Kitchen cleaning checklist
Kitchens punish bad sequencing harder than any other room: grease travels, crumbs fall, and water finds the floor you just mopped. This sheet runs clear-and-soak, top down, working surfaces, then sink and floor — fourteen tasks, seventy-two minutes for a family kitchen.
Before the visit
- Ask what can be moved and what must not be
- Check for surfaces that cannot take a degreaser
- Start the microwave steam before anything else
After the visit
- Put every small appliance back exactly where it was
- Dry the taps and the sink — water marks read as 'not cleaned'
- Mention anything that needs a deep-clean visit
Clear and soak
- Clear the counters, stack what must be washed4 min
- Spray the hob and leave the degreaser to dwell1 min
- Start the microwave steam (water and lemon, two minutes)2 min
Top down
- Cupboard fronts, handles and the tops of the doors8 min
- Splashback and grout line6 min
- Extractor front and filter face5 min
Working surfaces
- Counters cleared, wiped, dried7 min
- Hob wiped off, knobs pulled and cleaned behind6 min
- Microwave inside, plate out4 min
- Appliance fronts, handles and door seals6 min
- Small appliances moved and wiped under5 min
Sink and floor
- Sink scoured, drain flushed, taps descaled and dried7 min
- Bin emptied, liner replaced, lid wiped3 min
- Floor swept then mopped out of the room8 min
Grease needs chemistry, not muscle
Kitchen soil is fat, and fat comes off with an alkaline degreaser and time. Scrubbing a cold hob with an all-purpose spray is the single most common way cleaners lose twenty minutes and still leave a film.
Spray, wait the label's time, then wipe once. If it still needs pressure, the dwell was too short, not the arm.
How far inside the appliances you go
On a standard visit: fronts, handles, seals, and the microwave inside. Not the oven interior, not behind the fridge, not inside the cupboards. Those are the deep clean, and they are what a deep clean is sold on.
Write the appliance line in your quote as 'exteriors and microwave interior'. Ambiguity here is where a standard visit quietly turns into an unpaid deep clean.
Finish at the door
The floor is last, always, and you mop backwards out of the room. Anything else means walking on a wet floor you are responsible for, which is both a slip risk and a visible set of footprints in the one surface the client looks at from the doorway.
Sweep or vacuum first. Mopping over crumbs makes paste.