What a move-in clean covers before your things arrive
A move-in reaches the surfaces your things will land on next: the inside of cabinets and drawers, the fridge and oven, the bathrooms and the floors. Everything that is normally in the way of those surfaces is gone, so we work them while they are open. We walk the empty rooms once at the start, looking for anything the last tenant or the showings left behind and agreeing on which spots come first. If you cannot be there, your notes work and so does a short list of the three or four spots that bother you most.
1. Inside every cabinet, drawer and shelf
Every kitchen cabinet opened one at a time, shelves and drawer boxes wiped front to back, pulls and door fronts gone over. The pantry the same way. Bathroom vanities, linen closets and hall closets, and the shelf above every rod.
2. The fridge, the oven and the smaller appliances
A move-in opens the kitchen appliances in a way day-to-day life does not. Shelves and bins come out of the fridge and freezer, each one washed on its own, and the rubber gasket around the door is wiped front to back. The oven is cleaned inside, racks washed in the sink and returned, and the glass of the oven door is addressed from both faces. Microwave inside, exterior and the handle, then the dishwasher door and the gasket around it. Each surface gets a closer look before we move on.
3. Bathrooms, including the medicine cabinet
Shower glass and tile, with the hard water film wiped off the glass and the chrome. Grout lines, the base of the toilet, the back of the toilet and the vanity. The medicine cabinet opened and wiped, glass shelves and all. The mirror and the light cover worked from the floor.
4. Closets, sills, tracks and switch plates
Closet shelves wiped the full width, rods wiped, sills on every window front and back, window tracks vacuumed then wiped out. Switch plates, outlet covers and the thin gray line below each one. Inside glass on every window. We do no outside windows above the ground floor and we do not lean out of a window.
5. Floors, last
Vacuumed in each room, along baseboards and into corners. Hard floors mopped. We finish at the door you will unpack through so the clean floor stays clean until the first box lands on it.
| Space | What a move-in clean covers | Why it matters before unpacking |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen cabinets | Shelves and drawers inside and out | Your dishes and food go on them next |
| Fridge and oven | Insides, gaskets, racks and glass | Groceries and the first meal land here |
| Bathroom | Shower, tile, grout, toilet, vanity, mirror | Your towels and toiletries are about to move in |
| Medicine cabinet | Inside shelves and the door | The place for the first-night essentials |
| Closets | Shelves and rods wiped the full width | Clothes and bedding sit on these |
| Floors | Vacuumed and mopped, room by room | The surface everything else lands on |
When move-in cleaning fits, and when another service fits better
When this is the right page
The place is empty and yours. Keys are in hand, or a lockbox code is, and the moving truck has not pulled up yet. You want the inside surfaces you will put your things on cleaned before anything else arrives.
When another service fits
The place you are leaving still has your things in it, so a move-out clean for the old place is the matching call. If you have been in the new place a few months and the shine is wearing off, a deep clean once you have lived there is the one, with cabinets and appliances already full. If the new place is a condo or an apartment, the building affects how we get in on the day; see cleaning in an apartment or a condo building and tell us on the call how parking, the gate and the elevator work.
A listing clean is not a move-in clean
A clean before a listing or a showing works the surfaces a buyer sees; a move-in clean works the ones your things will land on, so the inside of cabinets, the shelves of the fridge and the drawers of the vanity are the point. Both can happen on the same unit, and a move-in clean is still the one to run before you unpack.
California's move-in photo rule
The rule from California Civil Code 1950.5 that matters most on a move-in is small, and it is new. For tenancies that begin on or after July 1, 2025, the landlord must photograph the unit right before or at the start of the tenancy.
You can keep your own photos for your own records. We make no legal reads of what either set is for, and we do not offer any.
What the visit covers
Inside every cabinet and drawer, the fridge, oven, microwave and dishwasher door, bathrooms with the medicine cabinet included, closets, inside windows with sills and tracks, baseboards, door frames and switch plates, and the floors last. We go over products on the call, including anything the building or the HOA says about what to use. We do not patch, caulk, paint or repair, and we do no outside work. If old cleaning products are left behind, they belong at the City's household hazardous waste facility, by appointment and by a resident.
From the call to the walk-through
- You call with the new address, the day keys change hands, the day the boxes arrive, and anything the building needs us to know.
- We go over the rooms, how we get in before you arrive if we need to, and what you want prioritized.
- You get a price for the visit and decide.
- The cleaning happens, and we walk the clean rooms with you at the end if you can be there.
New arrivals in San Diego
About 15 percent of San Diego residents moved in the past year, and 38,980 came from a different state. About 55 percent of the city's housing has two bedrooms or fewer, with two-bedroom units the most common size. The kitchen and the bathroom are where the work of a move-in clean is heaviest, since those are the surfaces your things will touch first.