The deep cleaning checklist, room by room.
A deep clean is the one that reaches what routine cleaning walks past: the film on the range hood, the dust on top of the blinds, the door frames nobody has wiped since moving in. This is the list CPC's crew works from, sorted by room, so you can work through a house yourself or hold a cleaning company's quote up against it.
A deep cleaning checklist covers what routine cleaning skips. In the kitchen: the oven and stovetop, the microwave inside and out, the range hood and vent, and cabinet exteriors. In every room: ceiling fans, light fixtures, walls, doors, blinds, baseboards washed rather than dusted, and interior window glass. Then the bathrooms, under the sofa cushions, and the floors last.
What should a deep cleaning checklist include?
Seventeen tasks, the same seventeen CPC's crew works through on every deep clean, grouped here by where they happen. The ones that apply to every room are listed once rather than repeated under each. The list is the same for a house or an apartment; a smaller home just has less of each.
In the kitchen
- Wash the stovetop and oven
- Clean the microwave, inside and out
- Clean the range hood and vent
- Clean cabinet exteriors
In every room
- Clean and wash baseboards
- Clean ceiling fans
- Clean the light fixtures
- Clean walls
- Clean doors
- Dust and clean blinds
- Dust and clean all surfaces
- Clean interior window glass
- Vacuum and mop every area
Bathrooms, bedrooms, the living room and the entry
- Wash the bathrooms
- Lift the sofa cushions and clear out the dust and debris
- Make the beds, and put on clean sheets if you leave them on the bed
- Clean the front and back door glass
Two of those are the ones a routine clean never gets to. Baseboards are washed, not dusted, and the range hood and its vent are cleaned, which is where kitchen grease collects. If a checklist you are comparing leaves either one off, it is closer to a regular clean than a deep one.
In what order should you deep clean a house?
Top to bottom, and floors last. Dust that comes off a ceiling fan lands on the furniture, and dust from the furniture lands on the floor, so anything cleaned out of order gets cleaned twice.
- Clear the surfaces. Pick up what is on the floors and the counters first, so every surface on the list can be reached. It is CPC's own rule too: items left on the floor are not moved, which is what lets a crew clean rather than tidy.
- Start high. Ceiling fans, light fixtures, then the blinds.
- Walls, doors and glass. Walls and doors, then the interior windows and the front and back door glass.
- The kitchen. The range hood and vent, then the stovetop and oven, the microwave, and the cabinet fronts.
- The bathrooms.
- Surfaces and furniture. Every surface, then lift the sofa cushions and clear out what is underneath. Make the beds.
- Baseboards, then floors. Wash the baseboards, then vacuum and mop every area, working toward the door you leave by.
What does a deep clean not include?
Four jobs are left off on purpose, because they need an empty kitchen. Cabinet interiors, the refrigerator, the washer and dryer, and moving the stove and refrigerator to clean behind them belong to move-out cleaning, which is done after the furniture and boxes are gone. A deep clean cleans cabinets on the outside only.
Dishes are not on the list either. They are not part of regular, deep, or move-out cleaning; washing them is a $40 add-on. Organizing, meaning sorting and putting things away rather than cleaning around them, is a paid extra that changes the price.
Which cleaning products should never be mixed?
Bleach is the one to watch. The Washington State Department of Health warns that bleach mixed with ammonia gives off chloramine gases, and bleach mixed with an acid, which includes vinegar and toilet bowl cleaners, gives off chlorine gas. The CDC puts it in one line: never mix bleach with ammonia or any other cleaner, and open windows and doors when you use it indoors.
A deep clean moves through a lot of products in one day, which is exactly when two of them end up on the same surface. Use one at a time and follow each label. If someone is exposed to a mixture and feels ill, the Department of Health's advice is to contact a health care provider or call 911.
This is general safety information drawn from the public health agencies linked above, not professional advice. The label on each product is the authority for that product.
Does the same checklist work for an apartment?
Yes. An apartment has the same rooms in less space, so the list does not change. The one exception is the end of a lease: the move-out cleaning checklist is the better guide then, because a move-out inspection looks inside the cabinets and behind the appliances, which a deep clean does not. CPC quotes apartments and student rentals per property rather than at a published price.
When is it worth having it done for you?
When the list above is more house than you have weekend. CPC's deep clean covers all seventeen tasks for a $300 base price on a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home, with every product and piece of equipment included. It is also the clean CPC recommends first for any home it has not cleaned before, because regular cleaning is maintenance: a faster, lighter pass that will not reach built-up grease, grout, or the dust sitting on vents and blinds.
Frequently asked questions
Seventeen tasks cover a full deep clean. In the kitchen: the stovetop and oven, the microwave inside and out, the range hood and vent, and cabinet exteriors. In every room: baseboards washed rather than dusted, ceiling fans, light fixtures, walls, doors, blinds, all surfaces, interior window glass, and the floors. Then the bathrooms, under the sofa cushions, the front and back door glass, and the beds.
Top to bottom. Clear the surfaces first, then do ceiling fans, light fixtures and blinds, then walls, doors and glass, then the kitchen and bathrooms, then surfaces and furniture, and finish with the baseboards and floors, so nothing you clean early collects dust from what you clean later.
Cabinet interiors, the refrigerator, the washer and dryer, and moving the stove and refrigerator to clean behind them belong to move-out cleaning, which is done in an empty home. Dishes are a separate $40 add-on, and organizing is a paid extra that changes the price.
No. The Washington State Department of Health warns that bleach mixed with ammonia gives off chloramine gases, and bleach mixed with an acid, including vinegar and toilet bowl cleaners, gives off chlorine gas. The CDC's rule is to never mix bleach with ammonia or any other cleaner.
Yes. An apartment has the same rooms in less space, so the list does not change. At the end of a lease the move-out checklist is the better guide, because a move-out inspection looks inside the cabinets and behind the appliances. CPC quotes apartments per property.