How Long Does It Take to Clean an Apartment?

That Cleaning Girl · Apartment Cleaning

It is one of the most common questions we hear, and the honest answer is: it depends. A tidy studio that gets cleaned every week is a very different job from a two-bedroom apartment that has not had a real clean since move-in. In Small Apartment Storage Ideas That Make Cleaning Easier we talked about how storage speeds up cleaning. Here we look at what actually drives the time, and give you some rough ranges for doing it yourself.

What affects how long it takes

Before we get to time ranges, it helps to know what makes a clean faster or slower. These are the big ones:

• Size and layout. More bedrooms and bathrooms mean more surfaces, more floors and more fixtures.
• Condition. An apartment that is cleaned regularly takes much less time than one with built-up grease, soap scum or dust.
• Clutter. Picking up and putting away can take as long as the cleaning itself.
• Type of clean. A regular maintenance clean is quicker than a deep clean or a move-out clean.
• Extras. Inside the oven, inside the fridge, blinds, baseboards and inside cabinets all add time.
• Pets and kids. More hair, more fingerprints, more crumbs.
• Floors. Carpet, hard floors, or both, and how many rugs need moving.

Rough time ranges for doing it yourself

These are loose estimates for one person cleaning at a steady pace, with the apartment picked up first. Your time may be shorter or longer.

• Studio: about one to two hours for a regular clean.
• One bedroom, one bath: about one and a half to two and a half hours.
• Two bedrooms, one or two baths: about two to four hours.
• Three bedrooms: half a day or more.

A deep clean, or a move-out clean with inside the oven, fridge and cabinets, can easily take twice as long as a regular clean, sometimes more. That is why people are often surprised when move-out day stretches late into the night.

Where the time goes

In most apartments, the kitchen and bathroom eat up the most time. Those rooms have the most surfaces, the most grime and the most detail work. Floors are next, especially if you have a mix of carpet and hard floors. Dusting is usually quick, unless you have lots of shelves and decor.

Here in North Texas, hard water buildup can add real time in the bathroom. If you skip a few weeks, the shower glass and fixtures need much more scrubbing to clear.

How to speed up your own cleaning

• Pick up first. Cleaning around clutter is slow.
• Gather all your supplies in one caddy before you start.
• Work top to bottom and left to right in each room.
• Let cleaners sit while you do something else, then wipe.
• Do the bathroom and kitchen first while you have energy.
• Put on music or a podcast and keep moving.
• Clean more often. Weekly cleans go much faster than monthly ones.

How long a professional clean takes

A professional cleaner usually works faster because they do the same routine every day, bring all the right tools and do not stop to answer texts or switch loads of laundry. The exact time depends on all the same things above. When you request a quote from us, we ask for your bedrooms, bathrooms and what you need so we can plan the right amount of time. For bigger or very dirty jobs, we may want a quick look first.

If you book a regular schedule, the visits tend to get shorter over time, because the apartment never has a chance to build up grime.

Regular cleans versus catch-up cleans

The first clean is usually the longest. Whether you do it yourself or have it done, the first visit after a long gap has to deal with buildup. After that, weekly or every-two-week cleaning keeps everything at a maintenance level. That is the biggest time saver of all.

Making time for it

If cleaning a whole apartment in one go feels like too much, split it up. Do the bathroom one night, the kitchen the next, and floors on the weekend. Many busy renters across Waxahachie, Midlothian and the south DFW area mix it up: they handle daily tidying and have us come every two or three weeks for the full clean.

Whichever way you go, the more regularly the apartment gets cleaned, the less time each clean takes.

It also helps to keep your supplies in one caddy and your vacuum somewhere easy to grab. A lot of the time people lose on cleaning day is spent looking for things: the glass cleaner, a fresh cloth, the vacuum attachment. When everything lives in one spot, you can start the minute you decide to, and a twenty-minute window on a weeknight is suddenly enough to get the bathroom done.

See what we include in each visit on our apartment cleaning services page. Next up, we answer the follow-up question: what exactly does an apartment cleaning service do?