Domestic Cleaning Services: What's Included, What It Costs and How Often to Book

Domestic cleaning services keep a lived-in home clean on a regular schedule, and a standard clean covers the kitchen benches, stovetop and sink, the bathrooms and toilets, dusting of surfaces you can reach, vacuuming and mopping the floors, and emptying the bins, while ovens, windows, carpets and sofas are usually treated as extras.

Most households book a weekly or fortnightly clean. At Aussie Duo Cleaning Service, regular house cleaning in Canberra and Queanbeyan starts from $165 ($150 + GST), and one-off cleans are quoted on the size and condition of your home.

This guide explains what a standard clean includes, which jobs cost extra, how often to book, what you can do yourself between visits, and how to compare different cleaning companies before you choose one.

The term "domestic cleaning" can mean different things to different companies, so it pays to ask for the full list before you book. A standard clean is regular upkeep rather than a deep clean, because its job is to keep your home at a steady level, room by room. Here is what our standard house clean covers on every visit:

Two things often surprise people: wiping the outside of appliances is not part of our standard clean, and making beds is not included either, although you can add it when you book. If you would like more done in a single visit, ask about a deep clean instead.

Some jobs take much longer than routine cleaning, so most cleaning companies price them separately from the standard visit. Ask about these extras when you get your quote, so that nothing you expected is left out on the day:

You can check our window rates on the window cleaning prices page and our carpet rates on the carpet cleaning prices page. Adding extras to the same visit means you only need to arrange one booking and let one team into your home.

These three services sound alike, but they are designed for different situations, and picking the right one stops you paying for work you don't need or booking too little for the job in front of you.

Moving out of a rental is a different job with a much longer checklist, so see our end of lease cleaning service for everything that particular clean covers.

How often you need a cleaner depends on how quickly your home gets messy, rather than simply on how many bedrooms it has.

Weekly suits busy families, homes with pets and homes with young children, because hair, dust and mess build up quickly in these households and a weekly visit stops it getting on top of you.

Fortnightly suits smaller homes, apartments and people who keep on top of daily tidying, and it costs less over a month, although there is more build-up between visits.

One-off cleans suit a reset before guests arrive, after an illness or after a busy stretch at work, and many people start with a one-off clean before moving to a regular plan.

With a regular clean, each visit is quicker because the cleaner never faces more than a week or two of build-up. On our regular cleans the same cleaner comes each time, and if that ever has to change, we talk to you about it first. Read more on our weekly home cleaning page.

A cleaner who visits every week or two does the heavy work, but a few small habits in between help keep dust, damp and mould under control. The advice below comes from Australian health and allergy organisations.

Hot washing and weekly vacuuming help with dust mites. The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy (ASCIA) advises washing bedding in water hotter than 60 °C each week. It also notes that all vacuuming stirs dust mite allergen into the air, so if you have the allergy, ask someone else to vacuum or wear a mask while you do it. The Victorian Government's Better Health Channel also suggests damp dusting hard surfaces each week, rather than using a feather duster.

Damp is the other thing to watch in most homes. NSW Health suggests running exhaust fans when you bathe, cook or dry clothes, and opening windows when the weather allows. For small patches of mould, it suggests a mild detergent or a mix of 4 parts vinegar to 1 part water, followed by drying the surface fully. If mould keeps coming back in a rental, NSW Health suggests raising it with your landlord or real estate agent. For more on dust mites, see our guide on how to get rid of dust mites.

Four things set most of the price of a domestic clean, whichever company you choose:

• The size of your home and how many bathrooms it has, because kitchens and bathrooms take the most time.
• How often we clean, since a home cleaned every week or two takes less time on each visit.
• The condition of the home, as a first clean after months of build-up takes longer.
• Any extras, such as the oven, windows or carpets.

Our regular weekly or fortnightly house cleaning starts from $165 ($150 + GST). One-off cleans are quoted, because two homes of the same size can need very different amounts of work. Quotes are free, either online or on site, and we confirm your price before we start. See our house cleaning prices for more detail.

When you compare cleaning companies, ask each one the same questions, because that makes their quotes much easier to compare fairly.

Access Canberra reminds Canberra residents that they can get as many quotes as they like, and that they are not obliged to accept any of them. It also suggests asking for a certificate of currency for public liability insurance and checking the business name and ABN.

Your rights don't depend only on what a company promises. Under the consumer guarantees, the ACCC says service providers must carry out services with an acceptable level of care and skill. If something goes wrong, your first step is to contact the business and explain the problem.

Here is how we answer those questions ourselves. We carry $20 million public liability insurance, and our cleaners are police-checked and vaccinated against seasonal flu. Our prices show the GST-inclusive total with the amount before GST beside it. We bring our own products and equipment, and we can use eco-friendly products on request. If something isn't right, tell your cleaner before they leave and we will re-clean it on the same day.

Aussie Duo is a family-owned Canberra business that has been cleaning since 2013, and we clean homes right across Canberra as well as in Queanbeyan, Jerrabomberra and Googong in New South Wales. See all our Canberra service areas. We don't offer house cleaning in Sydney. Sydney services are limited to commercial cleaning, end-of-lease cleaning and post-construction cleaning.

To see what our regular clean includes, visit our house cleaning service. Get a free quote online, or call us on 02 5501 3316.