There’s a lot of fuss made about moving out cleaning, and with good reason. When you move out of a Chelsea rental property, you want to get your deposit money back from the landlord, so leaving the place nice and tidy is an absolute must. This is why people like me refer to ourselves as “end of tenancy cleaners” – because we usually get called in to help people get their old homes up to standard.

However, moving in cleaning is just as important – especially if you have just bought a house that’s stood vacant for a while or that was part of an estate sale or one that the previous owners and/or occupants just got out of. Sometimes, your new house might not be quite as clean as you really want it. Or, as happened to one young university student friend of mine, the previous tenants had left the place in a mess (and hadn’t got their deposit money back), and although the landlord had cleaned up most of the mess, there was still a fair bit left to be done. (If this happens to you, take photos of the condition the house was in before you do any moving-in cleaning as well as after you do the moving-in cleaning.)

Anyway, there you are, with all your worldly goods to unpack and a house that’s not quite as clean as it could be. What are you going to do? If you know ahead of your move that your new house isn’t quite going to be up to scratch, you can call in a professional Chelsea end of tenancy cleaning company (or “start of tenancy” – choose your pick!)to go in ahead of you and clean the place up so you can’t have to do anything apart from unpack and decide which cupboard the dinner plated need to live in.

However, what happens when you unlock the door and start dragging in items but find that the house is a bit dingy and messy? You’re going to need some sort of plan.

Focus On The Essentials First

When you’ve just moved into a new place, whose postcode starts with the coveted “SW3”, you need to make sure that you have somewhere to sleep and somewhere to eat – and somewhere to go to the toilet. I’ve moved house a few times over my life as well as working as a professional home cleaner, and in my experience, the first thing that I’d always do is to wipe down the kitchen countertops, the sink and the taps very thoroughly. This way, you know for certain that you can prepare a sandwich safely without poisoning yourself. Of course, there are hundreds of eateries down Kings Road, where sandwich duties can be fully outsourced, but… homemade is always best.

The next things I’d tackle are:

• The toilet – if you can replace the old seat, go for it!
• Bathroom taps and sink, plus the towel rail if it’s got dust, spiders or (worst case scenario) mould or limescale.
• Vacuum the bedroom floor where your bed is going to go – then move in your bed and make it. Do this for all members of the family. This way, you’ve got somewhere to sleep after the stress of your move.

After these essentials are taken care of, you can work through the rest of the house as needed – or get the professionals in to do the rest if you want to.

Blitz Any Nasties

In some houses (even in Chelsea, yes), there are some horrors that are quite hazardous. Mould, obvious traces of pests and rubbish left behind by the previous occupants all fall into this category. Although these things aren’t always in obvious places and may even be in dark corners, they are a health and safety hazard, so for the sake of your health and your family, deal with these as soon as you spot them.

In the case of rodent pests, you may also need to stop up any obvious holes and lay a trap or two, as well as clean out the droppings and sanitise the area where you found them very thoroughly. Mice have no bladder sphincters, so they are continually everywhere they go. For other pests, such as wasps, you will probably need the help of a professional pest removal service (and if the house is a rental, you should notify the landlord about the pest problem, as he or she should have taken care of this before you moved in).

Clean As You Unpack

This may seem like heresy. After all, during the end of tenancy, you should pack everything first, then clean the cupboards, etc. Shouldn’t you merely reverse things when doing the moving-in cleaning, getting all the storage spaces nice and clean, then unpacking all your goodies?

Unfortunately, it’s not usually as simple as that. For one thing, in your old Chelsea home, you knew where everything belonged, and you could leave packing the things you use every day, like your coffee mug and your socks, until the last minute – and then cleaning the cupboard or drawers that they belonged in. You’d be a little bit loony if you left the plates and cups you need to eat off every meal in a cardboard box wrapped in towels while you cleaned every single cupboard, drawer and shelf in the kitchen.

Once you’ve decided where, say, your dinner plates need to live, wipe out that shelf or that cupboard and maybe put some paper down to line the bottom of the cupboard (old newspaper will do until you can find the perfect bit of vinyl that suits the house and your taste). Don’t overthink it – ask yourself where you’d expect to look for plates in this kitchen, then put the plates there. And it’s not the end of the world if you later change your mind about where the plates need to go. You’re allowed to change your mind. Let me say that again:

• You have permission to change your mind about the best place to keep things.
• There is no right or wrong place to put plates, etc., and you are allowed to experiment if needed.

Clean the cupboards and other storage spaces as you move things into them. If it’s all a bit overwhelming and you still don’t want to call in a professional moving-in service (which you can do at any time during the process – honestly!), then let this happen organically. If you take something out of the packing boxes to use, put it away somewhere in the new house – and clean that place out before you put your jam jars, wine glasses or towels into it.

However, make sure that everything gets out of the boxes and properly unpacked into a new home!

Don’t Forget – Get The Oven Cleaned

If you’re lucky, the previous occupants will have left the oven in lovely condition – so nice and sparkling that you’re almost afraid to use it (don’t be silly – go ahead and bake yourself a batch of muffins!). If you’re not lucky, it will be grimy and grotty. There’s nothing for it but to get out the oven cleaner of your choice and get all that grime and gungy grease off it. This won’t be an easy job, but at least you can reassure yourself that you won’t have to get the oven looking as perfect as if it had just come from the shop but just to a sufficiently safe standard so it won’t burst into flames the first time you grill a few sausages… and you won’t have to clean it to perfection when you move out, either if you’re renting (don’t forget to take photos of what the oven looked like when you moved in case the landlord throws a wobbly and wants the oven perfect when you leave – you can prove that you didn’t have a perfect oven when you moved in, so you’re under no obligation to have it perfect when you move out).