Did you clean your old house before you moved out?

When we moved from a flat to a house, I was working full time & had 2 young children. After putting the children to bed, I made sure everthing would be spotless for the next occupant.
When we arrived at the next house it was filthy, I sat down cried.
So again, when the children were in bed I had to start cleaning again.
I was exhausted.

Only moved once but it was left spotless.Sent apologies as couldn't get lounge carpet cleaned within time frame.In fact I was washing the garage(integral)floor when new owners called.
Left card,bottle wine and boxed file of instruction leaflets,diagrams,receipts,previous plans and anything regarding house, garden fixtures and fittings.
Moved into smaller property where the elderly owners had employed a cleaner to do the same.
Also delivered card and flowers to their sheltered housing home.
A very smooth uncomplicated move maybe different had the new property needed a deep clean.

We moved into rented the day before my father’s funeral. The previous tenants had free flying birds and there was bird poo everywhere and the kitchen was thick with grease. I sat down and cried. We’ve always had professional cleaners in each rented property we’ve left.

Hetty58 your new house sounds just like this one. And there are assorted cables hanging out of the walls that we have no idea what they are for. The previous owner apparently ran a microbrewery from the shed - I wouldn't have fancied drinking any of his product having seen the state of his workplace!

Yes, I’ve always cleaned thoroughly before moving, even once when the children were young I resorted to paying a company to come in and do it for us as it was all too much.
When young and moving out of our first house we did commit a major error though - my husband (who was the world’s worst at DIY) took out the washing machine on the morning we were moving without switching off the water first, and flooded the kitchen. The people moving in were sat on the drive waiting while I frantically mopped the water out of the door.

We left ours spotless. Moved in to a filthy bungalow. Removal man said ‘don’t go in there until I’ve hovered for you’! We immediately cleaned /scrubbed loos/sinks/bedroom for that night and then set to the next day. Oven cleaner spent all day on the filthy range cooker the next day.
Within the week we’d also painted several walls - washing didn’t help much. Bought from 40 yr olds - We know it was filthy when viewed. Guess some people don’t do cleaning

Always! in fact a deep clean. Oven cleaner came in just prior to completion. When we moved into our last house, having left our previous home immaculate, once in this house, we discovered it had only received a cursory clean and there was broken glass in the garage. We were later to discover, some discarded rubbish in the loft as well.

I cried when I moved house many years ago. We left a modern house which I had cleaned thoroughly.
Our ‘new ‘ house was an old Victorian place with loads of potential. It was filthy. We threw out the oven/cooker immediately and spent a year living in it , cleaning, before we started building work.
The lady who we bought from was a friend of a friend who we had socialised with.‘Awkward! She wasn’t elderly and only had one son living with her.

When I’ve moved I made sure the house was clean. Just moved in to a house that was ‘clean ‘ but some things weren’t. A few kitchen cupboards had remnants of food in and the oven wasn’t too good.
I also left a rental property that I had to clean before I moved in as it was grubby, and professionally cleaned when I left. Still battling some two months later to get my full deposit back as on the check out inventory there was one cobweb and one item if debris/dirt.

My DH had decorated throughout when we put our last home up for sale, it sold quickly, so hope it still looked great!

I certainly made sure everywhere was very clean as we sold to local people. Didn’t want everyone saying “ You should have seen what a state Calendargirl left her house in!”.

Reading through the comments about dirty net curtains etc in the new home, was this not noted when you viewed the property? It would have made me wonder how clean it was.

I realise if it was a rental, this might not be the same scenario.

When I've moved I've paid a cleaning company to come and do a move out clean in the old home. I've also paid them to do a move in clean in the new home. Both when it is empty.

tidyskatemum, same here! I made sure everything was squeaky clean. The new owners even sent a note to thank me for their stress-free arrival, saying it just wasn't like moving at all. Maybe us house proud cleaners are in the minority?

We arrived here and, oh dear - ingrained dirt everywhere, things had never had a proper clean. We lived out of boxes for ages, as we couldn't put anything away until the cupboards were washed out. Dust (and sticky dirt) was thick on every skirting board, door top and curtain rail - even the light bulbs were smothered!

I have always cleaned my rented flats before I moved out, and left them as I would want to find the one I moved into.

I cleaned each room as the removers took everything out. I would have hated the new owners to come into a dirty house. Mind you over did it and was exhausted.

My bungalow was clean when I got the keys pity they left the mice and didn't warn me about them. So first job was get pest control in. Soon got rid off them . But since moving 2 years had a Squirrel in the loft and a mouse. Roofers made the roof rodent proof. Had to have pest control in but soon sorted. I have 4 large electronic pest controllers going 24/7. All outer doors have to be firmly shut as now paranoid about mice.

Blocked every hole I could find in the garden . Unfortunately the little pests can climb. But no sign of any . Other gardens with bird feeders are easy pickings.

My house was clean too...

Most certainly I would leave it the way I would expect to find it immaculate.

We lived in military quarters for years where you had a “March-out” inspection.
Every wife I’ve ever known has left her house “absolutely spotless” to march-in to a house “absolutely filthy”.
I’ve seen a house pass inspection at noon then a new family arrive a 1. Next day my new neighbour complained the house was, as ever, “filthy”. God alone knows what was supposed to have happened in an empty house in an hour.
I think moving is traumatic and this is one way we find to cope.

When we sold our second house I went through it cleaning all the cupboards and shelves as we moved stuff out. I was very miffed when I found out that the new owner had been telling the neighbours how dirty it was! It was pouring with rain the day we moved so there will have been wet footprints on the carpet as we kept walking in and out, but the new owner had already said that she hated the carpet and would be replacing it at once.

I left my previous house in an immaculate condition; the new owner actually complimented me on it. But the house I bought and currently live in, was thick with grease, dust and grime. Net curtains were at every window and when I took them down they were so filthy and greasy that they stuck to my fingers. The first time I used the bath I noticed that the water was very slow to run away and found years of scum and hair clogged in the plughole. I found dusty old random tights and socks stuck down behind the radiators, obviously having been put on there to dry and long forgotten. When I was having the kitchen replaced, we found a hole had been knocked out of a wall behind a cupboard and an old bath towel had been scrunched up and bunged in to stop the draught. The whole house was minging. Cost me £££££s to put right.

What gets me is, I KNOW I'm' not the tidiest or cleanest. And I assume most people are cleaner than me. But the tenants who rented my house disproved that theory!

Like amberone I was a military wife and excelled at the March Out Inspection. Every one of my moves was approached with that mindset, but oh dear me - some of the houses I moved into subsequently weren’t fit for a dog!

We had a temporary move to a rented house in Cambridge for two years and so we rented out our home in Manchester to a young couple with a family; he was an accountant and his wife was a trainee vicar. When they left the state of the house was indescribable. It was not just filthy - and I mean ingrained dirt, but the walls had been graffitied, there were holes in the walls, the ‘stainless’ steel kitchen sink was stained a deep dark brown colour. In fact when I sent an estate agent round to value the house and he told me what state it was in he also told me it was unsaleable in its present condition, unless it was sold to someone who would take it on as a project. ?

I cleaned it myself as best I could and sent flowers to the lady who bought it (as a renovation project).

Not quite the same but we once left a nice German family to stay in our house while we were away for about 2 weeks. They were related to some friends in our town and we had pets for them to feed and a large garden but apart from feeding the animals we did not expect to come home to such a spotless house!

I felt ashamed as I was told that the woman had scrubbed and sorted for most of her holiday.
A funny thing was: she cleaned the cupboards under the sink and every thing she found she put in a tupperware box and labelled the outside so there were random things such as tomato feed, a clothes peg, silver polish, a toy soldier all together in a box.

But yes I hope when I left a house for good, I left it clean

Most of the places I've lived have been very clean when I left/moved in. My current home was a renovation project, so it was understandable that it wasn't.

However, I rented it out when I went overseas to work twice. BOTH sets of tenants didn't clean it when leaving. This surprised me, because when I was a tenant years ago, my rental properties ALWAYS had an end of tenancy check before the deposit was returned. It seems with the new Deposit Scheme, tenants don't get held to the same standard because the landlord can't hold back their deposit.

When I returned to my house last time, the white hall/stairs/landing floors were grey. I assumed the paint had discoloured and needed redoing. Nope. It was dirt. I don't think it had EVER been washed. Two of the bedrooms were thick with dust and a leak behind the bath had not been reported (didn't want workmen in, to witness their filth, is my assumption), resulting in over £2,000 worth of new floorboards/ceiling/plastering.

Many years ago we rented a house for a few months between selling one house and buying another, during which time there were a few breakages, but because the house had been left, in the words of the agent 'in better condition than we found it' there was no deduction from our deposit. And if we ever wanted to rent again they would be delighted to help us.

I had put the back garden in order and taken the cooker apart and throughly cleaned it and DH restored a table top and sorted out some minor electrical problems.

That was before the great renting revolution with its high standards and hundreds of properties competing to be let.

I was really lucky to have two days to clean the rental I was leaving when I moved into my bungalow, but I did forget to clean the tops of the open radiators which had 'some animal hair/debris'! I received a close up photo of something that looked a bit like a yeti - I'd never had open radiators before, too modern for me! Nice landlord didn't deduct from my deposit, fortunately.