End of Lease Coming Up? Here Are Some Top Cleaning Tips Before Vacating

Moving out of a rental is busy enough without worrying about your bond. The final inspection is where your bond is won or lost, so a little planning goes a long way. These vacate cleaning tips cover what to do in moving week, what property managers check, and which jobs are worth handing to a professional.

You can book a full top to bottom vacate clean, or save money by doing most of it yourself and calling in a professional for the hardest jobs, like carpets and tile and grout. Either way, the tips below will help your home shine on inspection day.

Moving Week: Clean as You Pack Up

Once you’ve started moving out, it’s time to get the main cleaning done: the bathrooms, the kitchen, and a good vacuum and mop through the whole house. It’s also the ideal time to deep clean the oven, microwave, stovetop and rangehood. They take time and elbow grease, and property managers often check them.

Dig out the property condition report from when you moved in. It’s what your property manager will compare the home against, and it shows you the condition each room needs to be returned in, allowing for fair wear and tear.

What Property Managers Check at the Final Inspection

Property managers work through the home room by room. These are the areas that most often hold up a bond:

• Kitchen: oven, stovetop, rangehood filters, splashback, and the inside of cupboards and drawers.
• Bathrooms and laundry: tiles, grout, shower screens, taps, and any mould in corners or on silicone.
• Tiled floors: grout that looks darker or dirtier than it did when you moved in.
• Carpets: stains, worn-in traffic lanes and pet odours.
• Walls, doors and skirting boards: scuffs, finger marks and dust.
• Windows: glass, sills, tracks and fly screens.
• Fixtures and fittings: light fittings, ceiling fans, air vents, blinds and split system air conditioner filters.

Once You’ve Moved Out: The Final Walk-Through

With the furniture gone, walk through the home the way your property manager will, and check everything from top to bottom: vents, fans and light fittings, mirrors, and every drawer and cupboard. Once everything else is done, the floors come last. Have your carpets and tiles cleaned, then hand back the keys.

Carpets: Check Your Lease

Almost every lease requires the carpets to be professionally cleaned when you move out, and some also require a professional tile and grout clean, so read your lease thoroughly before you book anything. Keep the receipt, as your property manager will ask to see it. A professional steam clean lifts the ground-in dirt and traffic marks that a vacuum leaves behind. We’ve covered this in more detail in our guide to getting your carpets steam cleaned for end of lease.

Consider a Professional Tile & Grout Clean

Most of a vacate clean is the cleaning you’d normally do, with a bit more attention to detail. Tiled floors are different. They take the most foot traffic, and getting grout clean by hand means a lot of bending and scrubbing. That’s why our team at Wizard Cleaning® recommends a professional tile and grout clean before you hand back the keys. It gets your floors shining from the bottom up and saves you time on the bathroom and shower.

Getting tiles and grout ready while you pack up the rest of the house is a lot to deal with. You’d be surprised how long it takes to get mould and grime out of grout by hand.

Prices and specials change, so for current rates on tile and grout cleaning and carpet cleaning, see our cleaning deals page.

Moving out of an office, shop or warehouse? Our team also offers commercial and industrial floor cleaning.

We understand how much getting your bond back matters. Our team will give your home the time and care it needs to shine on inspection day. Call us on 0400 634 609 or request a free, no-obligation quote.