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The renters guide to end of lease cleaning

By Emma Smith

For many, the end-of-lease clean means finally facing up to the monstrous dust clouds and terrifying patches of mold they’ve spent the past year convincing themselves don’t exist.

But it needn’t be like that, according to Delah Gomasi, director of Sydney-based cleaning service Maidforyou.com.au.

The way he sees it, the key is to clean a little bit every day.

Plan ahead

Just as cramming all your studying into the night before a test leads to substandard results, cleaning your entire rental property in one foul swoop is a recipe for disaster.

Getting into good habits is the key. And the good news is you don’t need to break your back every single day to ensure you hand over your property in a clean enough condition to get your bond back.

“If renters do ten minutes of maintenance when they get home from work, they may not even need to hire a professional cleaner when they move out,” says Gomasi.

Set up a daily schedule and commit to carrying out ten-minute cleaning tasks at the same time every day.

Gomasi recommends, for example, cleaning one kitchen drawer or bathroom cabinet each session.

“Because toiletries tend to leak, if you leave [bathroom cabinets] for extended periods of time, they can become really difficult to clean,” he adds.

Clean room by room

Regularly cleaning throughout your tenancy will go a long way towards simplifying your end-of-lease clean. But even then, you’ll still need to put in some elbow grease before you move out.

To reduce the chance of feeling overwhelmed by the task at hand, Gomasi suggests cleaning one room at a time.

“We start from the back of the house and move towards the front door. That way, we know that everything’s been taken care of,” he says.

Be thorough

Cleaning the floors and walls is a good place to start, but you’ll need to do much more to recover your bond.

Pay extra attention to kitchen appliances and other areas that aren’t part of your weekly or fortnightly cleaning schedule. And don’t forget to sweep and mop outside.

“As much as you can, you need to get rid of dust in all areas – inside cabinets and skirting boards especially,” says Gomasi.

“If you do the outside windows as well, you’re going to save a lot of money if you decide to hire professionals, because the outside is expensive to clean.”

Move the furniture

The best way to get your bond back is to hand over your rental property in the same condition as when you moved in.

And that means you’ll need to clean under your fridge, bed and sofa.

According to Gomasi, that’s something most renters fail to do. Which is why his staff spends a lot of its time marvelling at the peculiar items it finds under large items of furniture.

“Especially under the fridge – there’s a lot of debris and built up gunk, and it can be difficult to remove,” he says.

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