Every November it's the same sequence. Exams finish around the middle of the month, three or four leases roll over at once, and by the third week our phones run hot with share house end of lease cleaning Sydney students booked in a panic — usually by the one housemate who hasn't already flown to Perth or Chengdu. If you're in a Randwick terrace, a Coogee unit, or one of the Macquarie Park towers, you've got maybe ten days between your last exam and your handover, and the whole house needs to be spotless. We do a lot of exit cleans across Sydney in that window, and the houses that get their full bond back are the ones that sorted the money question early.
This is the practical version: what it costs, how to split it fairly when people moved in at different times, and what agents around the two big student catchments actually flag.
Why does November get so tight for share house cleans?
Two university calendars and one rental cycle collide. UNSW's teaching term wraps up in November, Macquarie's Session 2 exams finish mid-month, and a huge chunk of student leases in Randwick, Kingsford, Coogee, Macquarie Park and Epping were signed in late January or February for a 12-month term — which means they expire in the last fortnight of November or the first week of December.
So every removalist, storage unit and cleaning crew in the eastern suburbs and the north-west is booked solid for about three weeks. Our Saturday slots for the last two weekends of November typically fill by early in the month. If you want the detail on which weeks are worst, we mapped out the September to November peak booking calendar for Sydney — November is the sharpest crunch of the lot.
One more thing about student houses specifically: they've usually had more people through them than a family home of the same size. Six bodies in a four-bedder means more wear on the oven, more scuffing on the hallway walls, and a bathroom that's been used by twice as many people. That shows up in the exit report.
How much does a share house exit clean cost in 2026?
Here are the numbers we're quoting in Sydney for spring 2026. These are fixed prices confirmed before we start — no hourly surprises — and they assume the place is empty of furniture and rubbish when we arrive.
| Property | Full exit clean | Split 3 ways | Split 4 ways | Split 5 ways |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2-bed unit (Coogee, Kingsford) | $330 – $420 | $110 – $140 | — | — |
| 3-bed unit (Macquarie Park, Epping) | $420 – $520 | $140 – $173 | $105 – $130 | — |
| 3-bed house/terrace (Randwick) | $460 – $580 | $153 – $193 | $115 – $145 | $92 – $116 |
| 4-bed house (Randwick, Epping) | $540 – $700 | — | $135 – $175 | $108 – $140 |
| 5-bed house | $680 – $880 | — | — | $136 – $176 |
| Carpet steam clean (per room) | $35 – $55 | Usually charged to the room's occupant | ||
Per head, that's cheaper than a night out on Coogee Bay Road. Split five ways, a big Randwick sharehouse clean lands around $130 each. You can sanity-check your own place against the full 2026 Sydney price guide from studio to five bedrooms, or run your bedroom and bathroom count through the instant estimate calculator before you take a number to the group chat.
What's the fairest way to split the bill?
The method that causes the fewest arguments, in our experience watching hundreds of these:
- Split the base clean evenly per person, not per room. The kitchen, bathrooms, living area, windows and balcony were shared by everyone. Someone in the small room off the laundry still used the oven.
- Charge bedroom extras to the occupant. Carpet steam cleaning for your room, blu-tack marks on your wall, a wardrobe you've written on — your line item.
- Anyone who moved out early still pays their share of the wear. If Jess lived there for eight months of a twelve-month lease and her name is on the bond, she owes for the grease she helped build up. Pro-rata by months lived there if the group wants to be precise.
- Collect the money before the clean, not after. One person pays the invoice, everyone transfers their share within 48 hours. Screenshot the invoice into the group chat so the number isn't in dispute.
Honestly, the biggest cause of friction isn't the amount — it's timing. People who've already left town are slow to transfer. Get the money in while everyone's still packing boxes and feeling guilty.
Pro tip: book the clean in the name of whoever is doing the final handover, and forward our tax invoice to the agent the same day. Agents in Randwick and Epping ask for a paid receipt as proof, and if anything gets flagged on the exit report we come back and re-clean it free within 72 hours — which is worth far more to the group than saving $60 on a cash-in-hand job.
Who is actually liable if one housemate skipped out?
This is where share houses come unstuck in NSW. If you're all named on the one residential tenancy agreement, you're co-tenants and you're jointly liable — the agent doesn't care who left the oven dirty, they'll claim against the whole bond. If the bond is held in Rental Bonds Online, each contributor gets an email about the claim and has to agree to the split before it's released.
If instead you signed a separate room-by-room agreement with a head tenant or a student accommodation operator, your liability is usually limited to your own room plus a share of common areas — read the agreement, because some of them charge a fixed "exit clean fee" whether you clean or not.
Either way, the evidence trail is what wins disputes: entry condition report, dated photos of every room after the clean, and a paid cleaning receipt. We've walked through the full process, including the 14-day timelines and what NCAT looks at, in our guide to getting your bond back in NSW when an agent claims for cleaning.
What do agents around UNSW and Macquarie flag most?
Our crews see the same short list in student properties, year after year:
- Oven and grill tray. Carbonised, every time. Six people cooking for a year with no degreasing.
- Rangehood filters. Nobody has ever soaked them. They come out sticky and yellow.
- Shower grout and silicone. Coogee and Randwick units close to the water get soap scum plus mould in the corners. If it's black and in the silicone, cleaning may not fully fix it — but agents can't charge you for the sealant itself.
- Blu-tack, Command strip and poster residue. The number one bedroom flag in student housing. Remove the hooks yourself and check for paint pull.
- Bedroom carpet stains and desk chair wear. Wheeled chairs on cheap cut-pile leave a visible arc.
- Balcony floors and window tracks. Macquarie Park towers get construction dust; the eastern suburbs get salt and sand.
- Rubbish left behind. A mattress on the kerb is not our removal job, and it's a guaranteed deduction.
If you're in an apartment block, there's a second layer: bin rooms, garage spaces, common corridors and strata rules about when you can use the lift. Our breakdown of what agents and strata check in Sydney apartments covers the bits people forget until settlement day.
Do we have to pay for carpet steam cleaning too?
In NSW, an agent can require professional carpet cleaning if it's a term of your lease, or if the carpets are genuinely dirtier than fair wear and tear allows. In a share house that's been lived in hard for a year, they almost always are. Budget $35–$55 a room for proper hot water extraction with a receipt, and expect 2–4 hours of drying — so schedule it for the morning of your last day, not an hour before the final inspection.
We run hot water extraction rather than a surface shampoo, which matters in student houses because the stains are usually deep (spilled wine, energy drink, the mystery patch behind the desk). Book it with the exit clean and the same crew handles both in one visit, so you're not coordinating two sets of tradies during exam week.
What's the week-before plan?
Work backwards from your handover date, and make the whole house do these things:
- Day −10: Book the clean and the carpets. Collect everyone's share. Confirm the handover time with the agent in writing.
- Day −5: Everyone clears their own room — furniture, rubbish, nothing under the bed. Rubbish goes to the tip or a council collection, not the kerb.
- Day −3: Remove hooks, patch pinholes, check the balcony and the garage space.
- Day −1: House is completely empty. Utilities stay connected — we need power and hot water. Leave the keys or arrange access.
- Handover day: Meter photos, keys, remotes, mailbox key, fob. Then walk the place with our free room-by-room cleaning checklist so nothing gets missed while you're still on site.
One realistic warning: if all five of you plan to clean it yourselves the night before, at least one person will bail. A four-bedder takes two experienced cleaners six to eight hours with commercial gear. Three tired students with a bottle of supermarket spray will be there until 2am and still miss the rangehood filters.
We're police-checked, insured, and if the agent flags anything on the exit report we return free within 72 hours. Tell us your suburb, bedroom and bathroom count and whether you need carpets, and we'll give you a fixed price — grab an instant online quote or call 0468 490 764 and we'll find you a slot before the November rush eats them all.
More on this: End of Lease Cleaning in Sydney.
