Your Sublet Cleaning Checklist

By Christine Ascher on August 15, 2017

When you’re moving out of your apartment to let your subtenants take over, it’s easy to get so caught up in the actual packing and moving process that you forget one very important task: cleaning. Even if your apartment is relatively tidy, you’ll want to go through and complete a more thorough cleaning once you have everything moved out.

Remember that the better the condition you leave your apartment in, the more motivated and responsible your subtenants will (hopefully) feel to take good care of it — and the more likely they’ll be to clean it up for you before you move back in. To ensure that this happens, try to complete the following tasks.

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Wipe down all of your furniture

Furniture tends to gather a lot of dust, especially on the tops of dressers where students often leave items lying around for long periods of time. Even just using wet paper towels to wipe down all of your furniture will help clear off the dust and make everything look like new.

In the kitchen, you should make sure to wipe down your kitchen tables and counters. Since you’re more likely to have stains and crumbs in here, this is especially important. Use cleaning wipes to be more thorough, as these will disinfect as well as clean the surface.

Clean the shower drain

Especially if you have long hair, shower drains tend to get a lot of buildup throughout the semester and you might find by the time that you move out that the water in your shower isn’t draining as quickly as it should. No subtenant wants to move into an apartment to find that they’re showering in standing water, so use some drain cleaner to ensure that this isn’t the case. It’s a relatively easy fix, and it will go a long way in ensuring that your subtenants are happy with the apartment.

Clean your appliances

While you may become immune to the mess inside your microwave once you’ve lived with it for several months, your subtenants will not be. All of your appliances should be cleaned both on the outside and on the inside before you leave, so your subtenants don’t have to do your dirty work.

Microwaves tend to get food splattered on the sides, ovens might have crumbs burning at the bottom, and even refrigerators can be subject to spills, so wipe everything down accordingly.

Wipe down mirrors

Use glass cleaner to wipe down all of the mirrors in your apartment so they don’t look dirty and smudged. Make sure you use the right type of cleaner as if you just use water you might leave streaks on the mirror — which won’t necessarily be any better than the smudges that were there before.

While this isn’t the most important cleaning task to be completed — you’ll want to make sure the floors and furniture are clean above all else — it will definitely help your subtenants feel like they’re moving into a new apartment and one that has been well taken care of.

Vacuum the carpet

Once you’ve moved everything out of your apartment, go over the carpets with a vacuum one last time. It’s important that you do this as your last step, as if you’re still moving out boxes and furniture after you vacuum, your carpets will quickly get dirty again. Make sure you’re vacuuming in places that typically are missed, such as the corners of rooms and under your bed.

If there are any stains left over, use some stain remover to get rid of them. Your subtenants won’t want to feel like they’re moving into someone else’s dirty or worn-out apartment, so try to get it as close to it looking like new as you can.

Sweep or mop tile floors

For tile floors, use a broom to clean up any crumbs, and then mop them up to give them a deeper clean. Tile tends to accumulate a lot of dirt and dust without us even realizing, so this will definitely be a necessary task when you’re moving out.

Especially in the kitchen, where spills from food can dry and harden on the floor over time, you’ll want to be thorough. If you leave stains now, the floors will probably accumulate more and it will be even harder to clean them up when you move back in.

Clean under the furniture

When you’re cleaning, don’t forget the hard-to-reach spots like under your furniture. If you can, move the furniture out of the way so you can vacuum underneath, and clean up anything that has fallen and been forgotten.

Though your subtenants probably won’t notice the state of the carpets under your couch unless they decide to rearrange the furniture themselves, if you leave crumbs sitting under there you might end up inadvertently leaving behind a bug problem for them to deal with. Since that’s also something that you would be coming back to, make sure you clean every space for your own sake as well.

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