Moving In, Moving Out: What are the Most Important Things to Professionally Clean?

You did it: you navigated the ultra-competitive housing market, and you snagged your dream home!

Congratulations! Whether you’re a first-time home buyer or this is your second or third home, it’s such an exciting time.

Unfortunately, with that excitement comes the hard work of moving, including cleaning out your old place and cleaning your new home before you move in. Certain surfaces in your home will need to be professionally cleaned while others can easily be cleaned by you and your family with retail cleaners.

Wondering where to focus your energy as you undertake these whole house cleaning projects? Ultimately, what exactly will require professional cleaning depends on your specific situation and any previous professional cleaning cadences.

Whatever your needs, Stanley Steemer is happy to shoulder some of your cleaning burden with our specialized processes for cleaning everything from your floors to your air ducts to your upholstery.

Keep reading for our advice on what things will most need professional cleaning and a few tips on other things you should clean yourself along the way!

Why Is Professional Cleaning Essential When Moving?

First, let’s get into why professional cleaning is necessary, as this will help you determine what your home needs.

In nearly every blog we write, we discuss the risks involved with not regularly cleaning your carpet, area rugs, air ducts, upholstery, or tile and grout. To learn more about each type of cleaning, click into the following for the content where we explain the benefits best:

• Carpet
• Area rugs
• Air ducts
• Upholstery
• Tile and grout

That said, generally, you’ll see a number of harmful contaminants building up in your house over time. Dust, allergens, and bacteria find their breeding ground on the surfaces of our homes, getting trapped in air ducts and the pores of tile and grout. They become embedded in your carpet and upholstery, causing allergy symptoms and sometimes stains and odors.

The best, and in some cases the only, way to remove these contaminants is to have your home professionally cleaned. Especially during such a busy time, you don’t want to worry about renting carpet cleaning equipment or trying to find DIY solutions to get rid of stubborn stains.

Professional technicians bring their expertise and commercial-grade equipment to efficiently work through your whole house, freeing you to focus on packing up your previous residence and finalizing any remaining details with your lender and realtor.

Ultimately, regardless of what you end up cleaning, the biggest benefit to cleaning your home professionally is to start with a blank slate. You don’t want to be living in the dirt and grime the previous owners created, and the people moving into your house don’t want to live in your dirt and grime. That’s why it’s important to check when things were last professionally cleaned to make sure contaminants aren’t lingering beneath the surface.

In some cases, the homeowner may have never had anything in the house professionally cleaned.

If you move out of a home you own, you might want to consider having it professionally cleaned for the benefit of the new family moving in. We definitely suggest this if your floors are showing any signs of stains or odors that would be difficult to deal with.

Key Areas to Focus on When Moving Out

Carpet

You’ll want to pay extra attention to high-traffic areas like living rooms and hallways. Many living rooms have hard surface flooring now, but if they’re carpeted, you might see lingering evidence of spills, pet hair, or just plain old use, which smashes the carpet fibers over time. A professional cleaning will address all three areas of concern.

Of course, we recommend cleaning all of your carpet professionally, but these high-traffic areas are non-negotiable cleaning tasks since they take more of a beating.

Air Ducts

Cleaning your air ducts is also extremely important, as it affects indoor air quality (IAQ). This has direct health impacts for whoever will be living in the home, so it’s worth the money to have done, whether you’re doing it for the new occupants or yourself. If anyone who will be living in the home has bad allergies, this is even more important.  

Tile and Grout

Tile and grout in the kitchen and especially the bathroom should be cleaned professionally, as dangerous bacteria can build up in the pores of the floor or shower from bodily fluids and food spills. Since tile and grout is so porous, a regular cleaner won’t reach below the surface, and you’ll need a process like our professional hot water extraction cleaning.

Area Rugs and Upholstered Furniture

Area rugs and upholstery items typically aren’t left behind when you move, making this type of cleaning more or less necessary depending on the circumstances.

If a rug or upholstered piece of furniture will be left behind for new owners, it certainly should be cleaned professionally before changing hands. However, if your rug and upholstery items are just moving with you, you’ll want to evaluate how long you’ve had the items, what they get exposed to in the moving truck, and when they were last cleaned before deciding.

If your items will travel in a moving truck or potentially be put on the ground outside a home, we recommend that you wait to clean them until they’re safely settled inside your new home.

Room-by-Room Move-Out Cleaning Checklist