A move-out inspection is not a general impression of the place. It is a walk through a short list of specific things, and the person doing it has done it hundreds of times in the same order. Knowing the list is most of the job.
The kitchen, which is inspected first
Inside the oven, including the racks and the glass in the door. Inside and underneath the refrigerator, with the drawers pulled out and the seals wiped. Inside every cabinet and drawer, empty and wiped out rather than just emptied. The dishwasher filter. The sink, the drain and the faucet, including the scale around the base. Cabinet fronts, especially the ones either side of the range. The floor, including under where the appliances stand.
Bathrooms
Shower and tub scrubbed with the door tracks and any glass, and the mineral film taken off rather than smeared. Grout worked. Toilet including the base, the bolts and behind it. Vanity, drawers and the cabinet under the sink. Mirror and any glass shelf. Exhaust fan cover. Floor and the trim behind the door.
Floors, walls and trim
Every floor vacuumed and mopped, corners and edges included, and carpets vacuumed in both directions. Baseboards wiped by hand. Scuffs off the walls where they come off, and marked to the landlord where they do not. Doors, door frames and the tops of doors. Closet floors, shelves and rails, all of them empty.
Windows, blinds and fixtures
Interior glass and sills, and the tracks the sills sit in, which collect more than anything else in the room. Blinds dusted slat by slat. Light fixtures cleaned and every bulb replaced with one that works, which is a line item on more inspection sheets than people expect. Ceiling fans. Switch plates and outlet covers. Vent covers.
The parts people forget
The garage floor swept and any oil dealt with. The laundry area, including the lint trap and behind the machines. The water heater closet and the furnace room floor. The inside of the front and back door glass. The mailbox. Anything left in an attic or a crawl space, which counts as the tenant leaving property behind.
Two mistakes that cost the deposit
The first is cleaning before the truck comes. Moving furniture out marks floors, drops dust and reveals a rectangle of carpet nobody has seen in three years. Clean after the house is empty, not before.
The second is not photographing the result. Walk the empty house with a phone and take a picture of every room, the appliances open, and the floor of every closet, with the date on them. It costs ten minutes and it is the only version of events you will have if the inspection is contested.
What a move-out clean covers, and what stays with you
A move-out cleaning covers the interior of an empty home to the standard above. It does not include repairs, patching, painting, hauling away what was left behind, or anything on the outside of the building. Those are separate jobs, and a cleaning crew arriving to find them is a crew that cannot finish the one it came for.
Book it for the day after the move. Around Lake Barrington and the villages that share the 60010 ZIP code that is usually possible at short notice, but say in the notes if the utilities are being shut off and make sure somebody can let the crew in.