We clean inside every cabinet and oven

We clean the empty unit top down

A move out clean starts after the last box leaves, because furniture hides the worst of it. We work from the top of each room down: ceiling corners and light fixtures first, then walls and door frames, then the insides of cabinets and closets, and the floor last. Dust falls as you go, so cleaning the floor first just means cleaning it twice. In an empty apartment every missed spot shows, and so does every streak.

The kitchen takes the longest. The oven gets cleaned inside, including the racks and the glass on the door, and the stovetop grates come off so the grease under them comes off too. The refrigerator gets emptied, wiped inside and pulled out if it rolls, because the floor behind it has usually not seen a mop in a long time. Cabinet shelves get wiped from the back wall forward, where crumbs and old shelf paper sit.

Bathrooms come next. The grout and the tub tell a landlord more than anything else in the unit. We scrub soap film off the tub and tile. We clear buildup from the drain covers. We wipe the toilet all the way down to the floor. Then we wipe the mirror, the medicine cabinet inside and out, and the exhaust fan cover. Done right, the room smells like nothing at all.

• Oven, racks and stovetop cleaned inside and out
• Refrigerator emptied, wiped inside and cleaned behind
• Every cabinet and closet shelf wiped out
• Tub, tile and toilet scrubbed to the base
• Baseboards, door frames and window sills wiped

Bronx buildings hold dirt in different places

Much of the housing around Kingsbridge, Fordham and Bedford Park is prewar brick apartment buildings, and they have their own trouble spots. Steam radiators collect a thick layer of dust between the fins and behind the pipes. It burns off with a smell on the first cold night. We brush and vacuum between the fins and wipe the wall behind them, which is often the dirtiest wall in the room.

Older bathrooms in these buildings often have small hexagon floor tile and a cast iron tub. The grout lines are narrow and dark, and soap film settles into them in a way a quick mop never touches. Windows are another spot. Street soot blows in through old double hung sashes. It settles in the tracks and on the sills. We vacuum the tracks before wiping, or the wipe just turns grit into mud.

Up in Riverdale and Spuyten Duyvil there are more co-op high rises and detached houses, and those move outs look different. A co-op often has a managing agent who walks the unit after the move, and the building may have rules about when workers can use the elevator. A house simply has more rooms, with stairs and often a basement. We ask about the layout when you call so nothing is left for the last hour.

New York weather leaves its mark inside

Summers here are humid, and a closed up apartment between tenants holds that moisture. Mildew starts in the bathroom first: on the caulk line around the tub, on the ceiling above the shower and along the curtain rod. We clean it off the surface and wipe the area dry. If the caulk itself has gone black inside, we tell you, because no amount of cleaning brings that back.

Winter brings a different mess. Salt and slush get tracked across the floors for months, and the white film they leave dulls hardwood and parquet near the door. It does not come up with a dry mop. We clean the entry and hallway floors with a damp wash and dry them right after, because standing water on old parquet can lift the small wood pieces at the edges.

Steam heat dries the air out in winter, and dust moves more in dry air. It settles on top of door frames, on the upper kitchen cabinets and on the blades of ceiling fans, all places a tenant never looks at. A new tenant or a landlord doing a walk-through will look up. Wiping those high surfaces is a small job, and skipping it is the most common reason a clean unit still looks dusty.

Move in cleaning gets your new place ready

A move in clean covers the same rooms, and it matters just as much. The last tenant may have skipped the inside of the cabinets, and the unit may have sat empty for weeks. Dust from the building and grit from the windows settle again in that time. Cleaning before your boxes arrive means dishes go onto clean shelves and clothes go into a clean closet.

We start with the places you will use on the first night. The bathroom gets scrubbed and the toilet disinfected, the kitchen counters and sink get cleaned, and the refrigerator gets wiped out so food can go straight in. After that we work room by room the same way as a move out, from the top down, finishing with the floors once nothing else will fall on them.

Timing is the part people get wrong. The best window is after the keys change hands and before the movers show up, even if that gap is short. Cleaning around boxes and furniture means cleaning around the dirt too, and the corners stay dirty. If the gap is too tight, tell us when you call and we will work out which rooms to do first.