We clean top down, floors last

An empty house shows every missed spot

With the furniture gone, nothing hides a dirty baseboard or a ring of dust where a dresser stood. So we work from the top of each room down. Ceiling corners and light fixtures come first, then the vents and the tops of door frames. Cabinets and drawers get wiped inside and out. Floors come last, because everything above them drops dust and crumbs while we work.

The kitchen takes the longest. We pull the shelves and drawers out of the fridge and wash them in the sink before they go back in. The oven gets scraped and wiped inside. The range hood and its filter get degreased, because grease there holds onto dust. If the stove slides out, we move it forward, since the floor under it usually has a lot of dropped food on it.

Bathrooms follow the same top down order. We take the exhaust fan cover off and wash it, then clean the mirror and the light over the sink. The tub and toilet get scrubbed all the way to the floor, where grime collects around the base. Skipping the order shows right away. If the floor gets mopped first, drips from the counter land on it, and a dirty fan keeps dropping lint on everything below.

• Inside cabinets and drawers, wiped and dried
• Fridge and oven cleaned inside
• Bathrooms scrubbed down to the grout
• Baseboards and window tracks cleaned by hand
• Floors vacuumed and mopped last

Landlords check the places tenants forget

A move out clean gets judged by whoever walks through after you. On a rental that is the landlord or the property manager, and on a sale it is the buyer at the final walkthrough. They open the oven and pull out drawers. Some run a finger along the top of a door frame. So those forgotten spots get as much time as the counters do.

Most of the misses are small. Sliding closet doors run in a track that fills with hair and grit. The dishwasher door has a rubber seal that holds old food. There is also a filter at the bottom that most people never pull out. Behind the washer and dryer there is usually a layer of lint across the floor, which we sweep up when the space is open. We also do dryer vent cleaning if the vent has not been cleared in a while.

Older houses near downtown Helena usually have painted wood trim with tall baseboards and deep window sills. Every ledge on that trim holds dust, and a landlord who rents out an older place knows where to look. Stained or smelly carpet is a different problem, and wiping the surface will not fix it. We also do carpet cleaning and pet urine removal, so ask about both when you call.

A move in clean comes before unpacking

The best time to clean a house you are moving into is the day before the truck shows up. Once the boxes are stacked in the kitchen, nobody is getting inside the lower cabinets or behind the fridge. An empty house lets us reach every corner. We wipe the inside of every cabinet and closet shelf, so your plates and towels go onto clean surfaces.

Even a house that looked clean at the showing still has the last owner's dirt in it. Hair collects under the bathroom drawer liners and around the base of the toilet seat hinges. The fridge door seals hold old spills in their folds. Those are the spots you notice a week after moving in, when you are too busy to deal with them. So we clean them before you put anything away.

If the last owners had a dog or a cat, you will smell it once the house warms up and the furniture is gone. Pet urine soaks through carpet into the pad underneath, and cleaning the top of the carpet only hides it for a short time. Pet urine removal and odor control are both services we offer, and they work best before your own rugs and furniture go down.

Winter grit and smoke end up indoors

Helena winters put sand and gravel on the roads, and it rides into the house on boots. A move means dozens of trips through the front door with boxes and a dolly, so the entry and hallway take most of it. Grit left in carpet grinds at the fibers every time someone walks on it, and on hardwood it scratches the finish. We vacuum those paths slowly, in more than one direction, before any mopping starts.

Heat is the next thing we look at. Many older Helena houses still heat with hot water radiators, and dust packs in between the fins where a rag barely fits. Newer houses use forced air, with a floor register in most rooms that catches crumbs and pet hair. We clean both kinds while the rooms are empty. Skip the radiators, and the first cold night fills the house with the smell of burning dust.

Summer brings its own film. In a smoky summer, wildfire smoke settles into the Helena valley and leaves a gray layer on window sills and blinds. Around Montana City, a lot of houses have wood stoves that leave soot on the wall behind them and ash in the corners. Smoke film and soot both smear if you wipe them dry, so we wash with warm water and rinse until the rag comes away clean.

Helena houses hide dirt in different places

Houses around Helena usually have a basement, because Montana frost runs deep and footings have to sit below it. In older brick houses that basement often has a bare concrete floor with cobwebs along the ceiling joists. We knock the webs down first and sweep the concrete before damp mopping it. A landlord or buyer walks down those stairs too, and a dusty basement makes the rest of a clean house look unfinished.

Ranch houses and split-levels fill a lot of the Helena valley, and their kitchens share a common problem. The upper cabinets stop short of the ceiling, and the tops collect a sticky layer of grease and dust. Nobody sees it from the floor, but anyone on a step stool does. We degrease those tops along with the cabinet fronts next to the stove, where cooking splatter leaves a film.

Well water is hard on fixtures. Plenty of houses near Montana City run on private wells, and the minerals build a white crust on faucets and shower heads. Scrubbing harder only scratches the chrome. The crust has to soak with a descaler until it softens, and then it wipes off. We give fixtures that time on a move clean, because a crusty faucet is the first thing a new owner notices at the kitchen sink.