Apartment deep cleaning for New York City homes, room by room

Deep Cleaning Company NYC is an independent referral service, not a cleaning company. When you send the form, your request goes to an independent New York City cleaning company that scopes the job, quotes it and does any work.

This page explains what an apartment deep clean usually reaches, how it differs from regular apartment cleaning in NYC, how to describe your place so a cleaning company can plan the visit, and what to check with your building first. If you want the full room list to print, use the deep cleaning checklist.

What an apartment deep clean reaches

A deep clean works through the whole apartment top to bottom, and it spends time on the places a regular clean passes over. The list below is what most people ask for. Treat it as a starting point to agree with the cleaning company, not as a promise: every company sets its own scope, and the visit covers what you agree in writing.

• High places. The tops of door frames, kitchen cabinets, the refrigerator and tall furniture, light fixtures and ceiling corners.
• Walls and trim. Baseboards, door fronts, light switches and the marks around door handles.
• Radiators, vents and grilles. Dust lifted from radiator fins and wiped from the wall behind them, vent covers and air conditioner grilles wiped down.
• Kitchen detail. Cabinet fronts, the backsplash, the range hood, the stovetop and its grates, inside the microwave, and inside the oven and refrigerator when you ask for them.
• Bathroom detail. Tile and grout, the tub or shower and its glass, fixtures and the base of the toilet, the vanity inside and out.
• Windows. Sills, tracks and the inside of the glass you can reach safely.
• Under and behind. Floors under beds and sofas and behind movable furniture, then a full wash of the floors.

Apartment cleaning in NYC: regular or deep?

Most searches for apartment cleaning in NYC are for regular visits: the dusting, vacuuming, bathroom and kitchen wipe-down that keeps a home in order week to week. A deep clean is the visit that resets the place so the regular cleaning has something to keep up. Here is how the two usually compare.

Area	Regular apartment cleaning	Apartment deep cleaning
Kitchen	Counters, sink, stovetop and the outside of appliances	Adds cabinet fronts, backsplash, range hood, grates, inside the microwave; oven and fridge inside when asked
Bathroom	Toilet, sink, tub and mirror cleaned and floor washed	Adds a scrub of tile and grout, shower glass and track, fixtures and the vanity inside
Living room and bedrooms	Dusting of open surfaces, vacuuming and mopping	Adds baseboards, door frames, switches, radiators, vents, and under and behind movable furniture
Windows	Usually not included	Sills and tracks, inside glass within safe reach
Pace	The same rooms on a routine	One longer visit, top to bottom, room by room

Many people book a deep clean once and then move to a lighter routine, or book one before starting a new routine with any cleaner. Others ask for it at a turning point: a new lease, the end of a long stretch of working from home, before family visits, after a sublet, or once a renovation is done (that last one has its own page on post construction cleaning in NYC).

What makes a New York apartment different

Radiators and old heat

Steam and hot water radiators are part of life in many older buildings. Dust gathers between the fins and the heat darkens the wall above them. They need to be cool before anyone cleans them, so mention them when you describe the job and plan the visit for a time the heat is low.

Galley kitchens and small bathrooms

A narrow kitchen means grease sits close to every surface, and a small bathroom without a window holds moisture. NYC Health notes that mold “can grow on paper, fabric, wallpaper glue, sheetrock, wood, soap scum, leather and other surfaces.” A deep clean takes on the soap scum and the mildew on tile and grout. Mold growing on a wall or ceiling is a different matter, covered below.

Window guards and high windows

Many apartments have window guards, and NYC Health reminds households to have them where a child younger than 11 lives or spends time. Cleaners work around them. Ask for the inside of the glass and the sills and tracks; the outside of the glass on upper floors is not a cleaning-visit job.

Building rules

Co-ops, condos and many rental buildings have rules for service visits: when workers may come, which elevator they use, whether the front desk needs names in advance. Check with your super or management before the day and tell the cleaning company what you learn.

How to describe your apartment in the form

A good request lets the company understand the job without guessing. Include:

1. The number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and whether the kitchen is open or separate.
2. When it was last cleaned well, in your own words. Nobody judges; it simply helps the company plan.
3. Which rooms need the most work and what is there: grease, soap film, dust, pet hair, marks on walls.
4. Extras you want: inside the oven, inside the fridge, inside cabinets, window tracks.
5. Anything fragile or off limits, and anything you want left exactly where it is.
6. Building details: walk-up or elevator, service entrance, hours the building allows work.

If the kitchen is the main reason, the kitchen deep cleaning guide goes through it surface by surface. If the apartment has gone a long while without a proper clean, read about heavy duty cleaning, which is the same idea with more time on each room.

Products, fumes and fresh air

Deep cleaning uses more product than a quick wipe-down, and small apartments do not air out quickly. The EPA notes that many cleaning products contain solvents that “can release organic compounds while you are using them,” and that concentrations of many of these compounds are “consistently higher indoors (up to ten times higher) than outdoors.” EPA’s advice is simple: “Increase ventilation when using products that emit VOCs” and “Never mix household care products unless directed on the label.” The CDC says the same: “Do not mix products or chemicals with each other.”

• Open the windows you can while the cleaning is underway, and run a bathroom fan if you have one.
• Ask the company which products it uses and whether it brings its own supplies and vacuum.
• If you prefer certain products, have them ready. EPA’s Safer Choice label is one way buyers look for products with safer chemical ingredients.
• Tell the company about anyone in the home with asthma or allergies before the visit.

What an apartment deep clean is not

A cleaning visit is not pest control, mold remediation or a repair. These lines matter in New York, where the law puts several of them on the building owner.

• Pests. Under Local Law 55 of 2018, owners of buildings with three or more apartments must keep tenants’ apartments “free of mold and pests” and use Integrated Pest Management. A deep clean can wash surfaces and vacuum debris once the pest work is done, but it does not treat an infestation.
• Mold on walls and ceilings. NYC Health says owners of buildings with three or more apartments must keep tenants’ homes free of mold and fix the leaks behind it. Where mold to be fixed covers more than 10 square feet in a building with 10 or more apartments, the owner must use workers licensed by the New York State Department of Labor.
• Peeling paint in older buildings. In buildings built before 1960, HPD says lead paint is often present. If paint is peeling and the landlord does not fix it safely, a tenant “can file a complaint online or call 311.” Do not have peeling paint scraped or scrubbed as part of a cleaning.

Before the cleaner arrives

• Clear counters, tables and floors of loose items so surfaces can be reached.
• Put away valuables, papers and anything fragile.
• Empty the fridge if you asked for it to be cleaned inside.
• Make sure the radiators are cool and the windows open easily.
• Agree the scope in writing, room by room, before the day.

The deep cleaning checklist turns all of this into a list you can send with your request. Apartments in every borough are covered: see deep cleaning services in Brooklyn, deep cleaning service in Queens, and the pages for Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island.

Questions people ask