The move-out cleaning checklist for Ontario tenants

Most move-out cleaning advice you will find online was written for an American audience and quietly assumes a damage deposit that Ontario does not have. Following it will not hurt you, but it will make you anxious about the wrong things.

So before the checklist, the part that actually governs the money.

What Ontario law actually says

Under the Residential Tenancies Act, the only deposit an Ontario landlord may legally collect is a last month’s rent deposit. It can be applied to one thing: your final month’s rent. It cannot be kept for cleaning, and it cannot be kept for damage.

There is no cleaning deposit in Ontario. There is no damage deposit in Ontario. If you have been told otherwise, that is worth knowing before you negotiate anything.

What a landlord can do is pursue cleaning or repair costs separately, including through the Landlord and Tenant Board, if the unit is left in worse condition than normal wear and tear. That is a claim they have to make and support, not money they can quietly keep.

So the practical goal of a move-out clean is not “get my deposit back”. It is leave nothing worth claiming over.

Normal wear and tear, in plain terms

You are responsible for keeping the unit in a state of ordinary cleanliness. You are not responsible for the passage of time.

Normal wear and tear, which is not your problem:

• Paint that has faded or yellowed
• Carpet worn along the main walking paths
• Small nail holes from hanging pictures
• Minor scuffs on walls from furniture
• Appliances and fixtures that have simply aged

Not wear and tear, which is:

• Grease on cabinet fronts and the range hood
• Limescale and soap scum in the shower
• A soiled oven or fridge
• Pet hair and pet odour
• Stains that cleaning would have lifted
• Rubbish or belongings left behind

The rough test: if cleaning would fix it, it is yours to fix. If only replacement or repainting would fix it, and it came from ordinary use over time, it generally is not.

Timing the clean

Do it after the furniture is out and before the final walkthrough. An empty unit is the only time every surface is reachable, and reachable is exactly what an inspection tests.

Book two to three weeks ahead. Month-end is the busiest window in the calendar across the Durham Region, and the last days of June and August are the hardest of all because of student turnover around Ontario Tech and Durham College.

The room-by-room checklist

Kitchen

The kitchen carries more disputed charges than every other room combined.

• Inside the oven, including the racks and the glass door
• Inside the fridge and freezer, defrosted, dried, with shelves and crisper drawers washed
• Range hood and filter, degreased
• Inside and outside every cabinet and drawer, including the tops of upper cabinets
• Behind and under the fridge and stove
• Backsplash, countertops and the sink, including the drain and taps
• Dishwasher interior, filter and seal
• Small appliances left behind, inside and out

Bathrooms

• Grout and tile, descaled rather than just wiped
• Shower door tracks and glass, including the hard-water film
• Toilet, including the base and behind it
• Vanity inside and out, and the mirror
• Exhaust fan cover, which is almost always overlooked
• Taps and shower head, descaled

Bedrooms and living areas

• Inside every closet, including the floors and shelves
• Baseboards and trim, wiped rather than dusted
• Window interiors, sills and tracks
• Light fixtures and ceiling fan blades
• Switch plates, door handles and door frames
• Floors vacuumed and washed, including under where furniture stood

Everywhere else

• Interior of the front and back doors
• Stair risers and railings
• Laundry area, including behind the machines and inside the dryer lint trap
• Basement and storage areas emptied and swept
• HVAC vent covers
• Adhesive and tape residue removed from walls, floors and windows
• Every light bulb working
• All rubbish removed, including from the bins

Protect yourself with photographs

This costs nothing and settles most disputes before they start.

On your final day, after the clean, photograph every room, inside the oven and fridge, the bathrooms, and the floors. Get the timestamps. If you have your move-in photographs or the original inspection report, keep them together.

A landlord making a claim has to show the unit was left beyond normal wear and tear. Dated photographs of a clean, empty unit make that difficult.

Should you hire someone?

The law requires ordinary cleanliness, not a professional receipt. A lease clause demanding professional cleaning is generally not enforceable on its own.

That said, plenty of people hire anyway, and the reasoning is usually sound. A move-out clean takes most people a full day at the end of the most exhausting week of the year, and it happens exactly when you have the least time. The cost is typically less than a single disputed claim.

If you would rather hand it over, our move-out clean covers everything on the list above, in every community we serve across the Durham Region, from Pickering and Ajax through Whitby and Oshawa to Bowmanville.

Moving into somewhere new at the same time? A move-in clean is the other half of the same week.

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This guide is general information about Ontario tenancy rules and not legal advice. For a dispute, the Landlord and Tenant Board is the authority.