What a standard house clean covers, room by room
A standard clean is the upkeep visit. It goes after the dust, crumbs, soap scum and fingerprints that pile up in a normal week or two, and it touches every room you ask us to cover. Here's what that means in each part of the house.
Kitchen
The kitchen gets the most time because it gets the most use. Counters and backsplash get cleared of loose items and wiped down. The outsides of the fridge, dishwasher, oven and microwave get cleaned, handles included, and the inside of the microwave gets wiped out. The stovetop gets degreased, the sink gets scrubbed, cabinet fronts get spot-cleaned where hands hit them, and the floor gets vacuumed and mopped.
Inside the oven and inside the fridge are not part of a standard visit. They take real time, so we treat them as add-ons. Skip them on a regular clean and book them a few times a year instead.
Bathrooms
Toilets get cleaned inside, outside and around the base, which is the spot most people miss. Tubs, showers and tile get scrubbed, sinks and faucets get wiped and descaled, mirrors get cleaned, and the floor gets mopped. Trash goes out and towels get straightened or swapped if you leave fresh ones.
Bedrooms, living rooms and everything else
- Dusting shelves, sills, frames, lamps and other reachable surfaces
- Making beds, with fresh sheets if you leave them out
- Vacuuming carpets and rugs, then vacuuming and mopping hard floors
- Wiping light switches, door handles and other high-touch spots
- Emptying trash cans throughout the house
What isn't included: washing walls, cleaning inside cabinets, hand-scrubbing every baseboard, and laundry or dishes beyond what you agree to when you book. Most of those can be added. Just ask.
Standard clean or deep clean: which one you need
A standard house cleaning keeps a home that's already in decent shape looking that way. A deep clean resets a home that hasn't been professionally cleaned in a while, reaching baseboards, door frames, vents, light fixtures, grout, built-up grease and the spots behind and under things. Most first visits should be a deep clean, with standard visits after that.
The reason is time. A standard visit is built around a set amount of work. If the stovetop has months of baked-on grease and the shower has a ring of hard-water scale, a standard visit runs out of hours before it reaches the bedrooms. A deep clean does the heavy lifting once, so every visit after it is maintenance. Our page on deep cleaning in Albany and the Capital Region breaks down exactly what that first visit includes and how long it takes.
Moving is its own category. An empty home lets cleaners get inside every cabinet, closet and appliance, which is exactly what a landlord or buyer inspects. For that, see move-in and move-out cleaning.
How often to book house cleaners
Most households land on every two weeks. It's often enough that the bathrooms never get gross and the floors never get gritty, and far enough apart that it doesn't feel like a second rent payment.
Weekly makes sense when the house works hard: two shedding dogs, little kids, two parents commuting down the Northway every day, or a home office that never gets a day off. Monthly suits a single person or a couple in a smaller place who are happy doing the quick wipe-downs themselves and want the heavy stuff handled. One-time cleans fill the gaps, like the week before you host Thanksgiving or the weekend after a long stretch of overtime.
Capital Region seasons matter too. From November to March, salt and sand get tracked through every entryway, and closed windows mean dust settles faster. Plenty of people who go monthly in summer switch to every two weeks for the winter. If you want help picking, the weekly vs. biweekly cleaning guide walks through the tradeoffs, and our recurring house cleaning plans explain how skipping and pausing work.
Getting your home ready for the cleaners
You don't need to clean before the cleaner comes. You do need to pick up. A cleaner who spends 20 minutes moving laundry and mail is a cleaner who didn't get to your baseboards. Before a visit:
- Clear clothes, toys, papers and dishes off counters, floors and beds
- Put away jewelry, cash, medications and anything fragile you'd rather nobody handled
- Shut pets in a room or crate if they're nervous around visitors or vacuums
- Leave a short note about problem spots, like the shower door or the sticky pantry floor
- Make sure we know how to get in, including door codes and alarm details
If you have products you want used on a particular surface, such as a stone counter or old hardwood, leave them out and tell us when you book.
Home cleaning built around Capital Region houses
The homes here vary a lot, and that changes how a clean goes. Brick rowhouses in Albany's Center Square and Pine Hills have tall ceilings, narrow stairs and radiators that collect dust in every fin. Troy's Victorians have detailed trim and woodwork that take patient dusting. Colonials and split-levels in Colonie, Niskayuna and Clifton Park have more square footage and more bathrooms. Newer builds in Malta and Halfmoon tend to have open kitchens, big windows and a lot of floor to cover.
We serve all four counties: Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga and Rensselaer. If you searched for a maid service, house cleaners or a cleaning lady, it's the same visit described above. See local details for house cleaning in Albany, NY or cleaning services in Saratoga Springs, or tell us your address and the rooms you want covered, and we'll put together a quote.