We clean inside every cabinet and closet

An empty house shows every missed spot

A house with no furniture in it hides nothing. The couch that covered a stretch of carpet is gone, and so is the dresser that blocked a baseboard. The next person walks in with the lights on and the blinds open. That makes a move in or move out clean a different job from a regular visit. There is nobody's life to clean around, so we do every surface, including the ones a stranger opens in their first hour in the house.

We work from the top of each room down. Ceiling corners and light fixtures come first, because anything knocked loose up there lands on the counters and floor. Next comes the inside of every cabinet and drawer, and after that the counters and appliances. Baseboards and floors go last in each room, and we finish at the front door so nobody walks across a clean floor. Flip that order and you mop twice, then still find dust on the kitchen floor the next morning.

Done right, you can open any kitchen cabinet and run a finger along the back of the shelf without picking anything up. The drawer tracks are free of crumbs, and the corner where the toaster sat no longer has a ring of grease on the backsplash. Closets get the top shelf and the floor along the back wall, which is where lint and hangers collect. A new tenant or buyer checks those spots first, usually while holding a box and deciding where things go.

• Inside every cabinet, drawer and closet shelf
• Oven and refrigerator cleaned inside and out
• Baseboards, doors and outlet covers wiped by hand
• Window tracks and sliding door grooves vacuumed
• Floors done last, finishing at the front door

Reno dust settles into every track

Reno sits in high desert, and the wind that picks up in the afternoons carries fine dust with it. In a lived-in house, rugs and furniture catch most of that dust. In an empty one it drifts into corners and settles along every edge. Window tracks and sliding glass door grooves fill with gray grit that a quick wipe only pushes around. We vacuum those tracks out first and wipe them after, because a wet cloth on dry grit just makes mud.

Dry air adds its own problem. With so little moisture around, dust sticks to blinds and ceiling fan blades and stays put. Nobody reaches those spots in a normal week, and in an empty room there is nothing else to pull the eye away from them. We wipe fan blades on both sides and do blinds one slat at a time, front and back. A fast pass with a duster leaves gray streaks that show the moment the afternoon sun comes through the window.

Water dries fast in air this dry, and the minerals in it stay behind as white spots on faucets and shower glass. A house that sat closed up between tenants also gets a ring in the toilet bowl at the water line. An all-purpose spray and a rag will not move either one. Scale needs a product made for it and time to soften before anyone scrubs. Then the scrubbing stays gentle, so the chrome and glass come out clear instead of scratched.

The type of house changes the work

Many of the ranch houses in central Reno and the older parts of Sparks have wood cabinets that have been cleaned around for decades. Years of cooking leave a tacky brown film on the doors closest to the stove. We take it off with a degreaser that is safe on painted and stained wood. We work in small sections so nothing runs into the hinges. These houses often have floor registers too, which we lift and vacuum out. Skip that, and the first time the furnace kicks on in the fall it blows dust across a clean room.

Newer stucco houses in Spanish Springs and the north end of Sparks are often painted inside with flat builder paint. It scuffs where furniture rubbed the wall, and it also shines up if someone scrubs too hard. A shiny patch on a flat wall looks worse in listing photos than the scuff did. So we test a small spot first and clean with light pressure. If a mark will not come off without damaging the paint, we leave it and tell you, so you can decide about touch-up paint.

Sun Valley and Lemmon Valley have many manufactured homes, and they need gentler cleaning in a few places. The cabinets are often pressed wood, which swells if water sits on it. We clean them with a damp cloth and dry them right after, never a soak. The wall panels have seams where dust lines up, and vinyl flooring shows every streak if too much cleaner goes down. A clean floor there comes from a well rinsed mop and less product than people expect.

The kitchen appliances take the longest

A refrigerator that sat unplugged with the door shut grows mold along the door seals and smells the moment it opens. We pull the shelves and drawers and wash them in the sink, then dry them before they go back in. The rubber seal gets cleaned inside its folds, where spilled juice dries into a sticky line. If you unplug the fridge before we arrive, leave the door propped open. That one step saves a lot of scrubbing and keeps the smell from settling into the plastic.

Ovens are slow work. Baked grease on the door glass and the oven floor needs a cleaner that sits long enough to soften it. Rushing that step means scraping, and scraping scratches. The racks come out and get scrubbed on their own. We skip the self-clean cycle in a house about to be handed over, because it fills empty rooms with smoke right before a walkthrough. The range hood filter gets degreased too, since a greasy filter drips onto the stovetop the first time someone new cooks.

The microwave and the dishwasher are where a rushed job shows. A buyer or a property manager on a walkthrough usually opens both. Splatter on the microwave ceiling and a slimy filter at the bottom of the dishwasher make a whole kitchen look unfinished, even when the counters shine. We steam the microwave with a bowl of water so the splatter wipes off without scraping. The dishwasher filter comes out and gets rinsed, and the door gasket and the edges of the door get wiped.

We clean before your boxes come in

Moving in is the only time the house is both empty and yours. Once the beds and boxes come in, the kitchen shelves and closet floors stay covered for years. We clean those first, along with the bathroom drawers and the medicine cabinet, so plates and towels go onto surfaces you know are clean. Book the clean a day or two before the truck, not the morning of. That way the floors are dry and nobody is working around movers.

Winter moves bring their own mess. After a snow, Reno roads get sanded, and every trip through the front door on moving day carries some of that grit onto the floors. Spring melt does the same thing with mud. So on a move out, the floors wait until the last load is gone, even if the kitchen and bathrooms are finished earlier. Clean the entry while movers are still carrying furniture out, and it has to be done again before anyone sees it.

Ask about the garage when you call, because it is the room people forget. Wind pushes dust under a garage door all year here, and cobwebs build up in the corners and along the opener track. We sweep it out and wipe down the shelves the last owner left behind. On the move in side, we also do decluttering and garage and closet organization. That helps when you want the closets set up before you start unpacking.