End-of-Tenancy & Turnover Cleaning · Waterloo
End-of-Tenancy and Rental Turnover Carpet Cleaning in Waterloo
A turnover clean has two jobs. The first is getting a year of five people's living out of the carpet in one visit. The second is writing down what the carpet looked like before and after, because at the end of a tenancy that record is worth as much as the cleaning.
Waterloo's rental houses turn over on the university calendar. With classes starting in early September, early January and early May, the last weeks of August, December and April are when tenants leave, carpets are cleaned, repairs are done and new tenants arrive, often inside a few days. A five-bedroom house in Northdale or off Columbia Street that has been lived in hard for twelve months needs a proper clean, not a quick pass, and it needs it on a specific day.
What a turnover clean involves
- Access arranged in advance. A lockbox code, a key handover or a property manager on site. The technician locks up on leaving.
- A dated condition record. Photographs of each room before cleaning, notes on stains, burns, tears, pet contamination and wear, and photographs after. This goes to whoever booked the clean and is written so that it is useful to a landlord, a tenant or the Landlord and Tenant Board without taking a side.
- The full S100 sequence. Dry vacuum, pre-conditioner with dwell time, agitation, hot water extraction and rinse, grooming, air movers. In an empty house this is faster and more thorough than cleaning around furniture, which is why empty is better.
- Stairs and halls counted. The stairs in a student house are the most worn carpet in it and are hand-cleaned with a stair tool.
- Pet and odour inspection. A UV light pass in each room, because pets in rentals are often undeclared and their accidents are found at move-out.
What the record is for
The Landlord and Tenant Board's Maintenance and Repairs brochure says a tenant must keep the unit to ordinary or normal cleanliness, must pay for damage that is not due to normal wear and tear, and is not responsible for a carpet worn by years of normal use. Most move-out disagreements about carpet are really disagreements about which of those a given mark is. A dated record from a third party who cleaned the carpet, saying what was there and what came out, settles a great many of them without anyone going to the Board. The record describes; it does not decide. Deciding is the Board's job.
Booking the turnover week
The last week of April and the last week of August are the two busiest weeks of the year for this work in Waterloo. Property managers with several houses send a list of addresses, bedroom counts and access details and are given a block of dates and one invoice. Individual landlords should book as soon as the move-out date is known. Tenants arranging their own clean before handing back keys are welcome too, and get the same record.
What cleaning will not fix
Burns, tears, bleach spots, and carpet that has been worn through to the backing are repairs or replacement, not cleaning, and they are noted in the record rather than worked on. Heavy pet contamination that has reached the underpad is treated or flagged for pad replacement, depending on what the inspection finds and what the landlord wants to do.
Frequently asked questions
Does the house need to be completely empty?
Ideally, yes. An empty house is cleaned faster and more completely, and the condition record is clearer. If some furniture has to stay, the clean works around it and the record notes what was not reached.
Can you clean the day after move-out and before move-in the next day?
Yes, that is the normal pattern, provided the booking is made ahead of the turnover week. The carpet needs to dry before furniture goes in, so leaving the air conditioning or a dehumidifier running in the empty house helps, particularly in late August.
Who gets the condition record?
Whoever booked the clean, and it can be shared with the other party. It is written neutrally, with dated photographs and plain notes, so that it is equally useful to a landlord, a tenant or the Landlord and Tenant Board.
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