"Cleaning" gets sold as one word, but it covers at least six different jobs — and booking the wrong one is the most common reason people end up disappointed. A regular visit cannot do what a deep clean does, and a move-out clean is not a nicer regular visit. Here is how to tell which one your home actually needs.
1. Recurring Cleaning — When the House Is Already in Decent Shape
Recurring cleaning maintains a standard. It does not create one. Weekly, biweekly or monthly, the same two people come on the same day and follow the same order every time: kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, living areas, floors last.
Choose it when your home is reasonably clean now and you want it to stay that way without spending your evenings on it. Most homes settle on biweekly. Pets that shed, small children or heavy daily cooking usually mean weekly; a quiet two-person household often does fine monthly.
Recurring cleaning starts at $120 a visit. More about recurring cleaning.
2. Deep Cleaning — The Reset
A deep clean goes where a regular visit never does: inside the oven and fridge, inside cabinets and drawers, window interiors and tracks, baseboards, door frames, light fittings, fan blades and vent covers.
Choose it when it has been more than a couple of months since the house was properly cleaned, before starting a recurring schedule, before guests arrive, or once or twice a year as a seasonal reset. In almost every case, a first visit with a new cleaner should be a deep clean — otherwise the regular visits spend months catching up.
Deep cleaning is $249 for the first two hours, then $100 per hour. If you are not sure which of the two you need, we compared deep and regular cleaning in detail here.
3. Move-In and Move-Out — A Specific List
This is the one people most often underestimate. A move-out clean is judged by an inspection, and inspections check a predictable set of places: inside every cabinet and drawer, inside the oven including the glass between the door panes, inside and behind the fridge, skirting boards, switch plates — and above all, window and sliding door tracks, which are the single most common deposit deduction we see.
Choose it when you are leaving a rental, handing over a sold home, or moving into a place somebody else just left. Book it after the furniture is out, not before; a clean around boxes has to be done twice.
Move-in and move-out cleans start at the deep-clean rate, $249 for the first two hours. More about move-in and move-out cleaning.
4. Post-Construction — From Dust to Done
Renovation dust is not household dust. Drywall and concrete fines are far finer and slightly abrasive: they stay airborne long after ordinary dust has settled, they scratch glass and polished surfaces if they are wiped dry, and they load a vacuum filter several times faster than normal.
Choose it when the contractors have finished and the house needs to become livable again. It gets lifted with damp microfibre and proper vacuuming rather than pushed around, and it usually takes more than one pass as the last of the dust settles out of the air.
Post-construction cleans vary too much to price off a table, so we quote them after seeing the space.
5. Apartments and Real Estate — Rentals and Listings
Smaller homes are not quicker homes, because everything shows. And a home going on the market has a different goal from one being lived in: it needs to photograph well and survive a walkthrough by strangers looking for faults.
Choose it when you are preparing a listing for photographs, turning over a long-term rental between tenants, or you simply live in an apartment and want it quoted fairly. A one or two bedroom apartment is usually less than our house starting price, and we quote what it actually takes.
6. Short-Term Rental Turnovers — On the Clock
Guests out at ten, guests in at four. Turnover work is run off a fixed checklist rather than a walkthrough, because the only way to be both fast and complete is to do it identically every time: beds stripped and remade from your linen stock, bathrooms fully reset, the kitchen emptied and checked, consumables restocked, photographs of every room when we finish, and a message to you straight away if something is damaged or missing.
Choose it when you host on Airbnb or another platform and need the place guest-ready between stays. Turnovers are $200 for the first two hours, then $100 per hour. More about rental turnovers.
Still Not Sure?
Tell us what the place looks like now and what you want it to look like, and we will tell you honestly which service fits — including when a cheaper one is enough. You get the price before we start, nothing is charged when you book, and you pay once the work is done.
SparkleIt is family-owned and has served Orange County since 2006. Licensed #156895, bonded and insured. Book online or call 657-557-0093.
