Deep Cleaning and Spring Cleaning Melbourne
The clean you book when a property has drifted. Everything a routine visit rotates past, done in one long visit by a crew, so a fortnightly roster has something to maintain.
Deep cleaning exists because of a gap in how routine cleaning works. A sensible fortnightly visit covers the things that need doing fortnightly and rotates the rest across the month, which keeps a maintained property level at a reasonable price. What it cannot do is recover a property that has drifted, because every visit is already fully committed to keeping up.
A deep clean breaks that cycle. It takes everything a roster rotates, adds the items no roster includes at all, and does the lot in a single extended visit, usually with a crew rather than one cleaner. Afterwards the property sits at a baseline that an ordinary roster can actually hold.
A spring clean is the same work with a different reason for booking it. In Melbourne the two natural trigger points are the end of winter, when months of heating with the windows shut has circulated dust through everything, and the weeks before Christmas when a house is about to hold more people than usual.
This page belongs under our cleaning services. Where a rental is being handed back, the bar is set by an inspector rather than by you, which makes it end of lease cleaning Melbourne instead.
When a deep clean is the right call
- Nothing properly cleaned in six months or more
- Moving into a property that was left dirty
- After a renovation, repaint or trades work
- Before a seasonal gathering or house guests
- Starting a regular service from a poor baseline
- Preparing a property for photography or an open day
Standard, deep or end of lease: which do you need?
Three scopes at three depths, told apart by what gets opened.
| Standard clean | Deep clean | End of lease | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surfaces and floors | Every visit | Every surface, including rarely touched ones | To the condition report |
| Inside cupboards | No | Yes, emptied and cleaned | Yes, every one |
| Inside the oven | No, exterior only | Usually added as an extra | Yes, dismantled |
| Skirtings and door frames | Rotated across the month | Yes, throughout | Yes, by hand |
| Window tracks and sills | Rotated | Yes, throughout | Yes, every one |
| Light fittings and fans | No | Yes | Yes |
| Behind moveable furniture | No | Yes | Yes |
| Exhaust and rangehood covers | No | Yes | Yes, filters degreased |
| Walls | Spot marks only | Spot marks and high-touch areas | Spot treated throughout |
| Priced on | Property and frequency | Property and current condition | Property and condition report |
Where two columns both fit, choose the deeper one. The heavier scope already contains everything the lighter one does, so you are never paying twice.
What is included in a deep clean?
Room by room, with the additions a standard visit does not reach.
Kitchen
The room where a deep clean shows most.
- Every cupboard and drawer emptied, cleaned and dried inside
- Pantry shelving and the floor beneath it
- Rangehood filters removed and degreased
- Behind and beside the fridge where it pulls out
- Splashback grout and the wall behind the bin
- Dishwasher filter, seals and spray arms
- Kickboards, skirtings and the floor into the corners
- All tapware descaled rather than wiped
Bathrooms and laundry
Scale and build-up, properly removed.
- Shower screen treated for limescale on both faces
- Tile and grout scrubbed including the shower base
- Exhaust fan cover removed, washed and refitted
- Vanity emptied and cleaned inside
- Behind the toilet and the full pedestal
- Towel rails, hooks and the back of the door
- Behind the washing machine and dryer where accessible
- Floor edges and every silicone line
Living, bedrooms and halls
The detail that accumulates invisibly.
- Skirting boards, door frames and architraves throughout
- Window tracks vacuumed then wiped, sills and reveals
- Interior glass on all windows and doors
- Light fittings, pendants and ceiling fan blades
- Switch plates, power points and door handles
- Built-in wardrobes and linen presses cleaned inside
- Behind and under moveable furniture
- Cornice and corner cobwebs in every room
Common additions
Quoted as named lines.
- Inside the oven, dismantled
- Carpet hot water extraction
- Interior window panes throughout
- Balcony, courtyard or patio
- Garage or carport sweep
- Wall washing beyond spot marks
- Blind and curtain cleaning
- Upholstery and mattress work
When is the best time for a spring clean in Melbourne?
Melbourne winters work on indoor air in a particular way. Reverse-cycle heating and gas heaters both circulate air through a house that has its windows shut for months, and the result is a fine layer of dust on every horizontal surface including the ones nobody looks at. The top of a wardrobe, the pelmet above a curtain, the blades of a ceiling fan that has not run since March.
The moment that changes is when the heating goes off and the windows open again, which in most of Melbourne is late August or September. Cleaning then means the house starts the warm months properly, and it coincides with when people notice it most, because the first warm afternoon of sunlight through a window shows every mark on the glass.
The second window is late November. A house about to hold Christmas visitors gets a reset before the schedule fills, and bookings in the first three weeks of December are the hardest of the year to get, so going early is genuinely useful advice rather than a sales line.
Autumn works too for households with hay fever, because clearing the accumulated pollen load from indoor surfaces at the end of spring makes a difference that is easy to feel.
How does a deep clean actually run?
How long it takes
Two bedrooms in an apartment generally means a half day with a pair of cleaners. A four bedroom house with two or three bathrooms is a full day, often with three. The variable that moves it most is condition rather than size, which is why we ask how long it has been.
We would rather quote a full day and finish early than quote a half and run out of time, because a deep clean that stops halfway is just an expensive standard clean.
Why it is not priced by the hour
An hourly rate on a deep clean puts the risk entirely on you. Nobody can tell from a phone call how long a particular kitchen will take, so an hourly quote is an open-ended commitment. Quoting the property against a documented scope shifts the risk of a slow day onto us, which is where it belongs.
Where what we find bears little resemblance to what was described, the cleaner rings you before unpacking rather than adjusting the bill later.
What we need from you
Clear the surfaces you would rather we did not handle, put away anything valuable, and give us access to the cupboards you want done. A deep clean involves emptying storage, and we would rather you decided what comes out than us guessing.
If there are things you specifically do not want touched, say so. It takes thirty seconds and prevents the only real complaint this service generates.
Decluttering is not cleaning
Speed in this trade is mostly a function of how much has to be lifted, moved and put back before a cloth touches anything. A property that needs sorting more than it needs cleaning gets told so plainly.
Paying a cleaning rate to move objects from one surface to another is poor value and we will not pretend otherwise.
After the deep clean
This is where the value actually lands. A property brought to a proper baseline can be held there by a fortnightly or even monthly roster, because each visit is maintaining rather than recovering.
We will tell you what rhythm your property needs, and quite often it is less frequent than people expect once the backlog is gone. See regular house cleaning.
Who books a deep clean?
Six common cases, each with a slightly different emphasis.
Fallen behind
Work, illness or a new baby, and six months have gone. The most common reason and the one this service was built for.
After trades
Sanding and painting leave a fine film on every horizontal surface, cupboard interiors included. A builders clean after structural work is a heavier scope again.
Moving in
Before the removalists arrive is the one moment every surface in the place is genuinely reachable.
Move in cleaningBetween tenants
Where a full vacate clean is more than the job needs but a presentation standard is required for the next viewing.
Before guests
A seasonal reset before Christmas, a milestone birthday or family staying. Book earlier than you think for December.
Short stay reset
Between seasons, when the accumulated wear of a hundred turnovers needs more than a changeover clean.
Short-stay cleaningRentals being returned to an agent need end of lease cleaning instead, since a condition report rather than your own judgement sets the bar. Both are costed on cleaning prices Melbourne. The seasonal version of the room list lives in our Melbourne spring cleaning checklist.
Frequently asked questions about deep cleaning and spring cleaning
Three questions that decide whether you need this or a standard clean.
What is the difference between a deep clean and a standard clean?
A standard clean covers surfaces and floors to a room list, with detail items rotated across the month. A deep clean does every one of those detail items in a single visit and adds the things a roster never reaches: inside cupboards and drawers, behind appliances, light fittings, exhaust covers and every skirting board and door frame in the property.
Is a spring clean the same thing?
Same scope, different trigger. A deep clean is booked because a property has fallen behind. A spring clean is booked because of the season, usually after winter when heating has pushed dust through a closed-up house, or before Christmas when visitors are coming. The work and the price are the same.
Do I need a deep clean before starting a regular service?
Only if the property is genuinely behind. If it has been maintained reasonably, a slightly longer first visit is enough. Where half a year or more has passed without a proper clean, launching straight into a fortnightly roster guarantees that each visit lands short of expectation, and fairly so.
Where to go next
Reset the property, then maintain it
Tell us the property and roughly how long it has been since it had proper attention. We will quote the reset honestly and tell you what rhythm will hold it afterwards, even if that rhythm is less often than you expected.