Ace Your End of Lease Clean With These 5 Top Tips

Whether you’re moving to your own place or it’s simply time for a change, moving out of a rental can be stressful. From packing boxes to learning your new postcode, there seems to be a million jobs, all demanding your attention right here and now. As a result, it can mean you’re feeling downright uninspired by the time it comes to clean your place and hand the key over. But skimping on your end-of-lease clean is a surefire way to lose part, if not all, of your bond.

So to make sure you get every cent of your bond back, we’ve got 5 must-know cleaning tips for you.

1. Check Your Tenancy Agreement to Know the Score

Not all tenancy agreements are the same, so be sure to take the time to closely read through yours in regards to how the property should be left. For instance, you may need to handle garden maintenance, like mowing or cutting back trees and bushes. Similarly, you may need to ensure the exterior walls are clean from dirt and dust. Alternatively, you may only need to deal with the interior of the property.

There may also be specifications for how certain parts of the property are to be cleaned. For example, many agreements state that carpets must be steam cleaned to ensure that dust and dirt that has worked into the fibres is removed, not just the top layer.

Reading through your tenancy agreement will mean you won’t get a nasty surprise when it comes time to get your bond back. Instead, you’ll be able to confidently say you have cleaned to the agreement’s specifications.

2. Get Prepared So You Can Hit the Ground Running

You can’t do a job right without the proper equipment and that includes cleaning. So, before you start cleaning, do a quick inventory of what you have on hand and think about if you’ll need anything else.

At a bare minimum you’ll need:

• General purpose cleaning spray
• Cleaning rags and cloths
• A vacuum cleaner with a range of heads to suit different surfaces and spaces
• A broom or dustpan and brush
• Garbage bags

Depending on what you are cleaning and how thorough you’ll need to be, you may need more specialist products, like oven cleaner, limescale remover and more. Opt for softer cleaning methods and solutions to avoid damaging delicate or sensitive surfaces.

Ensuring you have everything you need before you start will mean you don’t have to stop partway through to get more cleaning supplies, spoiling your flow and making the job take longer.

3. Plan Your Attack, Room By Room

Before any great battle, a strategy needs to be made to best prepare for the desired outcome. Doing the same for your end-of-lease clean means that you can focus on the task at hand, rather than umming and ahhing over what you should do next.

Go from room to room and plan out what you will clean first and estimate how long it will take you. This helps ensure that you won’t accidentally make something you just cleaned messy again, like vacuuming the floor before dusting the shelves above it.

4. Don’t Forget the Fans & Fittings

Faced with the prospect of cleaning your entire house from top to bottom, it’s easy to overlook the small stuff. With carpets vacuumed, windows cleaned and benches sparkling, you might think the job is done. Unfortunately, your rental agent is likely to be looking just as closely at the small stuff as the big picture.

When you’re planning how you’re going to tackle each room, take care to make note of any fixtures and fittings that could need a clean too. For instance, this may be the extractor fan in your kitchen or bathroom, or the windowsills in bedrooms. Even giving light switches a quick wipe with a clean cloth can help remove greasy fingerprints and dirt build-up for a fresh, clean look.

5. Give Yourself Plenty of Time & Stay Hydrated

It can be tempting to aim to get all the cleaning done in one day. However, this often doesn’t end up being the case. You’ll find yourself continuing to work hard throughout the day and well into the evening, collapsing when you get back home and taking days to recover. While it might seem counterintuitive, giving yourself a couple of days or more to clean will ensure that you stay in a positive mindset and do not overexert yourself. It also means that you are more likely to be as thorough as you need to be for an end-of-tenancy clean.

Along with giving yourself plenty of time, don’t forget to look after your body as you clean. Avoid overstretching or staying in cramped positions too long — your muscles and joints will thank you for it. Similarly, make sure to always have plenty of water on hand. You’ll likely build up quite the sweat cleaning, so being able to replace lost fluids quickly is important. This will help you maintain a positive attitude and feel more capable of getting the job done. Taking regular short breaks to rest and have something nutritious to eat are important for the same reasons.

Bonus Tip: Know When You’re Taking On Too Much & Call In Reinforcements

Moving house is up there with divorce and death as one of the most stressful times in your life. Finding ways to look after yourself and reduce this toll on your mental and physical health is important.

To that end, if the thought of scrubbing, vacuuming and dusting is making you break out into hives or leaving you lying awake in bed at night, don’t do it! Instead, you can hire professional cleaners to get the job done. When you weigh up your wellbeing with the little extra cash spent, it’s clear that end-of-tenancy cleaning services are worth it. Plus, you can use the invoice as evidence that you have had the place cleaned if your rental agent is proving particularly reluctant to part with your bond.

At Kleana, we have house cleaners across Melbourne, from Camberwell to Carlton, ready to give your place the ultimate end-of-lease cleaning. We can even help you out prior to your clean, taking care of rubbish removals throughout Melbourne if you want to declutter and embrace minimalism in your next place!

Get in touch today to organise your clean and leave the hard stuff to us!