Did you clean your old house before you moved out?

My house was spotless when I left it as well, a friend came to help and we hoovered each room as it was emptied by the removal men and wiped out the kitchen cupboards etc.

I bought a property that was empty after a redevelopment so luckily that was very clean and fresh.

Ours was too Teachername. Spotless when we lived in it and spotless when we left.

The first house we bought after we were married was filthy tidyskatemum the bathroom window was so bad I had to use a sponge/scourer to clean the muck off.

We haven't moved for a long time but I cleaned our old house and we moved into a nightmare with 4 children.

I did know that the previous occupant was an elderly lady in a house much too big for her to manage so I didn't mind and just got on with it but if people are capable cleaning is the right thing to do.

I have to say though, we thought some old clothing was hanging from a bathroom pipe under the window and when we got it down it was actually used incontinence pants. We did manage to have a laugh about that later though.

Every house we have moved out of has always been cleaned to a good standard, exactly the same as when we were living there, I just couldn’t leave behind dirt for others to walk into, I don’t think you are being picky at all tidyskatemum, but even if I went into a new home I’d be cleaning again before I put my mark on things, ( excuse the pun )

I have always left houses spotless when moving and also left a welcome card and some flowers.. Not so, the previous occupants of one house we moved to, and they had even left bare wires hanging from the ceilings and walls, there wasn’t a light bulb in any room and they knew we would not be arriving (in mid December) until late afternoon!

Of course I did! I wouldn't want to have the reputation of having left the house in a mess!

Living in military accommodation meant everything was inspected before we left after each posting, so everything had to be spick and span. That's stayed with me always, so yes, the house is spotless when we move out.

Yes of course. Left a card and wine too. My next door neighbour told me they’d commented to her saying the house was in immaculate order.

I've moved a lot and the majority have been left immaculately, but two have been awful. The last house I moved into as a single mum was grotty. The walls were totally scribbled on by their children, it took my cousin all morning just to clean the oven and hob and I found rabbit poo under the kitchen flooring.

Katyj I did the same.

A week before I moved to my present abode I spilt coffee on my pale green carpet so I ended up getting it professionally cleaned! I left that house spotless. This house had been cleaned but not to my standards. At least there was nothing left behind.

We hve moved six times in 50 years. All but one were fine ( although two were brand new so only builders' mess ) The filthy one had chips and other food where the cooker had been , loft unemptied and the last horror wasn't discovered until days later. There was a covering of snow when we moved in and when it melted we found used children's toys all over the garden ! I had an 18 month old baby and was miserable !

I always do. I remember so well when we moved to Jersey for DH’s job, I had a 2 month old baby, every kitchen cupboard was disgusting! I sat down and cried. No loo paper, no light bulbs…
Since then I have done my best to be kind; plumbers, doctors, dentist etc., addresses and phone numbers. Never wine. Yet, perhaps next time.

Always left it clean and it was a standing joke that the removal men would even pack a rubbish bin complete with rubbish.
Like Lexisgranny we move to a house where there wasn’t a single lightbulb left behind.
The people had moved locally and always smiled or stopped to chat, evidently seeing nothing wrong in removing the bulbs.

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

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!

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.

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.

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.

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