So when I moved into my apartment, I had to pay about 6万 for a cleaning fee for when I move out. My friends keep telling me to make sure I clean the apartment before my move-out inspection. But in my head, why would I put in ***so*** much work to deep-clean, when I paid for a cleaning service after I leave?
I *didn’t* pay a **deposit** when I moved in, so it’s not like I’m working towards trying to get any money back. Will just making sure I don’t leave a dirty-looking place be enough? Or am I “expected” to deep-clean after I move out anyway?
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They will almost always do a professional cleaning no matter how well you clean. And charge the full cleaning fee. So you may as well not clean.
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Depends the real estate and the contract. They can make you pay if it’s dirty or broke something. If its spotless, everything just as clean as when you got the house, and the contract doesn’t say about the clean service you are good.
Always take pictures of your house when you move in
No. Just fix anything you have damaged, or you will get charged for it.
Nope you just clean as you ordinarily would if you lived there. No need to make it spotless. You’re going to be charged the 6man either way.
This is just an anecdote but my wife and I lived in the same apartment for five years before moving into a 1980s rental home. We didn’t break contract early and paid double rent for I think one month as we left one place to enter the other.
We like keeping places nice and did a full on cleaning of our apartment. We didn’t keep it that dirty in the first place, but we really wanted to leave our first place looking as good as it could when we left.
We were not charged a cleaning fee. We just weren’t. If I’m not mistaken, a cleaning fee was even mentioned in the contract.
I 100% understand this isn’t the norm. But I’d like to offer that sometimes it can rub anyone the right way to take care of a space. People appreciate that kind of stuff anywhere, though I understand no one is obligated to do that.
If you paid a cleaning fee when moving in, you got played – that’s the owner double dipping. I’m sure they’ll try to charge it on the way out, too. If you don’t have a deposit, and don’t mind burning bridges, you can try to refuse to pay, referring to the fact that you paid moving in.
The obvious time to charge a cleaning fee is when moving out, usually there’s a deposit to take it out of, and a bit of an incentive to not leave an incredible mess. (But also don’t deep clean, they’ll have professionals do that anyway)
Standard price is 1000-ish per square meter, give or take.
I think it’d be fine if the place wasn’t disgusting, but not needed to make it looking brand new. I’ll be doing the same too and it feels like generally good etiquette. Also don’t want to embarrass myself. Typically, you’ll be charged for any major damages still.
One nice agency I used very clearly told me I only needed to clean enough for the inspection to be conducted since the cleaning fee was already paid when moving in.
BTW, their cleaning fee was only 7,000 yen, and the optional “disinfecting” cleaning (whatever that was) cost around 30,000. Since the apartment looked spotless when I visited it, I opted out of the disinfecting.
>I had to pay about 6万 for a cleaning fee for when I move out.
Time to quit my job and become a professional cleaner.
This whole blanket cleaning fee no matter what thing strikes me as such a Japanese way of thinking:
“Shall we charge that guy who fucked up our property?”
“Nah just leave him… we can just charge *everyone else* from now on regardless of whether they keep the apartment in a good state”
“Yeah sounds good. Let’s fuck over everyone else instead. No point at all punishing the *actual* offender”
**:Going off on a tangent alert:**
Same applies to how 99% of people now have to go through one of those silly guarantor companies that provides no “service” to us beyond perpetually taking our money for nothing (inb4 “they’re providing a guarantor service” interesting yet we’re forced to (1) go with whatever company the agent/owner picks and (2) we have to keep paying a renewal fee in perpetuity even if we never default on our rent and the guarantor company doesn’t have to actually do anything? also inb4 “they handle the payment between you and the owner” there is no need for another middle man beyond the banks).
**back on topic**
I usually just clean an apartment so that it’s clean but not spotless. It’s not like they’re going to reimburse me for all the cleaning equipment (including alcohol wipes, rubbish bags etc) so you’re better off spending as little time and money as possible to make it look *acceptable*.
Having viewed apartments that were not yet cleaned, I can say with certainty that my standard of “acceptable” is already well beyond what a lot of people (presumably Japanese based on population statistics) actually do in terms of cleaning.
Just get rid of all the trash and you’re good.
I usually vacuum the dust since it just looks gross, but that’s about it. Never had any issues
Don’t break your back, but don’t be a dick either.
Tidy up and take out all the trash, but don’t worry about cleaning it any further.
(I’m assuming here that you have at least maintained it while living there so it would be mostly just dusty where furniture was and some “normal” use from your last week or so).