Table of Contents
The short answer
The three cleans are close relatives. They use the same price list and the same minimum team, and each one is a full clean of the whole home. Which one you need comes down to two facts you can check in the first ten minutes with the keys in your hand: whether the home is empty, and whether builders, tilers or painters have been in since it was last cleaned.
With IHR Dream Cleaning, all three are booked with at least 2 cleaners for 3 hours each and priced by the length of the visit. That smallest booking is AED 180 with your own products or AED 210 with ours, VAT included. A post-construction clean is booked with our materials only. What a move-in visit covers is on the move-in and move-out cleaning page. This guide is about choosing between the three before you book. The choice in three lines:
- Empty, and someone lived there before you: book a move-in clean. It is planned around open cupboards and bare floors.
- Your furniture or boxes are already in: book a deep clean. It does the same heavy work on grease and limescale but goes around your belongings.
- Pale dust on the sills, paint specks on the floor, film still on the window frames: book a post-construction clean, in a brand-new home or a renovated one.
Same price list, three different kinds of dirt
The price does not tell these cleans apart, so the name on the booking can look like a formality. It is not. Each name tells the team what kind of dirt to expect, and that decides the equipment they load, the order they work in and how many hours the home is given.
Dirt from daily life
A home that people cook, wash and sleep in collects grease, limescale and ordinary dust. Grease settles on the hood, the wall behind the hob and the tops of the kitchen cabinets. Abu Dhabi's hard water leaves scale on taps, shower heads and shower glass. Dust gathers on skirting boards, door frames and behind furniture. All of it responds to the same treatment: a degreaser or a descaler, time for the product to work, and scrubbing.
This is the dirt that a deep clean and a move-in clean are both built for. The difference between those two is not the dirt. It is how much of the home the team can reach.
What an empty home adds
Once the furniture is out, a home shows what was hidden. Crumbs in every kitchen drawer. A sticky film on the shelves where bottles stood. Dust lines where the wardrobe and the bed were. Sand packed into the track of the balcony door. If the home then stood closed for weeks between tenants, add a layer of settled dust inside the wardrobes and on the AC vent covers.
A move-in clean is planned around that. The insides of every cupboard, drawer and wardrobe are part of the job, because this is the one day they are all empty. In a deep clean of a lived-in home they are not automatically included, since they are full of someone's belongings.
What builders leave behind
Building work leaves a different material altogether. Plaster, cement, tile cutting and sanded filler produce a pale mineral dust that is much finer than house dust and slightly abrasive. It floats into closed cupboards, and a wet cloth or a mop turns it into a paste that dries as a film. With it come paint specks, a cement or grout haze on new tiles, and adhesive from labels and protective film.
None of this responds to degreaser. The dust has to be lifted dry first, with vacuums that can hold it, and the residues taken off surface by surface without scratching what is underneath. That is why this clean has its own name and why we book it only with our own equipment. The method is set out step by step in our guide to after-builders cleaning.
The three cleans side by side
The table puts the differences in one place. The smallest booking is the same team for all three. What changes is how much of the home is opened up and who supplies the equipment.
| Compare | Move-in clean | Deep clean | Post-construction clean |
|---|---|---|---|
| The home | Empty, lived in before | Furnished and in use | New, renovated or just rebuilt |
| Main work | Storage insides, kitchen grease, bathroom scale | Grease, limescale, grout, corners | Fine dust, paint and cement residue |
| Cupboard insides | Included | On request | Included |
| Products and equipment | Yours or ours | Yours or ours | Ours only |
| Smallest booking | AED 180 | AED 180 | AED 210 |
| Tell us when booking | How the last occupant left it | What bothers you most | Photos of the site |
The column not to get wrong
The first row decides most cases. A move-in clean and a deep clean differ only in whether the home is empty, and both are booked with the same team at the same price. Choosing the wrong one of those two costs you nothing more than a conversation on arrival.
The post-construction column is the one that matters. A team sized for a lived-in flat does not have the hours for a flat under plaster dust, and the job then has to be extended or finished on a second visit. It is worse if the booking was made without materials, because in that case the cleaners arrive with no equipment at all and the household vacuum in the cupboard is not made for this dust. If you see pale powder or paint specks, say so when you book and send photos.
A ten-minute walk-round with the keys
You do not need experience to tell which clean a home needs. Walk through it once, before anything is carried in, with your phone torch on. Go in daylight if you can, because builders' dust shows most in sunlight.
- Stand in the doorway and look across the floor against the light. Footprints in a pale film mean dust from building work. A floor that is only dull or gritty has ordinary dirt and sand on it.
- Run a dry fingertip along a window sill, the top of a skirting board and a shelf inside a wardrobe. Grey fluff that rolls into a ball is house dust. A white or beige powder that coats the finger evenly is plaster or cement dust.
- Look at the windows and their frames. Stickers on the glass, plastic film still on the frames or specks of paint on the panes all point to recent work.
- Check the floor edges, the sockets and the door frames for paint drops, and any new tiles for a cloudy bloom that does not wipe away.
- In the kitchen, open every cupboard and drawer, then touch the top of the hood and the top edge of a wall cabinet. A sticky feel is cooking grease, the mark of a home that was lived in.
- In the bathrooms, look at the base of the taps, the shower head and the shower glass. A white crust is limescale, which builds up over months of use.
- Look up at the AC grilles. Dark dust lines on the blades are common in a home that stood closed. A coat of pale powder means the AC ran while work was going on.
- Ask the agent or the landlord two questions: when the home was last painted or repaired, and whether it was cleaned after that work.
What the findings mean
Match what you found to the nearest row. Two rows can be true at once, and the lower one wins.
| What you find | What it tells you | Book |
|---|---|---|
| Looks clean, light dust only, cupboards clean inside | Cleaned, then stood empty | A regular visit may be enough |
| Grease, limescale, crumbs in drawers, no pale powder | Lived in and not cleaned in depth since | Move-in clean |
| The same, but your furniture is already in | The team must work around belongings | Deep clean |
| Fresh paint, a few specks, little dust | Repainted between tenants | Move-in clean, and mention the paint |
| Pale powder on sills and in cupboards, film on frames | Builders finished recently | Post-construction clean |
The common mixed case: a repainted rental
Rented homes here are usually repainted when a tenant leaves, so many new tenants find the same mixture: clean-looking walls, a faint smell of paint, and the previous occupant's kitchen and bathrooms underneath. Painting on its own makes little dust. The usual traces are specks along the floor edges, on sockets and on door handles, and a little sanding dust on the skirting boards.
That is still a move-in clean. Say when you book that the home has just been painted and where the specks are, so that time is allowed for them. It becomes a post-construction clean when the work went further than paint: walls sanded back or re-plastered, tiles replaced, a kitchen or a bathroom refitted. The test is the powder on your fingertip, not the smell of paint.
When a move-in clean is the right booking
Book a move-in clean when the home is empty and somebody lived in it before you: a rented flat between tenants, a resale villa, a furnished unit whose cupboards have been cleared. It is a deep clean planned for an empty home. The team wipes out the inside of every cupboard, drawer and wardrobe, degreases the hood, hob and splashback, descales the sink, taps and shower glass and scrubs the grout lines. Then it goes through every room for doors, frames, switches, sills, sliding tracks and AC vent covers. Floors are done last.
The room-by-room list, and what to arrange for access and utilities, is already written up in our move-in and move-out cleaning checklist, so it is not repeated here. What matters for choosing is the timing and the supplies.
Book it for the day before the furniture arrives
An empty room is cleaned faster and better than a full one. Nothing has to be moved, the floor can be washed from wall to wall, and the wardrobes can be wiped out before your clothes go in. The day before delivery is the usual slot. A clean booked for the same day as the movers ends with boxes standing on a wet floor.
Visits can be booked up to 30 days ahead. Leases change hands most in the summer and at the end of the school year, and slots fill quickly then, so book a week or more ahead in those months. Cleaning on the day you collect the keys is often possible when a slot is free, but it is the less reliable plan.
The home needs electricity, water and AC connected, and the building needs to know the team is coming. In a tower that can mean registering visitors and booking the service lift.
Your products or ours
Most people moving in choose our materials, because nothing of theirs is unpacked yet. Booked with materials, the team brings its own kit (cleaning liquids and sprays, vacuum cleaner, mop and bucket, broom, microfibre cloths and rags, step ladder) and the charge is AED 5 per cleaner-hour. Booked without, you provide everything, including a working vacuum and a mop, and the team cannot substitute anything that is missing on the day.
If the home comes furnished
A furnished rental brings someone else's mattress, sofa and curtains with it. A cleaning visit vacuums and wipes around them. It does not wash them. Fabric care is priced by the item: a mattress from AED 79 for a single to AED 119 for a king, a sofa at AED 30 a seat, and curtains at AED 30 a panel, steamed in place. The smallest order of priced items on one visit is AED 100, and items booked in the same visit as a move-in or deep clean are 10% off. The mattress cleaning page explains what the treatment removes and what it does not.
When a deep clean is the right booking
Book a deep clean when the home is no longer empty. The movers came first, or you have been in for a week and have now seen the inside of the hood, or the home was handed over furnished with the cupboards stocked. The heavy work is the same as in a move-in clean: grease, limescale, grout, skirting boards, door frames and corners. The difference is that the team works around furniture and belongings.
That has two practical effects. Things take longer, because a room with a bed, a wardrobe and twenty boxes in it has less open floor and more to move. And the insides of cupboards and appliances are not part of the job unless you ask, since by now they hold your things. If you want them done, empty the ones that matter and say so when you book, so that the hours allow for it.
Choosing between a deep clean and an ordinary visit for a home you have already settled into is a different question from this one. It is answered in regular cleaning compared with deep cleaning.
Getting more out of a deep clean in a half-unpacked home
Fifteen minutes of arranging before the team arrives decides how much of the home they can reach.
- Stack the boxes in one room, or in the middle of each room, so that the walls, skirting boards and corners are clear.
- Leave empty the kitchen cupboards you want wiped out, and fill them afterwards.
- Clear the counters and the bathroom surfaces.
- Point out the two or three things that bother you most. In a home someone else lived in, that is usually the hood, the shower glass and the grout.
- Keep pets in a room that is not on the list while degreasing products are in use.
When it has to be a post-construction clean
Book a post-construction clean when building work is the last thing that happened to the home. That covers a new apartment or villa handed over by the developer, a home that was renovated before you took it, and a home where you had work done yourself before moving in: a new kitchen, a retiled bathroom, re-plastered walls, replaced floors.
Three things set it apart when you book. It is offered with our materials only, because construction dust needs our vacuums and equipment and household supplies are not enough to remove it. It needs photos of the site, so that the team and the hours can be planned before anyone arrives. And it has limits that are worth knowing in advance.
- Rubble, offcuts and large packaging are for the contractor to remove first. The team takes away dust and light debris, not construction waste.
- Fresh paint splashes on glass and tiles are removed carefully. Hardened paint is tested on a small area first, and we tell you if it cannot be taken off safely.
- A light grout haze on new tiles can be removed. Heavy residue left by the tiler may need the contractor to come back.
- Glass is cleaned where it can be reached safely from inside, from a balcony or from a step ladder. High exterior glass needs rope access, which we do not provide.
- Fine dust keeps settling for a day or two after heavy work. On large jobs a short follow-up visit often does more good than one very long day.
A brand-new home that looks clean
A new home has often had a builders' clean before handover, and some arrive in good order. Do the fingertip test anyway, and open the cupboards. If there is only a light film of dust and some residue from the protective film on the frames, a move-in clean is the right size of job, as long as the booking says the home is a new build: that allows more time for dust and residue than a lived-in home would need. If the works have only just finished and the powder is thick, book the post-construction clean.
The AC after building work
If the AC ran while the work was going on, the dust is inside the system as well as on the surfaces. Cleaning the vent covers is part of the visit. The ducts behind them are not. Leave the AC off during the clean if the ducts have not been done, and book AC duct cleaning so that the same dust is not blown back over clean rooms. Duct cleaning is confirmed after photos, from AED 350 for a studio or one-bedroom apartment and from AED 750 for a villa.
What each one costs
All three follow the same visit price list: AED 55 for 1 hour, AED 65 for 2 hours, AED 30 an hour for 3–4 hours and AED 25 for each hour after that, per cleaner, with AED 5 per cleaner-hour added when we bring the materials. Every price includes VAT, and nothing is added for a Friday, a public holiday or a same-day booking. Our published hours guide for a deep clean is the starting point for all three, since each is a deep clean of the whole home.
| Home | Team and hours | Your products | Our materials |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | 2 cleaners for 3 hours each | AED 180 | AED 210 |
| One-bedroom apartment | 2 cleaners for 3 hours each | AED 180 | AED 210 |
| Two-bedroom apartment | 2 cleaners for 4 hours each | AED 240 | AED 280 |
| Three-bedroom apartment | 2 cleaners for 5 hours each | AED 290 | AED 340 |
| Villa, four or five bedrooms | 4 cleaners for 5 hours each | AED 580 | AED 680 |
How to read those figures
For a move-in or a deep clean, the two right-hand columns are a choice. For a post-construction clean, read only the last column, because it is always booked with our materials. The first two rows are the minimum of 2 cleaners for 3 hours each. None of the three can be booked smaller than that, because the work covers the insides of cupboards, the appliances, the skirting boards and the bathrooms in detail.
The guide assumes a home in average condition. Years of kitchen grease, heavy limescale or a second and third bathroom add time, and so does builders' dust. Our published guidance for post-construction work is that a renovated apartment usually takes two or three cleaners four to six hours, and a villa three or four cleaners for most of a day. For a sense of scale, three cleaners for six hours each with our materials is AED 600. The largest team that can be booked on one visit, 4 cleaners for 8 hours each, is AED 1,040. Photos are what turn those ranges into a figure for your home.
If the home turns out to need longer on the day, the team leader asks you first. Extra time is added in 30-minute steps and only with your approval. If the agreed work is finished early, the team stays for the remaining time and uses it on whatever else you ask for.
How many hours different homes need, with the reasoning behind each row, is covered in how many cleaner-hours a home needs, and every figure is on the price list.
Where the clean sits among the other move-in jobs
A new home usually needs more than a clean in its first week, and the order matters. The rule is simple: anything that makes dust or mess comes before the clean, and anything that brings in furniture or fabric comes after.
- Repairs and painting first. Filling, sanding, drilling and painting all leave dust and drips, so finish them before the clean.
- AC ducts next, if they need doing. Clearing the ducts shakes dust out at the grilles, so it belongs before the clean as well.
- Pest treatment, if you are having one, at the point the technician advises. Whether to mop before or after depends on the treatment, and our guide to cleaning after pest control explains what to leave alone.
- The clean itself, in the empty home.
- Fabric care in the same visit or straight after: the carpets, curtains and mattresses that came with the home.
- Curtain rails, shelves and furniture assembly once the floors are dry. Drilling a few holes makes a little dust, which a vacuum held under the drill and a damp cloth deal with.
- Furniture delivery last.
The checks that are not cleaning
A clean will not tell you whether the water tank, the drains, the sockets or the locks are in order. Those belong to a separate list, set out in our new home maintenance checklist. Read it before you fix the date of the clean, because two of its items, the AC and any repair that makes dust, change the order above.
Mistakes that lead to a second booking
Most disappointing first cleans come from one of these causes, and each of them can be avoided when you book.
- Booking a short regular visit for a home that needs a move-in clean. One cleaner for two hours can dust and mop an empty flat. It cannot degrease a hood, descale two bathrooms and wipe out every cupboard as well.
- Cleaning before the painter or the handyman has finished. An afternoon of filling and sanding undoes the floors and the sills.
- Letting the furniture arrive first. The wardrobes fill up, the bed covers the floor that most needed washing, and the job becomes a slower deep clean.
- Forgetting the utilities and the access. No water, no power, an unregistered visitor or an unbooked service lift each cost time at the start of the visit.
- Expecting cleaning to repair things. Shower glass etched by years of scale may not return to new, and silicone that has gone black all the way through needs replacing, not scrubbing.
Common questions
Does a brand-new home need cleaning before we move in?
Almost always. A home that was cleaned for handover may have had trades back in since to fix snags, and fine dust carries on settling out of the air for days. The cupboards, drawers and wardrobes are the places most easily missed, and they are where your plates and clothes are about to go. Wipe a finger along a wardrobe shelf. If it comes away white, book the clean before the furniture.
The agent says the flat was professionally cleaned. Do I still need a move-in clean?
Check for yourself with the walk-round above. If the cupboards are clean inside, the hood is not sticky and the shower glass is free of scale, the home was cleaned properly and you may need nothing more than a short regular visit for the dust that has settled since. If the surfaces at eye level are clean but the drawers, the cabinet tops and the tap bases are not, it was a quick tidy for viewings, and a move-in clean is the right booking. If you are unsure, send photos when you book and we will say which one the home needs.
Can the clean be done on the day I get the keys?
Often, if a slot is free. A same-day booking needs about 2 hours' notice. We work every day from 8 AM – 8 PM and the work has to finish by closing time, so a long job needs an early start. If your handover time is uncertain, book for the following morning. A booking can be moved free of charge up to 6 hours before it starts, which helps when a handover slips by a day.
Do I need to be at the property?
No. Arrange access with the concierge or the agent, make sure the building has the team on its visitor list, and we send photos when the clean is finished. If you can be there at the end, walk through with the team leader. That is the moment to point at anything you want looked at again, while the team is still in the home.
What if something is missed?
Tell us within 24 hours of the visit and the missed point is re-cleaned at no charge. Photos help us brief the team but are not a condition. The re-clean covers what was agreed for the booking, so it pays to be specific at the start about cupboards, appliances and balconies.
Are the oven and the fridge cleaned inside?
The outsides are part of the kitchen work. The insides are not automatic. If the appliances came with the home and you want them cleaned inside, say so when you book, so that the scope and the time can be confirmed first.
Only one bathroom was renovated. Which clean is that?
Dust from one room travels through the whole home, mostly under the door and through the AC. If the rest of the home is furnished and lived in, a deep clean with the renovation mentioned in the booking is the usual answer, once the dust has had a day or two to settle. If the home is empty and the powder is on every sill, treat it as a post-construction clean.
Booking the clean you chose
Have four things ready when you book: the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, whether the home is empty, what the walk-round showed, and the date the furniture arrives. For a new or renovated home, add photos of the floors, the windows and the inside of one cupboard.
The move-in and move-out cleaning page lists what the visit covers and the usual team for each size of home. You choose the team, the hours and the materials online, the price is shown before you confirm, and payment is by card once we confirm your booking. We work every day from 8 AM – 8 PM. Book the clean online for the day before your furniture arrives.
