An apartment should be the easy version of a bond clean. Less floor, no gutters, no lawn. Yet more Sydney tenants lose money on unit vacates than on houses, because end of lease cleaning in a Sydney apartment under strata pulls in areas that never appear on a standard checklist — the balcony drain choked with pigeon grit, the storage cage in the basement, the oil patch under car space 14. Agents inspect all of it. Strata quietly reports the rest.
We run exit cleans across Sydney every week, from Zetland towers to walk-up red-brick blocks in Randwick, and the pattern is consistent. The inside gets done properly, and then the report comes back with three line items from outside the front door. Our full exit clean is built to the standard your agent checks against, which for apartments means the common-property edges too.
What makes an apartment bond clean different from a house clean?
Three things: shared infrastructure, tighter tolerances, and a second set of eyes.
Shared infrastructure means your rubbish, your furniture and your cleaning water all have to leave through spaces other people own. Tighter tolerances means a 62sqm unit shows every scuff — there's nowhere for grime to hide the way it does in a big house. And the second set of eyes is the building manager, who will absolutely tell your agent if you left a mattress in the bin room on Saturday morning.
The other difference is glass. Apartments are full of it. Sliding doors, splashbacks, mirrored robes, balcony balustrades. Streaky glass is the single most common flag we see on unit exit reports, ahead of ovens. Microfibre and a proper glass cloth, not paper towel, and finish with a dry buff in one direction so you can see which pass left the smear.
Which strata rules trip tenants up on moving day?
Most Sydney buildings run under by-laws made from the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015, and moving is one of the tightest-regulated activities in the book. The ones that catch people:
- Lift bookings. Usually 5–7 days notice, in writing, to the building manager or strata manager. Weekday windows only in a lot of CBD and Green Square buildings — no Sunday moves.
- A moving bond. $250–$500 refundable, held by strata against damage to lift padding, lobby tiles and corridor paint. It's separate from your rental bond and returned by the owners corporation, not the agent.
- Certificate of currency. Some buildings want proof of public liability insurance from your removalist and your cleaner before either is allowed past the lobby. We carry public liability cover and can email the certificate of currency the same day.
- Water and runoff by-laws. Hosing a balcony so water sheets onto the unit below is a breach in nearly every building. Pressure washers are commonly banned outright.
- Rubbish. Model by-law 12 covers rubbish disposal, and it means garbage chutes are for bagged household waste only.
Book the lift before you book the cleaner. We've had crews stuck in a Wolli Creek lobby with equipment because the tenant assumed access was fine on a Sunday.
What do agents actually check on an apartment balcony?
More than you'd think, and they photograph it. The balcony is technically common property in most schemes, but you have exclusive use, so its condition sits with you.
Agents look at the tiles or decking (mould shadow in the corners, rust rings from a pot plant or a BBQ leg), the drain, the balustrade glass on both faces, the underside of the handrail, and the ceiling above — which in coastal blocks from Bondi to Cronulla grows a fine black bloom of salt-air mildew.
Sweep first, always. Then a bucket of warm water with sugar soap and a deck brush, worked away from the drain, and mop the residue up rather than flushing it over the edge. Rust rings need an oxalic-based product like Ranex — bleach won't touch them. For that mildew on the soffit, a spray of 30 Seconds Outdoor Cleaner, ten minutes, then a rinse cloth. If the discolouration is inside the unit rather than out, our guide to removing mould before your end of lease inspection covers the wall and ceiling treatments properly.
Balcony glass gets cleaned on both sides where you can safely reach it. Where the outer face needs abseil or a boom, that's the owners corporation's job and no agent can hold your bond over it — say so in writing if they try.
Do bin rooms, storage cages and car spaces count?
Your storage cage and car space are almost always listed on the lease, which means they're on the condition report, which means they're inspected. We see them missed on maybe a third of the DIY cleans we're called back to fix.
Storage cage: empty completely, sweep out the concrete dust, wipe down the mesh if it's grimy, and remove anything you inherited from the last tenant. Leaving a broken clothes airer behind reads as abandoned goods and gets billed as removal.
Car space: oil and coolant stains are the usual damage claim, and they're $60–$120 to have removed commercially. DIY it with cat litter to lift fresh oil overnight, then a degreaser like Septone Oil & Grease Remover, a stiff broom and hot water. Older dried stains may only lighten — photograph the result so there's evidence of effort.
Bin room: you're not expected to clean it. You are expected not to have created a mess in it. That means no cardboard mountain, no bagged rubbish stacked beside the chute, and absolutely no mattress, couch or bookcase. Book a council bulky waste collection instead — City of Sydney, Inner West and Randwick all run free pickups, but lead times stretch to two or three weeks in the busy December and January turnover, so book it the day you give notice.
Pro tip: photograph your car space, storage cage and balcony drain the morning you hand back the keys, with the date visible on your phone. It costs 60 seconds and it's the evidence that ends a strata-related bond claim before it starts.
How much does an apartment end of lease clean cost in Sydney in 2026?
Unit pricing is generally sharper than house pricing because there's less ground to cover. These are the Sydney ranges we're quoting as of August 2026, for a vacant, unfurnished property:
| Apartment | Exit clean | With carpet steam | Typical time on site |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | $249–$340 | $345–$475 | 2.5–3.5 hrs |
| 1 bed / 1 bath | $299–$450 | $395–$585 | 3–4.5 hrs |
| 2 bed / 1 bath | $399–$520 | $520–$685 | 4–6 hrs |
| 2 bed / 2 bath | $450–$560 | $570–$725 | 5–6.5 hrs |
| 3 bed apartment | $499–$720 | $660–$935 | 6–8 hrs |
Add roughly $40–$90 for a large balcony, $50–$80 for a car space degrease, and $30–$60 for a second bathroom with a heavy soap-scum build-up. You can price your own place in about a minute with the instant estimate calculator on our pricing page rather than waiting on three quotes.
One note on carpet. Most NSW leases with carpeted floors require professional steam cleaning with a receipt, and agents in Sydney do ask for it. Hot-water extraction that passes exit reports is cheaper bundled with the clean than booked separately, and it gets done in the right order — carpets last, after the dust has come off the skirtings.
What order should you clean an apartment for the best result?
Top down, wet rooms last, floors at the very end. Practically:
- Strip everything out, including the storage cage and balcony.
- Cobwebs, ceiling vents, light fittings, ducted air-con return filter.
- Kitchen — oven and rangehood filters go in to soak first, then cupboards inside and out, then benches and splashback.
- Bathrooms — grout, shower screen, exhaust fan cover, under the vanity.
- Walls, doors, skirtings, tracks and windows.
- Balcony, then car space.
- Vacuum, mop, carpet steam.
Work with our free room-by-room cleaning checklist open on your phone and tick as you go. If you want the full picture of what an inspector writes down, we've already broken down what Sydney agents actually flag on the exit report and how to fix each item.
What happens if the agent flags something after the clean?
We come back and re-clean it free, within 72 hours of the exit report. No argument, no invoice, no "that wasn't in scope" — if it's on the exit report and it's cleaning, it's ours to fix. That guarantee applies to balconies, cages and car spaces exactly as it does to the oven.
Sensible move: forward us the report as an attachment, don't retype it. We read the agent's wording, hit the exact line items, and send you photos so you can reply to the agency the same day. Bond disputes in NSW are usually won or lost on how quickly you respond, not on who's right.
We cover the whole of Sydney from the eastern beaches to the inner west and out to Parramatta, and we're used to buildings with loading dock rules, swipe-card lifts and 9am–4pm access windows. Tell us the building quirks up front and we'll plan around them. Send through your address and bedroom count for a free quote and we'll come back with a fixed price, usually within the hour.
More on this: End of Lease Cleaning in Sydney.
