mildew here.

Humidity works fast in a closed-up house

An empty house in Florida often sits with the AC turned way up or shut off while it waits for the next owner. Humid air moves in fast when that happens. It does not take long before mildew shows up in closet corners and on bathroom ceilings, and the whole place picks up a musty smell. We treat those spots with a cleaner made for mildew, because a general spray can take the gray color off and leave the growth behind.

Air vents are the other place humidity shows. When cold air meets humid air at a supply vent, the ceiling around it can pick up black speckles. We wipe the vent covers and the return grille. If something looks like a job for an AC tech instead of a cleaner, we tell you. This matters more than it seems. The first thing a new owner does is turn the air back on, and whatever sits in those vents blows across a clean house.

Sand comes in on every pair of shoes this close to the Gulf. In an empty house it collects in the tracks of the sliding glass doors and the window channels. Left there, it grinds every time the door opens, and the new owner thinks the door is broken. We vacuum the tracks while they are dry and wipe them out after. A screened lanai or Florida room collects the same grit, so mention it when you call if you want it included.

Pinellas Park homes have their own trouble spots

Much of Pinellas Park is concrete block ranch houses with stucco outside and tile floors inside, and some of the older ones have terrazzo. Terrazzo is tough, but acid damages it. Vinegar or a bathroom cleaner with acid in it leaves dull, rough patches that do not come back with more scrubbing. We clean it with a neutral floor cleaner and plain water. Old grout in these houses gets cleaned as far as it will go, and we tell you plainly if it is stained for good.

The area also has a lot of manufactured homes in mobile home parks, and they clean differently. The walls are often vinyl covered panels with trim strips at the seams, and grease and dust settle along those strips. The subfloor is often particle board, which swells if water sits on it, so we use a damp mop, never a wet one. Older units often have a fiberglass tub surround that scratches under a rough pad, so it gets a soft cloth instead.

Then there are the apartments and condos across the county, where a move out usually ends with a property manager's checklist. Those units are smaller, but the checklist is strict. The inside of the oven, the fridge, the bathroom exhaust fan and the tops of the kitchen cabinets are the usual items on it. We clean to that list. If you have a copy from your lease or from the manager, hand it to us before we start so nothing on it gets missed.

We clean after the last box leaves

The best time for a move out clean is after the last box and the last piece of furniture are gone. That should still be before you hand back the keys. Cleaning around a half packed room means the spots under the boxes never get done. The water and power need to be on, and running the AC helps the floors dry. If you have already moved away, set up a way for us to get in and we will work out the details on the phone.

A move in clean is about the people who lived there before you. Before your dishes go into the cabinets and your food goes into the fridge, those surfaces should be clean enough to trust. We give extra time to the places your hands and food touch: cabinet shelves, the fridge, the oven, the bathroom sink and the toilet. It is far easier to do this in an empty house than after the moving truck is unloaded.

Property owners use us between tenants too. One customer had us clean a rental property in Oldsmar, and another sent us to clean a client's home. The goal is the same either way: the next person walks into a clean, empty house. Heather Wickliff had Terry clean the apartment she and her husband moved out of. She wrote, "He made the apartment look like no one ever lived there." That is the standard we hold an empty home to.