Deep Cleaning Between Tenants – Efficient Maintenance is Key

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If you own rental property, you probably decided to do so as an investment. This means that any time that your rental property sits vacant is a time when it’s not earning money for you. So it just makes plain old sense to ensure that your vacant rental property is as clean and tidy as possible so that you can attract the right sort of tenants to sign on the dotted line and live in that rental of yours.

If you had the right sort of tenant the last time, then they would have left the place perfectly tidy. If you’re really lucky, they hired a team of professional end of tenancy cleaners to get everything just right. If this is the case, there’s little or nothing that you need to do to clean in between tenants. However, not all tenants are as nice as this. Some leave the place – your investment property! – in a real mess. You definitely don’t want to leave your rental in bad condition after the sloppy tenants move out, at least if you want to attract decent tenants who will take care of the place. So what do you do?

Why A Clean Rental Home Is Important For Landlords

First impressions count. What the property looks like when a bunch of prospective tenants come in will give them an idea of what your standards are and how they are expected to take care of the place. Don’t fall into the trap of letting tenants move in or inspect the property before it’s as tidy as you’d like it to be. This will send out the message, “I don’t care what you do with this place – I just want my rent money.” This is not the message that you want to send. Sure, you want your rental to earn money, but you also ideally want long-term tenants who feel at home in the rental property and stay there (paying you!) for as long as possible. You probably won’t attract this type of tenant if they walk into a dump.

Good tenants of the sort you really want to be in a long-term professional relationship with are going to snap up a nice clean property if it feels like home – and they’ll do it quickly. To ensure that your property keeps on earning you money and doesn’t sit vacant for too long, the more quickly that you can get it clean, the better.

Time To Freshen Things Up?

You could do things the easy way with a minimum of hassle. This is simply a case of calling in a professional end of tenancy cleaning company (if the previous tenants haven’t done this already) to get the place up to standard, then getting ready to take the viewers through the house. However, you might want to take the chance between clients to freshen the place up a bit. After all, even though good tenants can call in the cleaning company (or do a fantastic job of doing their own cleaning), there’s nothing much they can do about peeling paint, curtains and other fabric that has been faded by the sun, threadbare carpets and shabby wallpaper. These are classic examples of wear and tear – and it’s your responsibility to deal with it, not theirs.

The space in between tenants is an ideal time for landlords not just to ensure that the place is properly clean but also to carry out any repairs and maintenance that need to be done. Here’s a list of things that it’s good to check (and deal with if you need to). Check these even if your tenants haven’t let you know about them (which they may have thought of as “complaining,” so don’t get too annoyed at them if they haven’t told you).

  • Dripping taps and leaky pipes
  • Clogged gutters
  • Loose roofing iron or tiles
  • Wonky doors and windows (including
  • Problems with damp

Even so, there’s a good chance that your rental property won’t need these maintenance jobs done. However, you might like to take a bit of time to check for wear and tear. After all, if a rental property looks a bit shabby (threadbare carpets, tatty curtains, etc.), then you aren’t likely to attract tenants who will stay there for a while and really feel at home. Let’s face it: if you live in a house that has peeling paint and tatty carpets, but you can’t replace them yourself, this serves as a reminder that “This is not your home,” and your tenants may not stay as long, as they’ll always be feeling less settled with these permanent reminders. This job might not be as terrible as you think – here are a few things that experienced landlords have found to be helpful:

  • If the curtains are still in good condition, you might want to get them professionally cleaned. However, if they’re well past their best, then you may want to replace them. Choose something in a neutral colour so that your tenants can add their temporary decorations as they choose.
  • If it’s time for a re-paint, either because the existing paint is getting a bit flaky and shabby (or because the previous tenants were hoodlums who added graffiti), then choose something that (a) doesn’t date easily, (b) is easy to match if you need to paint again in future and (c) is easy to clean. This usually means white, although other colours are possible.
  • If you didn’t ask the previous tenants to clean the carpets deep, get this done. This is usually best done by a professional company (it saves you time as well). If you are letting the place furnished, then don’t forget to get any upholstered furniture done at the same time. This helps remove any weird odours.
  • If you have to replace the carpets, then pick a colour and pattern that doesn’t show dirt very easily – this will save you and your tenants a lot of effort and hassle.
  • Touch up bathroom grout and tiles. Your previous tenant could or should have dealt with the worst of this, but it might be time to put in new tiles and/or grout.

Clean, Clean And Clean Again!

You will probably need to do something in the cleaning department even if your previous tenants were lovely and called in the professional end of tenancy cleaning company to do the job. This is because even if the place was in perfect condition, dust and spiders still happen, and you don’t really want the place to look neglected when the next batch of tenants come to inspect the property. In fact, it’s often best to give the place a quick tidy to remove this type of surface dirt before someone comes to have a look through.

Don’t forget to clean in odd places that your old tenants may have accidentally overlooked – and that you forgot to check during the inspection when they handed the keys back to you. Behind the heavy white goods (fridge, freezer, washing machine, dishwasher, etc.) is a very common place to be forgotten! Don’t forget to check inside any white goods – even if your previous tenants gave them a good clean before they left, these may start to smell a bit odd and even grow mould if they’re left unused in between tenants.

Of course, if you had not-quite-so-good tenants who left the place in a mess or even not quite as good as they should have (rubbish in the bins, odds and ends in the cupboards, etc.), then the place will need deep cleaning. This isn’t hard – just call in a good end of tenancy cleaning company and use some of the deposit money (which you will have been entitled to hold onto because of the bad cleaning) to cover the cost.