Preparations for Move Out at Lease End
We thank you for your time spent at Foster Place Properties, and hope that your rental experience has been a pleasant and memorable one. To ensure that your house is left in the same condition as it was at the start of your lease period, and to ensure that your deposit refund is maximized, please use the following as guidelines to help you prepare for your move out:
- Bathroom toilet, sink, cabinets, shower-tub areas, walls and floors CLEAN. NO SOAP SCUM / HARD WATER DEPOSITS (run your finger along the tub... it should slide smoothly).
o The right cleaners can make a tremendous difference in getting tubs and showers surrounds clean, saving a great deal of additional scrubbing. Soap scum removers will often remove the first layer of grit... first, wet the surfaces of the tub, apply the soap scum cleaner, and then let it sit for about 5 minutes. Rinse, and then follow with another style of cleaner (if you have a "plastic" feeling acrylic tub, use a soft solution/detergent like "SoftScrub;" DO NOT use comet or other abrasives on these.... if you have an older enamel or porcelain tub, Comet or another abrasive cleaner should work well). Don't try to scrub everything off at once... apply a layer, scrub, and then let it sit for 3 minutes. Repeat as needed.
- Stovetop and oven CLEAN. If you use the oven's self-cleaning feature, please be sure to remove the metal oven racks prior to the oven cycle, as this turn the racks green.
o After removing the racks, the self-clean feature will take a couple of hours, and will seriously heat up your kitchen; might not be best thing to do in middle of day when people are around. Your stovetop should be hinged and lift to allow you to access and clean underneath the burner plates; additionally, burner plates on electric ranges pull out (please be sure to re-insert them carefully so as not to damage the contacts and break the burner)
- Kitchen cabinets, dishwasher front, counters, walls and floors Clean.
o Please be sure these surfaces have been wiped down as needed. Be careful with walls, as it is easy to streak them with dirty water or cleaning materials. For countertops and the sink, SoftScrub and/or Fantastic (or Simple Green or similar cleaner) usually works very well. If floors have sticky spots, it may be best to spot mop first prior to doing the final mop/clean up. Please do not leave any cleaners behind under the sink; everything that was not in the house at the start of your lease is to be removed and thrown away or taken with you.
- Refrigerator and freezer CLEAN. All items removed and wiped out. DO NOT use strong cleaners.
o Use plain water or, if needed, use baking soda mixed with water as a cleaner. Interior shelves of the refrigerator can usually be removed and washed in the sink to remove the gummy material that often slips underneath shelves and glass inserts. Be careful not to use way too much baking soda (if you do use it), as this leaves a hard to remove haze on the surfaces. Please wipe down the inside of the fridge, the seals, the top of the fridge and the front door.
- General living areas/bedroom walls CLEAN. No tape or tape residue, nails, sticky- tac, etc. on walls or ceiling. DO NOT attempt to fill holes or paint! Please ensure that floors and/or carpets are swept (often with carpets, a broom can be used to sweep dust from along baseboards towards inside of floor that vacuum can pick up).
o For walls, Mr Clean's "Magic Erasers" can often remove smudges. Very light usage of "Goo-B-Gone" can remove light adhesive residue; be careful to go lightly with it though and to use it sparingly, as it can damage the paint/walls if not done correctly.
- Basements and all storage areas should be free of any property or debris.
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Yards/decks/patio/porches free of litter and trash. All trash from the house and all areas around the house should be left ready for pick-up at the curbside.
As a heads up, you can go to the City Building on W Washington St (1st floor window) and pick up stickers for bags of trash to be picked up at a discounted rate. Trash can simply be left at the curb (even couches and other large items), though the bagged materials with stickers can sometimes save money. More information about these stickers is available on the
City of Athens' website.
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All keys and parking passes locked in your apartment/house (leave them on the kitchen countertop). Please note that it is very common for people to leave town with a parking pass still hanging in their car; be sure that these are left on the kitchen counter along with all keys to the house to avoid the replacement fee for the tags and/or keys. If you are in an apartment with a locked mailbox, please be sure you leave this key behind as well.
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Leave self-addressed envelope for return of deposits on countertop (often useful to simply put keys and parking tags in your individual envelope).
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Contact all utilities (except water); ask for final reading/bill and give them a forwarding address. You are NOT asking for a "turn-off" of your service, only your final bill. Please be sure to do this... I've seen tenants forget to schedule a final billing and still be responsible for paying future tenants' gas and/or electric bills months later.
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