Moving Out: How to Clean Your Rented Home and Protect Your Deposit

Posted on 01/04/2016

Step-by-step Guide to End of Tenancy Cleaning

When you come to the end of your tenancy in a rented property, or have to move for any other reason, cleaning the place thoroughly can mean the difference between getting your security deposit back or losing it. If your landlord is particularly fussy about house cleaning standards, or just a little short on money, they will check every minute detail of your home, looking for anything they can use as an excuse to keep your money. To help you avoid this kind of nightmare, here are some great tips to bear in mind for your end of tenancy cleaning.

Start with the bathroom   

We’ll start off with what’s likely to be the easiest cleaning job; the bathroom. Cleaning your sink and bathtub is a pretty straightforward job; just get some all-purpose cleaner and a scrubbing sponge, and you’ll be good to go. Although many of us are concerned about the state of our planet, and strive to be as eco-friendly as possible, I’d stay away from eco-friendly cleaners and go for a much stronger, bleach-based product. These will be much more effective at washing away dirt and oil in a shorter time. Once you’ve gone over the whole room, go back and check on the rim of your sink and your soap dish, as these are notoriously tricky to get perfectly clean. Once that little job’s behind you, move onto the kitchen. It’s probably best to kick off with the most difficult bit, the oven. An all-purpose cleaner should be fine for the cooktop, and there are many specialised products available for the interior. Mineral oil and paper towels can come in handy for cleaning the tops of appliances like your microwave and fridge.

Clean the walls

Since you know your tenancy is coming to an end, you may have noticed a lot of dark smudges or fingerprints on your walls. When it comes to getting your walls clean again, there is an excellent product you can use which a lot of people unfortunately don’t consider. TSP, a material most commonly used for prepping walls for painting, is great for lifting such marks off, especially when you can get a derivative in a spray bottle. Pure TSP, due to trading standards brought in out of concern for the environment, is now very hard to come by, but there are many effective TSP substitutes available. Simply spray the agent over the mark, let it sit for around a minute, and then scrub it vigorously with a sponge. The dirt should disappear easily through this process.

Move on to the floor

If you have a hardwood or lino floor, cleaning it can be split into two phases; vacuuming dust and cleaning any remaining dirt. Dust and other grainy rubbish can be easily removed with a small, versatile vacuum, whereas more stubborn patches of dirt can be easily gotten rid of if you have a hose attachment on your hoover with a brush. Once you’ve gone round the first time, get your hands on a squeezable mop, a bucket, and any kind of liquid soap product to really make your hardwood floor shine.  If you know your landlord is particularly fussy about dirt on the floors, it may be worth using two buckets for this job. Every time you go to wet the mop again, let it soak in the clean water for a while, then wring it over the dirty bucket. This way, you’re sure to be cleaning, and not just moving wet dirt from place to place.

Hopefully, these pointers have made cleaning your rented home seem a lot more straightforward. Of course, you won’t know if you’re getting your deposit back until after you leave, but using these cleaning tips should help your chances immensely.