We clean inside every cabinet and closet

Cabinets and closets get cleaned first

A move in or move out cleaning happens in an empty house, and that changes the order of the work. We open every kitchen and bathroom cabinet first and pull each drawer out. Shelves, drawer bottoms, hinges and handles all get wiped, including the sticky ring a cooking oil bottle leaves behind. Closets come next, from the top shelf down to the hanging rod. Bathrooms follow. The floors are always last, so anything we knock loose up high lands on a floor we have not cleaned yet.

When the job is finished, an empty kitchen looks like nobody has cooked in it. The refrigerator is clean and dry inside, drawers included, and the oven floor has no black crust left on it. You can run a hand along a closet shelf and come away clean. Baseboards matter more in an empty room than a furnished one, because nothing hides them. The strip of floor where a couch or a dresser sat for years is usually the dirtiest spot in the house. It gets the same work as the middle of the room.

The step people skip is the inside of things. A crew that only wipes surfaces leaves shiny counters over drawers full of crumbs. Drawers are the first thing a new tenant opens. Landlords look in the same places on a walkthrough, starting with the oven and the cabinet under the bathroom sink. Casondra Neff wrote this after we cleaned her home: "My home feels like I just moved in." A move in cleaning should leave you with exactly that feeling.

• Inside every cabinet and drawer, kitchen and bath
• Closet shelves and hanging rods wiped down
• Refrigerator and oven cleaned inside
• Grout and caulk scrubbed in every bathroom
• Baseboards and floors where the furniture sat

Closed-up Florida houses grow mildew fast

An empty house in Plant City often sits closed up between owners or tenants. The power might be on, but the thermostat gets set high or the air conditioning gets shut off to save money. Humidity here stays high most of the year, and without the AC pulling moisture out, it settles into the house. Closets and cabinets are the worst of it, because no air moves through them. Open a hall closet after a few weeks and it smells musty before you see anything.

Mildew shows up first where water sits. In a bathroom that means the grout and the caulk line around the tub. In a kitchen it is the rubber seal on the refrigerator door. Sliding doors and windows collect condensation in their tracks, and the black film there comes back if it only gets wiped over. We scrub those spots and dry them. A fridge that was unplugged with the door shut gets cleaned out and left with the door cracked open so it can air out.

Bugs are the next thing an empty house here collects. Roaches move into dark cabinets once the food is gone, and they leave droppings in drawer corners and along the backs of shelves. We reach in and wipe that out by hand. Then there is sand. Soil around Plant City is sandy, and movers track it in all day while the doors stand open. It packs into window tracks and the corners of the floor, where a quick vacuum pass leaves most of it behind.

The type of house changes the work

A lot of the older homes in Plant City and Brandon are concrete block ranch houses on a slab. Some still have their original terrazzo floors, and some have jalousie windows, the glass slats that crank open. Jalousies are slow work, because each slat has to be wiped on both sides and the frames hold years of dust. Terrazzo gets a mild cleaner and never vinegar or anything acidic, because acid eats at the stone chips and dulls the floor.

Wood frame houses near downtown Plant City are a different job. Painted trim and tall baseboards hold dust in the ridges of old paint, and they need a damp cloth instead of a soaking. Wood floors get the same care, because standing water raises the grain. Subdivision homes in Valrico and Bloomingdale tend to be stucco over block, often with painted cabinets that show every grease mark. Their pantries and walk-in closets add up to more shelving than most people expect, and every shelf gets wiped.

Past the Plant City limits there are plenty of manufactured homes and houses on a well. Many manufactured homes have vinyl-covered wall panels, so we use a damp cloth and never scrub at the seams where the covering can lift. Homes on a well often show orange or brown stains in the tub and toilet from iron in the water. That stain is mineral, and it needs a cleaner made for rust. An ordinary bathroom spray barely touches it, which is why a lot of move out bathrooms still look dirty after someone cleaned them.

The movers go first, then we clean

For a move out, the cleaning works best once the house is completely empty. Boxes block the baseboards and closet floors, and movers carrying furniture out track sand across anything we finish early. So the move comes first and the cleaning comes after. Leave the power and the water on until we are done. We need water for the bathrooms and the kitchen, and lights to see into the back of a closet.

Moving in means cleaning up after whoever lived there before you. A house that looked fine at the showing can still have grease on the range hood and hair in the bathroom drawers. Old shelf liner is common too, and it is usually stuck down over whatever spilled under it. If you want the old liner gone, we pull it up and clean the shelf underneath before your dishes go in. This is far easier with nothing in the house. Once you unpack, the inside of those cabinets will not get a real cleaning again for a long time.

Sellers can book this cleaning for after the moving truck leaves, so the buyer walks into a clean house. Renters can book it for the days before they hand back the keys. Apartments get the same list as houses. Christine Raffoul had us clean her apartment and wrote: "My apartment is absolutely spotless!" Call (727) 334-7841, Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Tell us the move date and the size of the place.