Stove cleaning

[Mark Forest]

I am at work, but my wife just called and said she put in several hours at one of our new properties cleaning the oven and stove. It just seems to me that the work NEVER ends and we get nickeled and dimed by the utilities till we get these house rented. I am determined to cut down the turnaround time somehow. It would be kind of gross to turn over a dirty oven to a tenant. How do you all handle this?

I know some of you do not include appliances, but it seems to me that most people would not just happen to have a stove so we at least provide that. I know it is a general question, but how much time do most of you take to get a house to rent from the time you buy it?

[Lynn McGeein]

I used to clean them myself, but you cannot deduct that from security deposit. The last one I cleaned myself, I spent 3 hours just cleaning layers of grease off the kitchen cabinets, range hood, etc.. They apparently fried everything. Now, if it's bad, I let my property manager send in their cleaning service and charge it to the tenant's security deposit. The last one they did, the shower, tub and toilet were black, like they didn't use cleaning supplies the entire time they lived there. They charged $150 to clean the whole house, and did a fantastic job. I would have paid someone $150 just to clean the bathrooms.