Room by room, plus the four jobs on most checklists you do not actually owe here.
Advice · EKL Cleaning
Written by the EKL Cleaning team
Reviewed by the owner of EKL Cleaning · Updated
A move-out clean in British Columbia means leaving the place clean, undamaged, and ready for the next tenant. You clean the kitchen and its appliances, the bathroom, the floors, the inside of the windows and their tracks, the walls and the baseboards, and you take everything of yours out. You do not owe repainting. Carpets need steam cleaning after a tenancy of a year or more, and at any length if there were uncaged pets, if anyone smoked, or if the carpet got stained.
We're a professional cleaning company working across Metro Vancouver and the North Shore, and move-out cleans are a steady part of what we do. Most people lose money on a move-out clean by scrubbing things British Columbia never asked them to. Then they run out of time on the kitchen, the bathroom and the window tracks, which are the three places we see marked down most often.
The checklist below goes room by room, then lists the four jobs British Columbia does not put on you. Every rule comes from the province's own published guidance, linked where it appears.
The standard is simple to state. The province puts it this way: "It is the tenant's responsibility to clean the rental unit when moving out," and the tenant pays cleaning costs if the place isn't clean when they go (Province of British Columbia).
It does not mean handing back a suite that looks brand new. You're not responsible for reasonable wear and tear, which the guideline defines as "natural deterioration that occurs due to aging and other natural forces, where the tenant has used the premises in a reasonable fashion." It also says plainly that you are not responsible "for cleaning to bring the premises to a higher standard" than the legislation sets. Faded paint and worn carpet fall on that side of the line.
Underneath the general rule sits a much more useful document: Residential Tenancy Policy Guideline 1, last revised in July 2025, which splits the work item by item between landlord and tenant (Province of British Columbia, 2025). Most of the surprises below come out of that guideline.
Two dates matter as much as the cleaning itself. The landlord has to give you a chance to attend a move-out condition inspection, and once they have your forwarding address in writing they have 15 days to either return your deposit or apply to keep it. More on both further down, because that's where deposits are actually won and lost.
Work top to bottom and dry before wet, which is the order our team uses on every job. Dust, sweep and vacuum first, then mop and wipe, so you're never dropping dirt onto a surface you already cleaned. Do a whole room before moving on.
The kitchen is where most deposit deductions start, because grease and baked-on residue are easy for an inspector to see and hard to argue about. The province is specific here: at the end of the tenancy the tenant must "clean the stove top, elements and oven, defrost and clean the refrigerator, wipe out the inside of the dishwasher."
In a bathroom the marks that cost you are the ones that have set in, so start with the mineral stains, the soap film and the mould. Grout and silicone are what an inspector looks at first.
These rooms are mostly about surfaces at eye level and above, which is where dust builds up unseen for a year. Clear the rooms completely first, because you can't clean around what's still there.
The entry sets the tone for the whole inspection, because it's the first thing anyone sees. Give it more attention than its size suggests.
A few small jobs sit outside any room, and they're the ones people remember on the drive away. Do them last, once everything else is finished.
Carpets need steam cleaning or shampooing at the end of a tenancy that lasted one year or longer. Under a year, the general rule is that you don't owe it. The guideline says that "generally, at the end of the tenancy the tenant will be held responsible for steam cleaning or shampooing the carpets after a tenancy of one year."
Three situations override the one-year rule and put carpet cleaning on you whatever the length of the tenancy:
Worth knowing in the other direction as well: the landlord is expected to hand you clean carpets in a reasonable state of repair at the start, and worn carpet counts as wear and tear rather than damage. A carpet that was already worn when you moved in is not your bill because it is more worn now.
Hard floors are simpler. Sweep or vacuum, then mop with something suited to the surface, and pay attention to the edges and the corners where a vacuum head doesn't reach. Dust along the baseboards is the easiest thing to miss and one of the first things an inspector looks down at.
You clean the inside of the windows and the tracks. The landlord cleans the outside. The guideline is explicit: "The tenant is responsible for cleaning the inside windows and tracks during, and at the end of the tenancy, including removing mould," while "the landlord is responsible for cleaning the outside of the windows, at reasonable intervals."
The balcony door is the exception that catches people. Both sides of it are yours, along with its glass and its track, because the guideline names balcony doors separately from windows.
Our team cleans windows across Metro Vancouver every week, so here's the part that matters for an inspection. Inspectors mark down the track far more often than the glass.
Vacuum the loose grit out of the channel first, then work a damp cloth into the corners with something thin behind it, and finish dry. Washing the pane over a dirty track just runs the dirt back down onto clean glass.
Mould in the track and along the rubber seal is the other one. It grows in a wet coastal winter faster than most people expect, it's named in the guideline as the tenant's job, and it needs treating rather than wiping, because a wipe takes the colour off and leaves the growth.
If the glass itself is streaking on you, our guide to cleaning windows without streaks covers the method in full.
Plenty of move-out checklists are written for other provinces and copied from one site to the next. Four of the jobs they hand you are things a British Columbia tenant generally isn't responsible for, and each one is worth real money or a lost weekend.
You do not have to repaint. The guideline is unambiguous: "The landlord is responsible for painting the interior of the rental unit at reasonable intervals. The tenant cannot be required as a condition of tenancy to paint the premises." You can only be asked to paint where it's needed to repair damage you're responsible for.
If you hung pictures the way your landlord told you to, the holes aren't damage. In the guideline's words, if the tenant follows reasonable instructions for hanging and removing pictures, "it is not considered damage and they are not responsible for filling the holes or the cost of filling the holes."
The line moves if there's an excessive number of holes, or large nails, screws, or tape that has pulled the wall surface. Those you do pay to repair.
Exterior glass is the landlord's responsibility at reasonable intervals, as above. Cleaning the outside of a fourth-floor window is also the single most dangerous job on a generic checklist, and it isn't yours.
Covered above, and it's the one that costs the most to get wrong. A professional carpet clean booked out of habit on an eleven-month tenancy with no pets, no smoking and no stains is money you didn't have to spend.
None of this means leaving things dirty. It means putting your hours into the kitchen, the bathroom and the window tracks, which is where an inspection actually lands.
Cleaning wins you the deposit only if the paperwork holds up, and in British Columbia the rules bind your landlord as much as they bind you. Your landlord has to offer you a move-out condition inspection, and the province says they "should propose 2 meeting times to complete the inspection with the tenant."
Miss that obligation and it costs them: "If a landlord fails to meet for a condition inspection report, the landlord may lose the right to collect damage or pet deposits." The same is true in reverse, so turning up matters. If you don't participate after being given the chance, you may lose the right to have the deposit returned.
Then the clock starts. Under section 38 of the Residential Tenancy Act, the landlord has 15 days from the later of the end of the tenancy or the day they receive your forwarding address in writing, and in that window they must either repay the deposit with interest or file a dispute resolution application to claim against it (Residential Tenancy Act, s. 38).
A landlord who does neither must pay the tenant double the security deposit and loses the right to claim against it. That rule is the strongest protection you have, and two things have to be true for it to apply. You took part in the move-out inspection when it was offered, and you gave your forwarding address in writing. Turn down both chances to inspect and the protection is gone.
Three habits protect you more than an extra hour of scrubbing:
A small place you have kept on top of is manageable on your own with the right equipment. A larger place, a long tenancy, or a kitchen with a year of oven use behind it is where the job turns into a whole weekend and the result still gets marked down.
The test is whether the job needs equipment or products you don't own. Oven cleaner strong enough for baked-on carbon, a carpet machine, and a way to reach high interior glass safely are the three that most often decide it.
We handle move-out and move-in cleaning across Metro Vancouver and the North Shore, and every quote is customized to the property rather than sold as a fixed package. We agree on the scope first, so the checklist we work to is the one you're being inspected against. At the end we walk it with you or send photos, and if something inside the agreed scope was missed, we come back and put it right.
If you're moving into the next place as well, tell us both addresses and we'll quote both. An empty suite is far quicker to clean than a full one.
A full clean of the kitchen and its appliances inside and out, the bathroom including grout and seals, all floors, the inside of the windows and their tracks, walls, baseboards, doors, light fixtures, closets and cupboards, plus removal of all garbage. In British Columbia it does not include repainting. Carpet steam cleaning applies after a tenancy of a year or more, and at any length if there were uncaged pets, if anyone smoked, or if the carpet was stained.
Only if the tenancy lasted one year or longer, according to Residential Tenancy Policy Guideline 1. It applies whatever the length of the tenancy if you stained the carpet deliberately or carelessly, if there were uncaged pets, or if anyone smoked in the unit.
No. The province puts interior painting on the landlord at reasonable intervals, and a tenant cannot be required to paint as a condition of tenancy. You can only be asked to paint where it repairs damage you are responsible for.
The landlord, at reasonable intervals. The tenant cleans the inside windows and tracks, including removing mould, plus both the inside and outside of the balcony doors and their tracks.
15 days from the later of the end of the tenancy or the day they receive your forwarding address in writing. Within that time they must either return it with interest or apply for dispute resolution to claim against it. A landlord who does neither must pay double the deposit, as long as you took part in the move-out inspection when it was offered and gave your forwarding address in writing within a year of the tenancy ending.
The tenant pays the cleaning costs if the unit is not clean when they leave, and the landlord can claim those costs against the deposit. You are not responsible for reasonable wear and tear, which the province defines as natural deterioration from aging where the unit has been reasonably used.
It depends on the size, the length of the tenancy and the condition, which is why we scope every job before we quote. Tell us the address and what needs doing and you get a free quote back the same day.
