Moving Into An Old Building: The Parts A New One Does Not Have

Surfaces get cleaned, parts do not

A turnover crew in an old building does the same work it does in a new one: floors, kitchen, bathroom, wipe down, out. That work is fine and it leaves everything the building has that a newer one does not.

Those parts are where the last twenty years are sitting. None of it is urgent and none of it is anyone's failure, and the first weekend is the only time you will have an empty apartment to do it in.

Plaster dust first, if there has been any work

If anything was patched, sanded, or painted before you moved in, there is plaster dust in the apartment. It is finer than household dust, it stays airborne far longer, and it lands on everything for weeks including inside cupboards and on the tops of doors.

Vacuum rather than sweep, and empty the vacuum outside. Then damp wipe the horizontal surfaces in the order they will collect it again, top down. Do this before you unpack, because once soft furnishings are in the apartment they take the dust in and hold it.

The hardware nobody has touched

• Door hinges and handles that have been painted over more than once, where the paint traps grime in every edge.
• Window latches and sash lifts, usually the dirtiest metal in an old apartment.
• Radiator valves, which collect dust in a way the radiator body does not.
• Original light switch plates, often painted around rather than removed.
• Cupboard catches and the old butt hinges inside kitchen units.
• The strike plate and the edge of the door frame around the lock, which is a contact surface nobody thinks of as one.

Warm soapy water and an old toothbrush handles nearly all of it. What will not come off is paint, and it is worth recognising that before spending an hour on it.

Windows, floors, and the gaps between things

Double-hung sash windows have a track on both sides, a sill that sits inside the room, and often a storm insert with its own channel. All three collect grit, and in a building on a busy street they fill again quickly. Vacuum the channels first with a crevice tool, then wipe, because wiping first turns grit into a paste.

Old floorboards have gaps, and the gaps hold decades of fine debris that a mop pushes further in. Vacuum along the boards rather than across them, and accept that a certain amount stays down there permanently. The same applies to the gap between the floor and the baseboard, which in an old apartment is a real gap rather than a joint.

The drains behave differently

Cast iron waste pipes are common in older buildings and they drain more slowly than plastic by nature, because the inside of the pipe is rough and has decades of scale on it. A bathroom sink that empties slowly on day one is often the building rather than a blockage, which is worth knowing before you pour anything down it.

Chemical drain cleaner is a poor idea in old pipework and some buildings prohibit it outright. Clear the trap and the stopper by hand, and if it is still slow, report it as a building matter rather than treating it as your problem to solve.

What to do about the rest

Old buildings come with things that no amount of work changes: worn thresholds, a bath that has lost its gloss, grout that is dark in the lines rather than dirty, a floor with a hundred small marks. Photograph them on day one so they are on record, then leave them alone.

The radiator is worth its own hour before the heating comes on, and it has a deadline rather than a frequency, which is why it is easy to miss in a September move.

The empty-apartment pass is move-in apartment cleaning, the parts described here belong to deep apartment cleaning, and the cleaning checklist sets out which visit covers what.