Weekly, every other week or monthly: choosing a cleaning schedule

Once you've decided to have your house cleaned regularly, the next question is how often. We offer three schedules for maintenance cleaning: weekly, every other week and every four weeks. Each visit covers the same general clean. What changes is how much the house collects in between.

What every visit covers

Whichever schedule you pick, a maintenance clean includes the kitchen (countertops, the outside of the appliances, a touch-up inside the microwave and refrigerator, the cabinets and the sink), dusting of furniture, fans, blinds, window sills and baseboards, vacuuming and mopping, glass doors, the trash and the beds, and the bathrooms: counters, sinks, toilets, tubs, showers, mirrors and faucets.

Weekly

A weekly clean suits homes that get a lot of use. If you work long days, have a full house, or simply want the place to feel freshly cleaned all the time, weekly means nothing has long to build up. Kitchens and bathrooms in particular stay on top of things when they're done every week.

Every other week

Every other week is a middle ground many households settle on. The house gets a thorough going-over twice a month, and it's easy for you to keep things tidy in the week between. It works well for couples, empty nesters and busy professionals who are out of the house most of the day.

Every four weeks

Every four weeks suits a quieter home where the day-to-day mess is light and you're happy to keep up with the kitchen and bathrooms yourself. The visit takes care of the jobs that are easy to put off, like baseboards, blinds, fans and a proper mop of the floors. If you have pets or a lot of foot traffic, you may find four weeks is a long gap.

Questions to ask yourself

• How many people live in the house, and how much are they home?
• Do you have pets?
• Which jobs do you dread most, and how quickly do they come back?
• How clean do you want the house to feel on an ordinary Tuesday?
• Would you rather keep up between visits, or not think about it at all?

If most of your answers point to a busy, lived-in home, start with weekly or every other week. If the house is quiet and you don't mind tidying, every four weeks may be plenty. And if the schedule you pick stops fitting, tell us and we'll talk about it.

Starting off right

If it's been a long time since the house had a thorough clean, a regular visit may not catch up with everything straight away. In that case, ask whether a deep clean first makes sense. It adds wet-wiped baseboards, blinds, doors and trim, and the inside of the oven, refrigerator and dishwasher, so your regular visits start from a clean slate.

Not sure which schedule suits you? Tell us about your home when you ask for a free estimate and we'll help you choose. Spring and fall are our busiest seasons, so if you'd like a regular spot, it's worth asking early.