Removal etiquette - cleaning ?

[oncemoreuntothebeachdearfriends]

This is about owners, not renters who presumably have rules to obey.

In my experience, the incomers always clean.

Pointless vacuuming or washing floors when the removal men are tramping in & out.
Can't clean inside cupboards as they are not emptied until the actual day.
Bathrooms should be left clean of course.
All cleaning materials are also packed away.
Never been a problem for me. In a new place, I clean cupboards etc before unpacking boxes, vacuum after the men have gone.

However, a good friend received a very rude e-mail from her buyers about the state of the place when they arrived. They demanded she pay for a deep clean.
She denied it was dirty, & told the CFs to pay for it out of the £10,000 she'd knocked off the selling price.

I hope to move soon, & was wondering if the etiquette has changed since I last moved.

Whenever we moved from a rental to another rental (8 times!) we had a bit of an overlap. It was never the case for us that we had to leave by a certain time and the next renters were sitting outside waiting with their stuff to move in, as has been the case when moving from bought places.

Moving house is hard and it would be depressing to have to clean a house you have just forked out for and feel is dirty.

when we moved into our house the previous owners paid £250 for a cleaning company to have the house spotless.

when my parents and sibling have moved house we went round to the house the were vacating and cleaned it so it was spotless.

So to answer your question, yes you should leave the house perfect for someone else. They have enough to be getting on with unpacking never mind trying to find the cleaning stuff / hoover / cloths on moving in day

One of the good things about keeping your cleaning stuff out to do a final clean before leaving, is that it’s readily accessible should you need it at the new place. And that has happened to me a few times. I’ve always left my houses spotless but some of the ones I have bought have been…..less than. A memorable low was finding two pairs of skid stained underpants in the airing cupboard 🤮🤮🤮

Your friend is clearly a bit of a minger. Her buyers are ridiculous to try to get compensation for her leaving the house dirty, but I don't blame them for being shirty about it.

I've bought houses that have surface dirt, that have been empty for a while and it's obvious the vendors haven't given it a going over just before completion. I did with the houses I sold. It's consideration for the new owner and a spot of self-respect as I'm not a slattern and wouldn't want them to think I was.

My current house had dirty cobwebs, thick grease on the top of the kitchen cupboards and wallpaper held on with sticky tape (ineffectively). At the time I contented myself with muttering "those dirty Joneses" but it's now just an anecdote online. (And tbf who knows what pressures they were under at the time, so <shrug>)

It would be so disappointing to arrive at your new house and have to clean. I haven’t moved in 15 years but when I moved into our house the sellers had left us a bottle of champagne and a nice note. Place was lovely and clean. Either you are your friend are cut from the same cloth or you are doing a valiant job of defending him / her when really they’re being blindingly unreasonable.

Yes you should clean but the last house I sold I didn’t. Our buyers had been an absolute PITA and caused so much stress and unhappiness to me and the rest of the chain. We aren’t mingers so it wasn’t filthy but no way was I cleaning for those cheeky fuckers.