Most housekeepers are happy to tailor their cleaning checklist to fit your needs. Discuss your priorities and any special requests before the first visit. Be specific about areas of focus or spaces to avoid. Clear communication ensures your home is cleaned exactly as you like, maximizing the value of your investment.

Clean high-traffic areas such as kitchen surfaces, bathroom surfaces, and bedding once per week. Deep clean other areas every three months to a year. How you use a space can help you figure out how often it should be cleaned, with areas where eating, bathing, and food prep occur getting the most frequent attention.

It usually takes around one hour for one person to deep clean a 100 to 200 square foot space, or between eight and 12 hours for a full home. Large construction projects may take longer, especially if your contractor didn’t do routine cleanups throughout the construction process. Your cleaning professional should be able to give you an estimate on how long they believe the job will take.

While you can perform many routine home maintenance jobs yourself, it’s often a good idea to bring pros in for certain tasks. HVAC maintenance, fireplace and chimney inspections, foundation repairs, and roof inspections and repairs should be handled by professionals who know what to look for and can safely perform repairs. You may also find it helpful to hire a local house cleaning service to help with deep cleaning.