Moving Home
Move-In Cleaning in Berkshire & Surrey
The empty property cleaned room by room — inside every cupboard, drawer and wardrobe — in the gap between collecting the keys and the removal van arriving.
Berkshire EcoClean cleans homes across Berkshire and Surrey for the people moving into them: tenants who have collected the keys to a rented flat or house, buyers on completion day or the day after, and owners moving back in after a let. It is the same room-by-room specification and the same vetted teams as our end of tenancy cleaning, worked on an empty property — the one point in the life of a home when every cupboard, drawer, wardrobe and shelf can be cleaned inside before anything goes back into it.
If you are renting, the order matters more than the clean. The standard you will be asked to return the property to at the end of the tenancy is the condition recorded at check-in, so a property handed over dirty needs to be on the record as dirty before anyone cleans it. Shelter calls the inventory "the best way to prove the condition of a rented property when you move in", and its advice is direct: "You can ask for cleaning if the property is messy when you move in." It adds that you could ask for your money back if you have to pay for a professional cleaner, and suggests giving the landlord or agent enough time to arrange the cleaning first and keeping proof if they do not respond. Report it, photograph it, then book us.
If you are buying, the law asks less of the seller than most buyers assume. The seller's contractual duty is vacant possession — the property emptied of their belongings, including the garden, sheds and garages — while leaving it clean is, as Brachers Solicitors put it, "good manners and a courtesy". Most sellers manage it. Some leave the house empty but not clean, and the keys arrive when completion does, which the HomeOwners Alliance says can be "as early as 10am and as late as 4pm, depending on how long your chain is". A move-in clean is booked into that gap, or into the day after it.
The empty-property clean
- Kitchen — inside and outside every cupboard and drawer, worktops, splashbacks, cupboard tops and plinths, with the sink and taps descaled
- Bathrooms — toilets, basins, baths and showers cleaned and sanitised; tiles, grout, screens, taps and shower heads descaled
- Bedrooms — inside wardrobes, drawers, shelves and built-in storage, before your clothes go into them
- Every room dusted from the top down — light fittings, door tops, frames, skirting boards, switches, sockets, radiators and sills
- Internal glass and mirrors, with window frames, tracks and sills cleaned out
- Cobwebs, limescale and surface mould spotting on sealant and grout dealt with as part of the clean
- Floors vacuumed to the edges and hard floors mopped — the last job, once everything above them is done
Priced add-ons, and what we report
- Single or double oven, hob and extractor fan, priced per appliance at booking
- Fridge, freezer, washing machine and dishwasher cleaned inside where they stay with the property
- Carpet extraction per room — best done now, before any furniture goes down on it
- Additional bathrooms and en-suites
- Recurring mould, damp, pests and damage reported to you rather than cleaned over — for a landlord, a developer or your conveyancer to deal with
- Belongings and rubbish left behind are not cleaning — they need clearing before we start, not working around
How it works
Condition recorded first
Renting: make sure the check-in inventory describes the property as it really is, with your own dated photographs, and report anything wrong in writing. Buying: photograph it when you collect the keys. Then we clean.
Fixed price by property size
Priced from the same published End of Tenancy / General Cleaning list our booking form uses, with ovens, white goods, carpets and extra bathrooms as add-ons, so the estimate is shown before you commit.
Booked around the keys and the van
Give us the completion or tenancy start date, the earliest the keys are likely to be released and when the van is booked, and we plan the clean into the gap — or the day after if the gap is too tight.
Walked through while it is empty
A walk-through against the room-by-room checklist before we leave, ideally with you, so anything missed is put right while the rooms are still empty.
Who it's for
- Tenants who have collected the keys to a property that was not properly cleaned between tenancies, once the condition is on record
- Buyers on completion day, or the day after, when the seller has emptied the house but not cleaned it
- Households moving in with a baby, young children or pets, who want floors, cupboards and surfaces done before anyone settles in
- People relocating from further away who cannot be at the property before the van — access by key, code or key-safe
- Owners moving back into a property after it has been let
- New-build buyers dealing with the fine dust that keeps settling for days after the trades have left
Eco-friendly products, as standard
You are about to put food into these cupboards, clothes into these wardrobes and, often, a baby or a dog onto these floors — and an empty property shut up after a bleach-and-solvent clean holds the smell until the windows have been open for a day. Eco-friendly products and reusable colour-coded microfibre are standard on move-in cleans at no premium, and they reach the same room-by-room standard as our end of tenancy work. We make no chemical-free or non-toxic claims about them; if anyone in the household has a particular sensitivity, tell us when you book and we will talk through what we use.
How long it takes
A move-in clean runs to the same clock as an end of tenancy clean, because it is the same specification on an empty property: roughly 2–3 hours for a studio, 3–4 hours for a one-bed, 4–5 hours for a two-bed, 5–7 hours for a three-bed and 6–8 hours for a four-bed, longer where the property was left heavily soiled. A two-person team cuts the elapsed time rather than the work, which is what makes a same-day clean between the keys and the van realistic on a smaller property. Carpet extraction adds around 20–40 minutes per room and carpets need 2–6 hours to dry before furniture goes back on them — on a larger house with carpets, cleaning on completion day and moving in the next is usually the better plan.
Pricing
Move-in cleans are fixed-priced by property size from the same published End of Tenancy / General Cleaning list our booking form uses — choose the property type and any add-ons (ovens, white goods, carpets, extra bathrooms) and the estimate is shown before you commit to anything. All prices are subject to viewing and property condition, so a property left heavily soiled is confirmed on review rather than assumed. Request a quote or check availability online.
Where we provide move-in cleaning
We cover Berkshire and the adjoining Surrey borders. Each area below has its own page covering what cleaning in that town actually involves.
Also covering Newbury and Wokingham — see every area we cover.
Related services
End of Tenancy Cleaning
Expert move-out cleaning built around the inventory checklist letting agents actually use — so you get your deposit back.
ExploreDeep & Specialist Cleaning
Expert one-off deep cleans for spring refreshes, post-renovation dust and properties that need to be reset to a higher standard.
ExploreCarpet & Upholstery Cleaning
Expert hot-water extraction for carpets, sofas, rugs and mattresses — lifting deep soil and odour with low-toxicity products.
ExploreMove-In Cleaning — frequently asked questions
Ready for a cleaner, fresher space?
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