Cleaning checklist templates: standard, deep, move out and Airbnb

A checklist is not a marketing document. It is the thing that makes a new cleaner produce the same result as your best cleaner on their fourth day, and the thing you point at when a client says the kitchen was not done.

The four below are written out in full so you can lift them. Change the wording to match how you work, then hold everyone to it.

Two rules before the lists. Clean top to bottom, because dust falls, and floors are always last. Move around a room in one direction, so nothing gets skipped when the crew is tired or interrupted.

Standard clean, also called a maintenance clean

This is the recurring visit on a home that is already in decent condition. It should take a trained cleaner roughly 2 to 4 hours depending on size.

Every room

• Dust ceiling fan blades and light fixtures within reach
• Dust and wipe window sills and ledges
• Dust picture frames, shelves, and the tops of furniture
• Wipe light switches, door handles and door frames
• Spot clean fingerprints from doors and walls
• Empty bins and replace liners
• Vacuum upholstery when visibly needed
• Vacuum or sweep, then mop hard floors

Kitchen

• Wipe cabinet fronts, handles and the underside edges
• Clean the outside of all appliances, including the top of the fridge
• Wipe inside the microwave
• Clean the cooktop and the front of the oven glass
• Degrease the backsplash and the wall behind the cooktop
• Clear, wipe and dry all counters, moving small appliances rather than cleaning around them
• Scrub the sink and polish the faucet
• Wipe the outside of the dishwasher, and run it if the client has asked for that
• Take rubbish and recycling out

Bathrooms

• Clean and disinfect the toilet, including the base, the back and the hinges
• Scrub the shower or tub, walls and door tracks
• Descale the shower head and faucets
• Clean the sink, counter and the front of vanity drawers
• Clean the mirror to no streaks
• Wipe the exhaust fan cover
• Fold or replace towels as the client prefers
• Empty the bin
• Mop the floor, edges included

Bedrooms

• Make the bed, or change linens if the client leaves them out
• Dust the headboard, nightstands, dresser and lamps
• Straighten what is on surfaces rather than reorganizing it
• Vacuum under the bed where the vacuum reaches

Finish

• Walk the home from the far end back to the door, looking at it from standing height
• Check that all lights are off and doors that were locked are locked
• Leave the card or note if the company does that
• Send the photos and mark the visit complete before leaving the driveway

Deep clean

Everything in the standard clean, plus the accumulated work. This is the first visit for a new client, or a once or twice a year reset for a recurring one. Budget 1.5 to 2 times the standard clean time.

Kitchen

• Inside the oven, including racks and glass
• Inside and behind the fridge if it can be moved safely
• Inside cabinets and drawers where the client has emptied them
• Degrease the range hood, including the filter
• Clean the top of cabinets and the crown molding above them
• Descale the sink drain and the garbage disposal
• Wipe the toe kicks under the cabinets

Bathrooms

• Remove hard water scale from glass, tiles and fixtures
• Scrub grout lines
• Clean the tracks of shower doors thoroughly
• Wipe inside vanity drawers where emptied
• Clean and disinfect behind the toilet and the bolts at the base

Whole home

• Hand wipe baseboards, not just a vacuum pass
• Clean door frames, the tops of doors and the top edges of trim
• Dust and wipe blinds slat by slat, or wipe curtain hems
• Clean interior window glass and sills
• Wipe switch plates, vents and register covers
• Dust ceiling corners for webs
• Vacuum edges and corners with the crevice tool
• Move light furniture and vacuum under it
• Clean stair rails and spindles

Move out clean

An empty home is a different job. The inside of everything is now in scope, and there is usually a deposit or a closing date attached, which means the standard is higher than the client's normal expectation.

• Every cabinet and drawer, inside, outside, top and underside
• Inside all closets, including shelving and rods
• Inside the oven, fridge, freezer, dishwasher and microwave
• Behind and under all remaining appliances
• All baseboards by hand
• All doors, both faces, plus the tops and frames
• All interior window glass, sills and tracks
• All light fixtures, including removing and washing glass covers where safe
• All vents and return covers
• Spot clean walls for scuffs and marks, with a note to the client that some marks need paint rather than cleaning
• Bathrooms taken back to scale free glass and clean grout
• Laundry area including the interior of the dryer lint trap housing
• Garage swept, cobwebs removed
• Patio or balcony swept
• Floors vacuumed and mopped last, working out of the front door

Two things to write into the quote for move out work. Say what is excluded: exterior windows, walls that need paint, carpet shampooing, and anything requiring a ladder above a set height. And put the hourly rate and the cap in writing, because an empty home's condition is impossible to judge from a phone call.

Airbnb and short term rental turnover

A turnover is a hospitality job dressed as a cleaning job. Speed matters because checkout and check in are usually a few hours apart, and a missed detail becomes a public review.

Reset

• Strip all beds and towels, start the first load
• Make every bed with fresh linens, hospital corners, no hairs
• Fold and place towels the same way in every property
• Reset furniture and decor to the reference photos

Kitchen

• Empty the fridge of anything a guest left, unless the host says otherwise
• Run and empty the dishwasher, put everything back where it belongs
• Check that the number of plates, glasses, mugs and cutlery matches the inventory
• Wipe all surfaces, sink, cooktop and the outside of appliances
• Restock coffee, tea, sugar, dish soap, dishwasher tabs, sponge and bin liners

Bathrooms

• Full clean of toilet, shower, sink and mirror
• Restock toilet paper to the agreed count, hand soap, shampoo and body wash
• Fresh towels, folded to the standard, plus a bath mat

Whole property

• Empty every bin, including the ones guests hide
• Check under beds and sofa cushions for left items
• Vacuum and mop
• Check the batteries in remotes, the wifi card is present, and the welcome book is in place
• Set the thermostat to the host's arrival setting
• Photograph any damage or missing item immediately and send it before you leave

Report

The host needs three things from every turnover: confirmation it is ready, a list of anything damaged or missing, and a list of anything running low. Send it as one message with the photos attached, not three messages across the afternoon.

Making photo proof actually work

Photos settle disputes, but a crew told to photograph everything will photograph nothing useful. Four rules keep it worth doing.

Photograph the items that generate complaints, not the whole house. In practice that is a short list: kitchen counters, the cooktop, the sink, each bathroom, the floors of the main living space, and any area the client has previously complained about. Five to eight photos per visit is enough.

Fix the angle. From the doorway of each room, standing, same corner every time. Comparable photos are evidence. Photos taken from wherever the cleaner happened to be standing are just pictures.

Before and after only where the before matters. On a deep clean or a move out, before shots are the whole argument. On a weekly maintenance clean they are wasted time, and after shots alone are fine.

Photograph damage the moment you find it, before you touch anything. A cracked cooktop or a stained countertop you did not cause becomes your problem the second someone can argue about timing. A photo taken at 9:12am when you arrived ends the argument.

Then make the photos reachable. A photo sitting in a cleaner's phone gallery does not help you at 6pm when a client calls. It needs to be attached to that visit, at that address, on that date, where you can find it in ten seconds.

In BroomDesk, checklists with photo proof are a Pro plan feature: the checklist appears on the cleaner's phone as part of the visit, photos attach to the visit itself, and the field app keeps a queue so a photo taken in a basement with no signal uploads when the phone reconnects. It is a progressive web app that installs to the home screen rather than a native app from the stores, so there is nothing to update and no store approval between you and a fix.

Getting a checklist to stick

Writing the checklist is the easy part. Three things make it hold.

Train against it on the first day, in a real home, with the checklist in hand rather than described. Spot check it: pick two visits a week at random and compare the photos to the checklist, then say something to the cleaner either way. And keep it short enough to be true. A 90 item checklist for a 2 hour visit teaches your crew that the checklist is a fiction, and once they believe that, none of it gets done.