Where does the cleaning piece of a $1,750 turnover actually land?

Question

The figure I've seen quoted for tenant turnover is about $1,750 on average, cleaning included. I'm trying to break that into lines I can put in a model rather than carry as one lump.

Quotes I've collected on a 2 bed 1 bath, roughly 850 square feet: $180 on the low end, $450 on the high end for what one company called a deep clean, and a carpet guy at $45 a room with a $135 minimum. So cleaning looks like maybe 15 to 25 percent of the $1,750 depending on which quote I use, and the rest is paint and repairs.

What I can't place is the trash-out portion. Two of the units I'm looking at were left with furniture in them. Is that inside the cleaning quote or a separate number, and is it big enough to matter or is it a couple hundred dollars?

Rena Guide · Accepted Answer

Furniture left behind is a separate line, and it should be. Cleaning is priced on labor for a unit that's already empty. A trash-out is priced on volume, meaning cubic yards or truckloads out the door plus disposal fees, and it happens before the cleaner walks in. Sequence matters as much as price here: send a cleaner into a unit with a couch and a mattress still in it and you'll pay them to work around it and then pay again for the real clean.

On size, a 2 bed left with a sofa, a mattress set, a table and the usual closet and kitchen leftovers is commonly one small roll-off or two or three trailer loads. Depending on the market that lands somewhere around $400 to $900 including disposal. Not enormous next to $1,750, and not a rounding error either.

The $1,750 average you're working from is an all-in turnover figure. It usually blends paint, cleaning, carpet, small repairs and the lock change. Some versions of that number include lost rent for the vacant days and some don't, so check which one you're quoting before you compare it to your own line items.

One thing to sort out before those two units: whether you can haul a departed tenant's furniture immediately depends on your state's abandoned property rules, and several states require notice or a storage period first. That's a question for a local attorney or your property manager's process, and it can change your timing by a couple of weeks even though it doesn't change the price much.

Also, if you plan to charge any of this against a security deposit, the itemized invoice and dated photos are what make that stick.

ehernandez74 · Answer

Does the cleaner go before or after paint? I've had it done both ways and the second time the painters left dust on everything and I paid for a touch-up clean at $120. Now I'm trying to write an actual order of operations for make-ready and I don't want to guess again.

luis_carrera · Answer

I budget $400 a turn for cleaning and I think that's low based on ledger's quotes. What I keep leaving out is the second visit. Something like one in three turns seems to need the cleaner back after the trades finish, so my real number is probably closer to $520.

wendy_park48 · Answer

Look at your lease language before you assume any of this comes out of a deposit. A clause requiring a professional cleaning receipt is treated differently state to state, and some states limit or prohibit flat mandatory cleaning fees regardless of what the lease says. Worth an hour with an attorney on your own form, because the invoice you get from the cleaner is the evidence either way and "deep clean, $450" with no detail is weak paper.

Where does the cleaning piece of a $1,750 turnover actually land?

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