How to clean it
Why floors go last, always
The most common way to waste an afternoon is to mop before you dust.
Clean top to bottom and leave floors until everything else is done. Dust and grime fall while you work, so a floor cleaned early gets dirty again. Vacuum thoroughly, then mop, working out of the room toward the door.
Gravity does the sequencing for you
Light fixtures, then cabinets and worktops, then baseboards, then floors. Everything you disturb higher up lands lower down, so working downward means you only clean each surface once.
Vacuum properly first
Mopping over grit grinds it into the finish and leaves a film. Vacuum or sweep hard floors including the edges and under where furniture stood.
Mop out of the room
Start at the far corner and work backwards toward the door so you are not walking on what you have just done. Change the water when it turns grey, which will be sooner than you think.
Let it dry before the walk-through
A wet floor shows streaks and a landlord arriving mid-dry sees a smeared floor rather than a clean one.
Related
- Carpet: what you can fix and what you cannotWhere carpet is wear and tear, where it becomes a charge, and whether professional cleaning is worth paying for.
- Baseboards, door frames, and the sweep at eye levelSmall items that individually mean nothing and collectively decide whether a unit reads as professionally cleaned.
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