We photograph every room we clean

Every rental cleaning follows the same order

Cleaning a rental between guests has a hard deadline, the next check-in. We do the work in the same order every time. Trash and anything the last guest left behind come out first. Then we work from the top down, from the ceiling fans to door knobs and counters. Floors go last, and we mop our way out of each room. Clean in any other order and dust from a fan lands on a counter you already wiped.

Guests judge a rental by the small things they find once they are alone in it. A hair on the shower wall or crumbs in a kitchen drawer will show up in a review, and bookings depend on reviews. So we clean inside the kitchen cabinets and inside the oven. The microwave gets opened and wiped too, because it is often the first thing a guest uses. In the bathroom we scrub the tub and shower walls down to the grout, since that is where people look closely.

An owner is often not in the unit when we finish, so we take a photo after each room. A customer said it on Google in plain words: "After cleaning each room they take a photo and send them all to you." For a rental, those photos do two jobs. You can see the place is ready before the next guest walks in. You also have a record of how the unit looked if a guest later reports a problem.

• Kitchen cabinets, oven and microwave cleaned inside
• Bathrooms scrubbed down to the grout
• Ceiling fans and door knobs wiped down
• Rugs vacuumed and hard floors mopped
• A photo of each room when finished

Humid summers cause mildew in empty rentals

Summers in Hampton Roads are hot and damp, and a rental that sits closed between bookings holds that moisture. If the thermostat is set high to save power, the air inside stays damp for days. Mildew starts in the caulk around the tub and on window sills where water collects overnight. A guest smells it the moment the door opens. We clean those spots between every stay. A spot that keeps coming back usually means the unit needs more air moving through it.

Near the water, sand is the bigger problem. Rentals by the bay in Ocean View and along the Virginia Beach oceanfront get sand in the sliding door tracks and under the beds. If you mop before the sand is picked up, you drag it across the floor. On vinyl plank or tile, that leaves fine scratches over a season. So every floor gets vacuumed first and mopped second. Salt spray also leaves a haze on the glass that shows when the afternoon sun hits it. We clean windows inside and out to take it off.

Spring brings a different mess. Pine pollen coats the whole region in yellow dust for a few weeks, and it comes into a rental on shoes and through window screens. It settles on ceiling fan blades and window sills, and the humidity makes it stick. Wiping it with a dry cloth just moves it around the room. We wipe with a damp cloth and rinse it often, and the fans get done before anything under them.

Older Norfolk houses need gentler cleaning

A lot of Norfolk rentals are older houses. Some are brick ranches from the middle of the last century, and some are frame houses in neighborhoods like Ghent that were split into apartments. Many still have their original oak strip floors. Those boards have small gaps between them, and a soaking wet mop pushes water into the gaps. The wood swells and the finish lifts at the edges. We clean those floors with a damp mop and dry any standing water right away.

Rental walls pick up scuffs from suitcases and furniture, and washing walls is one of the jobs we do. Many landlords use flat paint because it hides patches, but flat paint can rub off when it is scrubbed. Rub a scuff too hard and you leave a shiny or pale spot that looks worse than the mark did. So we test a hidden corner first. When we wash a whole wall, we start at the bottom, because dirty water running down a dry wall leaves streaks.

Brick garden apartments are common around Norfolk, and many have small kitchens with the cabinets right next to the stove. Cooking grease settles on those cabinet doors as a thin film you can barely see. Dust sticks to it, and after a few tenants it turns into a brown, tacky layer. Wiping it with a wet rag just spreads it around. We take the grease off first, then wipe the doors clean, then dry them so the wood is not left damp.

We clean for landlords and property managers

Long term rentals need cleaning between tenants too. A landlord needs something different from a tenant who is cleaning to get a deposit back. The unit has to be ready for listing photos and showings. We clean it top to bottom, including inside the cabinets and the oven. The room photos give you a record for the move-in inspection. In Norfolk, a lot of rentals change tenants when a Navy family gets orders to move. The dates are often set by someone else.

Property managers need the same standard in every unit, whether it is one house or a whole building. “We use Maid it on all of our multifamily and residential cleans,” wrote a real estate professional who hires us on Google. “As a local realtor I’ve worked with many cleaning companies and they definitely set the bar high,” wrote a local realtor. When you manage a lot of units, you want to stop checking behind the cleaner. The photos let you do that from your desk.

Most rental cleanings happen with nobody home, so we follow your instructions for getting in and locking up. One customer had to leave partway through their first cleaning. They wrote: "When I had to leave early they locked everything up and let the dog in as well!" We work Monday to Sunday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. That matters for vacation rentals, because weekly beach rentals often switch guests on a Saturday or a Sunday.