Deep cleaning in the low season: why winter is the best time

In high season, cleaning a let holiday home is about one thing: getting it all done between two guests. There is rarely time for anything but the necessary. That is why the quiet winter is the right moment for a deep clean, where the house is gone through from top to bottom with no booking on your heels.

The difference between a changeover and a deep clean

A changeover clean makes the house guest-ready: surfaces, kitchen, bathroom, floors and beds. It is built to be done against the clock, and it has to make the house look right for whoever lets themselves in that same afternoon.

A deep clean has a different purpose. It removes what has settled over a whole season and no changeover can reach: the film of grease on top of the kitchen cupboards, the limescale that has become a layer rather than a mark, the dust on the upper side of the lamps, the sand in the grouting, and the smell in cupboards that have been shut since September.

Put it this way: the changeover holds the standard, the deep clean moves it. With the base in order, every changeover of the season gets easier, because there is no backlog to fight.

Why winter is the best time

When the house stands empty between seasons, the work can take as long as it takes. You can pull furniture away from the wall and leave it there. You can let oven cleaner and descaler work for half an hour instead of five minutes. You can take one cupboard at a time, empty it, wipe it and leave it open until it is dry.

There is a practical reason too: an empty house dries. Window cleaning, floor washing and descaling all leave moisture, and in a house with guests everything has to be dry within the hour. In winter you can air the place and run the heating afterwards, and that is exactly what separates a house that is clean from a house that also smells clean.

Finally, winter is the only time you can find something without it becoming a problem. A leaking trap found in January is a job. The same trap found in July between two bookings is an emergency.

What a deep clean should cover

The order matters more than people think, because most products need time. Start whatever has to work, then go from the top down.

• Start the products. Oven cleaner in the oven, descaler in the toilet, shower and on the taps, and a bag of descaler tied round the shower head.
• High places first. Dust on lamps, cupboard tops, shelves, door frames and skirting. Whatever falls should fall before the floor is dealt with.
• The kitchen. Extractor filter in the dishwasher or in hot soda water, oven and baking trays, fridge emptied, wiped and pulled out, cupboards and drawers inside.
• The bathroom. Limescale on glass, tiles, taps and drains. Grouting checked. The ventilation grille taken down and washed.
• Windows, sills and reveals inside, and outside if the weather allows.
• Doors, handles, switches and rails. These are the surfaces everybody touches, and they are rarely part of a changeover.
• Floors last, including under and behind furniture, and under beds.

If the house has been heavily used over the summer, this is also where it makes sense to go through the textiles: curtains washed, mattresses turned and aired, garden cushions checked for mould.

What usually turns up

A deep clean is also an inspection, and it is generally where the season's small damage comes to light. What we most often see after a summer of letting:

• Scratches and marks on worktops and floors that arrived a little at a time.
• A cooker or extractor that works but is on its way out.
• Grouting in the shower that has started to let go.
• Curtains and bedding worn thin without anybody mentioning it.
• Kitchen equipment missing, because it broke and was thrown out.

None of it is dramatic, but all of it is cheaper to put right in February than in June. We note what we find and pass it on, so the owner can decide in good time.

What it costs, and what that depends on

We give a fixed price in advance, and it rests on three things: the size of the house, how long it has been since the last thorough round, and how much has to be moved to get at things. A house of 80 square metres that gets a deep clean every year is a different job from one of 140 where it is the first time in five years.

That is why we always ask for the address and a couple of photos of the kitchen and bathroom before putting a number on it. It is faster for both sides than guessing, and it means the price does not move once we start.

If the property is your own year-round home rather than a holiday house, the Danish servicefradrag may apply. The rules and the amount change from year to year, so check the current rate with Skattestyrelsen rather than relying on a figure you have heard.

Are we the cleaning company you are looking for?

There are several cleaning companies in the area, and most of them do good work. The difference usually lies in who turns up. We are two fixed people, not an agency pool, and it is the same pair every time. That means we know the houses, know where the limescale settles, and can see when something has changed since last time.

We drive from Noerre Bork and cover Bork Havn, Hemmet, Hvide Sande, Søndervig, Nymindegab, Henne Strand, Blåvand, Skjern, Tarm, Varde and Ringkøbing. If you are unsure whether your address is included, just ask: if it is a long way, we say so straight out rather than leaving you waiting for an answer.

It buys calm for the rest of the year

The low season is also the time for what otherwise gets postponed: checking whether anything is broken, getting the big things washed, writing down what needs replacing before summer. A deep clean is often the occasion to settle all of it at once, instead of it becoming five small errands across the spring.

We do deep cleaning for holiday home owners in Bork, Hvide Sande, Søndervig, Henne Strand, Nymindegab, Blåvand, Skjern, Tarm and Ringkøbing through the winter months. A fixed price agreed in advance, the same team every time, and a walkthrough at the end where we tell you if we found anything. Send us the address and get a quote.

See also: our end of tenancy cleaning in Varde and Esbjerg.