Move Out Cleaning on Military Orders: How to Plan Around a PCS Date
You have a report date, a clearing date and a truck date, and they do not line up neatly.
A PCS move out clean is judged against a written inspection form on a date somebody else set. That means three things have to happen in order: the unit has to be completely empty, the inspection form has to be in your hand, and the clean has to be booked for the day before the walk through rather than the morning of it.
Prime Harmony Cleaning Service works out of Norwich and covers Groton, New London, Waterford, Mystic and Colchester. This post is about how to fit a clean into a move that runs on paperwork.
What makes a PCS move out clean different?
The date. A private move can slip a few days when the closing runs late. A clearing date cannot.
Naval Submarine Base New London sits in Groton, at 1 Crystal Lake Road, with roughly 6,500 active duty personnel, about 12,000 family members and more than 2,000 civilian employees and contractors. Households here move on orders, not on a season, so the demand for handover cleaning runs all year rather than peaking in summer the way it does in a normal rental market.
The second difference is the standard. The installation supports more than 1,500 public-private venture family housing units on about 530 acres. Clearing one means passing a walk through inspection before the keys go back. That is not a judgement call about whether the kitchen looks nice. It is somebody reading a list.
So the job is not "clean the house". The job is "clear the list".
Which handover are you actually facing?
Three different handovers get called the same thing, and they are scored differently.
Base housing. You are cleared against the housing office's own form. Appliance interiors, window tracks, closet shelves and light fixtures carry more weight than open floor space, because those are the lines on the form.
A private rental. In the Town of Groton, 7,635 of 16,374 occupied homes are rented, which is 46.6 percent, and 4,328 of the town's 18,155 housing units sit in buildings of five units or more. That means a lot of local tenants answer to a leasing office rather than to a single landlord, and a leasing office has its own handover form too. Ask for it before you book anything.
A house you are selling. Nobody hands you a list at all. The buyer walks in and forms an opinion in about ten seconds.
If you are the owner rather than the person leaving, the job is different again and it runs on a lease gap rather than on your move. That is the owner side of a turnover.
When should you book the clean around a clearing date?
Work backwards from the walk through, not forwards from the truck.
- Truck day. The unit goes empty. Nothing useful can be cleaned before this.
- The day after the truck. This is the clean. Utilities still on, unit empty, doors and drawers open.
- The next day. The walk through.
That one day of slack is the whole point. If the inspection finds something, you still have a morning to fix it. If you book the clean for the same morning as the inspection, you have no room at all, and a failed line on a form turns into a second appointment you do not have time for.
Send us the checklist when you book. Landlords, agents and housing offices all hand out their own list, and it is never quite the same list twice. Some care most about the oven. Some care most about carpets. We work from the document you give us instead of from a general idea of clean. Full detail of what the visit covers is on our move in and move out cleaning page.
Price depends on the unit, mostly on bathroom count and on whether the kitchen has a built in oven, so ask for a free quote with the bed and bath count and the date.
What does the inspection actually look at?
The places you cannot see from standing up.
Inside the oven and under the burners. Inside and behind the fridge. Inside every cabinet and drawer, and the closet shelves and rails. Window sills and tracks. Baseboards, door frames and switch plates. Bathroom grout, behind the toilet, inside the vanity, and the exhaust vent. Hard floors washed last, after everything above them.
Housing stock changes how long that takes. In Groton, 4,545 of 18,155 units were built between 1980 and 1999 and only 15.4 percent date from 1939 or earlier, so most local handovers are late century finishes, vinyl floors and laminate counters that come clean with normal product. That makes the time predictable, which matters when the date is fixed.
Across the river it is a different building. In New London, 6,015 of 12,737 housing units were built in 1939 or earlier, which is 47.2 percent, and 63.9 percent of occupied homes are rented. Pre war units mean radiator fins, deep window casings and painted trim that all have to be detailed by hand, so the same square footage takes longer. If you are posted to the base but renting in the city, budget more time for older rentals across the river in New London.
If the unit is being handed back after a long tenancy rather than a short one, a heavier first pass may be the honest answer. That is a deep clean instead, and it is worth asking about when you describe the unit.
What happens to everything you are leaving behind?
This is the step that catches people on the last morning.
New London collects trash and recycling curbside on five weekly routes, one for each weekday, from 90 gallon green city containers that have to be at the curb by 8:00 AM. Anything bigger goes to the City transfer station at 63 Lewis Street. So whatever comes out of the unit has to fit that address's own container on that address's own route day.
That is a real planning constraint on a move. If you are leaving a mattress, a broken chair or four bags more than the container holds, that is a separate trip on a separate day, and it needs to happen before the walk through rather than after it. Book the clean for the day before your route day where you can.
Groton runs on its own collection arrangements, and if you are clearing base housing the housing office will tell you what it wants done with anything left. Ask early. Every service area we cover is written up on its own page, including cleaning in the Town of Groton.
Book it before the date gets tight
Prime Harmony Cleaning Service is insured, woman owned and family owned, and Marlucia Villanueva runs it. We clean Monday to Friday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm, and Saturday mornings.
Have your clearing date, your bed and bath count and your checklist ready, then call (860) 861-8154 to get the visit on the calendar. The earlier the date is held, the more room the rest of the move has.
Talk to Prime Harmony Cleaning Service
Questions about your cleaning job? We serve Norwich and the surrounding area with honest, upfront advice.
FAQ
Related questions
Do I need to be there while the unit is cleaned?
No. An empty unit is the easiest job in this trade to do without you. We agree access before the day, whether that is a key, a lockbox code or a leasing office. If a code stops working we tell you rather than leaving you to hear it from somebody else.
The unit is not empty yet. Can you still clean it?
Not properly. Anything still in the unit hides the surfaces the inspection looks at, and the shelf under a stack of boxes is exactly the shelf that gets checked. Book the clean for after the truck leaves.
My orders moved. Can the booking move with them?
Tell us as early as you can and we will look at moving the visit. Dates slide on military moves and there is no point pretending otherwise. The earlier we know, the more room there is to shift things.
Can you clean a unit after the utilities are shut off?
No. Water and power both have to be on. Cabinet interiors, closets and bathrooms cannot be done in the dark, and a unit with the water off cannot be cleaned at all. Leave the utilities running until the day after the clean.