You bought or signed a lease on a new home and as the date approaches to move in your things, you realize the house or apartment might need some cleaning before you get settled. This guide has everything you need to know about starting off on the right foot with a freshly cleaned space.
We developed a downloadable move-in cleaning checklist to simplify the process of cleaning your new home before moving in. It contains every cleaning task that should be tackled as you prepare to settle into your new space.
Consult the checklist on your phone or print it out and hang it on the fridge of your new home, checking things off as you go. Download our Move-in Cleaning Checklist PDF (417 kb) here.
How to Clean a House Before You Move In
We recommend cleaning before you move anything into your new home, as the cleaning will come much easier without all your belongings filling the space. If you won’t have time to clean the space yourself (with everything else to take care of in the transition), consider hiring a move-in cleaning service.
If you choose to handle the job yourself, we recommend considering following these steps:
- Start with the fridge. Having a clean space to store your food is incredibly important. Consult our refrigerator cleaning tips for help accomplishing this task.
- Once the fridge is clean, move on to the rest of the kitchen. Clean from top to bottom and make sure all of the appliances are thoroughly cleaned. Don’t worry about the floors.
- Next up, bathrooms! In the bathroom, you'll want to conduct a thorough cleaning, disinfecting surfaces for a fresh start.
- Clean the remaining rooms in the home, working from top to bottom and left to right. Dust any fans and light fixtures, clean the windows and their frames, wipe down the baseboards, etc. Try doing each task in all the rooms, then move on to the next task to save you time.
- Finish the process with the floors. Sweep or vacuum first, then mop. If you’re able, thoroughly clean the carpets. This is especially easy when the home is free of furniture.
- Consult our move-in cleaning checklist for a full list of cleaning tasks to tackle in your new home.
Molly Maid is always available to ease the stress of keeping things clean, and moving into a new home is no exception. Explore our move-in cleaning services and give us a call if you would rather focus on getting settled in your new home than scrubbing away someone else’s grime.
Moving into a new home means you’re also moving out of another space. Check out our Move-out Checklist for everything you need to know about cleaning a house or apartment before you move out.
