A new house or condo suite has never been lived in. That does not make it clean. Builders differ in what they do before handover, and you see what yours did at the pre-delivery inspection and again on possession day, which is why the first clean is planned around what you find in the rooms and not around what you were told.
This guide is for buyers taking a new home from a builder. Moving back in after a renovation follows a different order. This one is short. Record what you see at the PDI. Clean while the rooms are empty. Then bring in the furniture.
Possession day: look before you assume
Walk every room. Open the cabinets. Run a finger along a baseboard and a window sill. Look at the floors with the light low across them. Then check the places you cannot see from the doorway, because that is where dust collects out of sight: the tops of the cabinets, the insides of the drawers, the window tracks and the closet floors.
Then photograph each room before anything comes in. The photos do two jobs at once: they show a cleaner what the home actually needs, so the quote fits the work, and they give you a dated record if something turns out to be damaged and not just dirty.
The PDI comes before the clean
In Ontario, the pre-delivery inspection, or PDI, is a walk through the finished home with the builder before you take possession, and Tarion's page for homeownerscalls it one of your first chances to see your completed home or condo unit. You or a designate must attend. The PDI form becomes a formal record of the home's condition before possession.
Dust can hide a defect. A chip in a tub or a scratch in a counter is hard to judge under a grey film. Tarion's guide for builderstells them to note items that “cannot be inspected” because, for example, they are dirty or inaccessible, so if a surface is too dusty to judge, ask for that to go on the form. Take pictures too.
This is information, not legal advice. Your agreement of purchase and sale sets the details.
Where construction dust settles in a new home
Fine dust does not stay where it was made. It drifts inside the cabinets, along trim and baseboards, onto the vanity light fixture and into grout lines and floor edges. It sits in window tracks. It shows first on dark counters and shower glass.
A first clean works top down, in passes, so loosened dust lands before the floors are done. Ledges go first. Floors go last. Send any care guidance the builder gave you, and say if a finish has not cured or been sealed, because a new counter and a new floor may not take the same product, and when the right method is unclear, the clean stays conservative.
Cleaning removes dust. It does not fix a paint flaw or missing caulking. Those are for the builder, so they get pointed out, not scrubbed. Duct cleaning and window washing, inside or out, are not part of the service.
Move-in clean or post-construction clean?
A new build can need either one: move-in and move-out cleaning in Vaughan and Concord reaches inside the oven, fridge, cabinets and closets of an empty home, and post-construction and post-renovation cleaning in Vaughan and Concord takes heavy construction dust off in passes. Moving in after a renovation sets out the difference, and your possession-day photos show which one the home needs before anything is booked.
A new house in New Kleinburg or another new subdivision
New Kleinburg is the builders' name for Nashville Heights, west of Kleinburg village, running from Huntington Road to the CPKC rail line north of Major Mackenzie Drive, and it was planned for about 8,000 people in 2,625 homes. Newer subdivisions mean first move-ins.
A house there, or in another new subdivision, can be several levels of empty rooms on possession day. Count every level in use, a finished basement included. If the house has an open kitchen, a garage-side mudroom or glass railings, say so, because each one changes the order of work. A move-in clean while the rooms are empty is the easy start, and a recurring rhythm can follow. More on house cleaning in Kleinburg.
A new condo suite at the VMC or the Promenade towers
Many newer homes in Vaughan are condo suites. In Concord, VMC station has been the end of Line 1 since December 2017, and Transit City's first three 55-storey towers there were finished by July 2022. In Thornhill, the first phase at 1 Promenade Circle is two towers of 30 and 35 storeys with 748 units, and Promenade Park Towers II was completed in 2025.
A suite is smaller. The building sets the day. Send the building, the unit number, the elevator booking window and the concierge details with the request, so access is settled before the day and not on the morning, and so the clean does not land in the same hour as a mover who has booked the elevator. Tarion notes that a condo's common elements are not part of your unit's PDI. Your suite is what gets inspected. More on house and condo cleaning in Concord and house cleaning in Thornhill.
Clean first, furniture second
Get the keys. Take the photos. Clean the empty home. Then let the movers in. A gap between the end of the clean and the first truck lets the last airborne dust land on bare floors, and the renovation guide above explains why one night is better than a few hours.
If a light film shows up again once the furniture is in, a follow-up is a smaller job than the first clean, so note where it shows: dark counters, shower glass, baseboards and floor edges. Packing services in Vaughan can run on the same schedule, so unpacking starts in a clean home.
What to send for a new-home quote
Start with the possession date. Add the address, or the building and unit number. Then the size: bedrooms, bathrooms and levels in use. Attach the possession-day photos. Mention anything you noted at the PDI, so nobody scrubs at a defect you have already reported to the builder. For a suite, add the elevator window.
A new-build clean is quoted separately from the regular starting prices, once the scope has been seen, and the scope and price are confirmed before you book, with availability confirmed for your address.
