Guide

How to Prepare Your Home for a Cleaning Service

Practical 10 minute prep that makes a professional house cleaning faster, more thorough, and a better experience for everyone.

By MaidCalm Team 4 min read

Cleaners do the cleaning. You do the clearing. A professional clean is dramatically faster, more thorough, and produces a better result on a home that has been prepped for ten minutes than on one that has not.

This is the prep MaidCalm cleaners wish every client did before a visit. None of it is mandatory; all of it is appreciated.

Surfaces

The single highest leverage prep is clearing surfaces. Wiping a counter is one task. Picking up 11 items first, wiping a counter, then putting 11 items back is six tasks.

  • Kitchen counters: relocate the spice rack, mail pile, and the random fruit bowl to the dining table during the visit
  • Bathroom counters: into the drawers temporarily, even just a clean sweep
  • Bedroom dressers: into a basket or top drawer
  • Coffee table and end tables: clear of the magazine, remote, charging cables tangle
  • Nightstands: clear of the water glass, book, glasses, charger, vitamins

Returning everything afterward takes five minutes. The clean is meaningfully more thorough.

Floors

If you can pre clear the floors of laundry baskets, kid clutter, dog toys, the laundry pile in the bedroom corner, the gym bag in the entryway, you give the cleaner an unobstructed run with the vacuum.

We will not move large furniture. We will move:

  • Small floor lamps
  • Trash cans
  • Dining chairs
  • Throw rugs (to vacuum under)
  • Cat trees (gently)

We will not move:

  • Couches, beds, dressers, large bookcases
  • Anything fragile or with delicate feet
  • Anything we cannot reset to its exact spot

For a deep clean if you want under bed and under couch coverage, move the furniture before our arrival or note it as “okay to move” in your booking notes.

Pets

  • Tell us about every pet at booking
  • Decide where they will be during the clean (free range, sequestered, daycare)
  • Refresh their water before we arrive (the vacuum can stress sensitive pets)
  • If your dog is reactive, plan to have them out of the home for the visit

Special items

  • Antiques and heirlooms. Tell us. We will dust around fragile items rather than handling them, or skip them if you prefer.
  • Active art projects, puzzles, model trains, dollhouses. Note any “do not touch” items in your booking. We will work around them.
  • Plants. Let us know if you have plants you do not want watered or moved.
  • Religious items. Note in the booking. We treat with respect by default; specific instructions help.

Linens

If you want sheets changed during the visit, leave the fresh set on the bed. We will strip the dirty set, remake with the fresh, and start the dirty set in the wash if you want laundry as an add on.

Without a fresh set out, we will tidy the bed (smooth, fluff, reset), but we will not strip the linens.

Air, lights, comfort

  • Turn on the lights before you leave or set a smart bulb routine. Cleaning a dim corner is hard.
  • Turn the AC to a cleaner friendly temperature. Cleaning is physical work; 75 indoors is humane.
  • Crack a window if your home is sealed up tight; ventilation helps with the cleaner products.

Communicate priorities

If your home has a focus area (the kitchen has been hammered after a dinner party, the playroom is the worst it has ever been, the master bath needs the most attention), tell us at booking or leave a note for the cleaner. We work to a checklist, but priority is real and a heads up helps us spend the right time on the right rooms.

Things you do not need to do

  • You do not need to clean before the cleaner arrives. The whole point is that we clean.
  • You do not need to apologize for the state of the home. Professional cleaners have seen all of it. There is no judgment.
  • You do not need to provide supplies. We bring everything.
  • You do not need to be home. See Do I Need to Be Home for the Cleaning?.
  • You do not need to provide a meal or coffee, although coffee is always welcome.

A reasonable 10 minute prep, in order

If you only have ten minutes:

  1. Clear kitchen and bathroom counters into a basket or drawer
  2. Move floor obstacles to surfaces
  3. Quick tour to put away anything fragile or “do not touch”
  4. Strip beds if you want a linen swap, fresh sheets on top of the bed
  5. Set the thermostat humanely, lights on, pets settled
  6. Note any priorities for the cleaner

You are ready. We take it from here.

Booking

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