End of lease carpet cleaning and the rules
Carpets are where the rules matter most. In New South Wales, a lease can only make you pay for a professional carpet clean at the end if you were allowed a pet inside and the clean suits that pet. In Queensland, a pet condition can ask for the carpets to be professionally cleaned when you leave if the pet was allowed inside, but an owner cannot send you to a particular carpet cleaner.
In the ACT, you can only be asked for a professional carpet clean if your lease says so and the landlord can show it was done at the start. Where no rule or lawful clause applies, a thorough vacuum and spot clean may be enough, so check your lease and your entry condition report first.
Oven cleaning at the end of a lease
The oven, grill, trays and rangehood filter are the things an agent flags most often. A proper oven clean takes time: the racks and trays come out to soak, and the door glass is cleaned on both sides where the door is built to come apart. Add it in the form, so the business allows for it.
Inside window cleaning when you move out
Inside windows usually means the glass, frames, sills and tracks on the inside of the place. Outside glass above the ground floor is a different job that needs ladders or poles, so ask before you assume it is part of the clean.
Details about your carpets to give the business
- Which extras you want: the oven, inside windows, carpet steam, walls.
- Roughly how many rooms are carpeted, and any marks you already know about.
- Whether a pet lived inside, because that can change what your lease asks of the carpets.
- Where they can reach water and power on the day, so the carpet machine can run.
Carpet, oven and window jobs you can do first
Worth doing yourself
- Vacuum the carpets well and clear everything off the floor.
- Soak the oven racks in the laundry tub the night before, if you are doing the oven yourself.
- Brush the dust out of window tracks before anything wet goes in.
Where a cleaning business earns its keep
- Steam cleaning carpets with a machine that draws the water back out.
- Cleaning between the panes of oven door glass.
- Glass, frames and tracks across a whole place in one visit.
Which end of lease extras we'd add
Read your lease and entry condition report first. Add the carpet steam clean if your lease lawfully asks for it or there are marks that were not there when you moved in, add the oven almost every time, and add inside windows if the glass is marked.