Cleaning, Cleaning Tips & Hacks

How Often Should You Have Your House Cleaned? An Honest Guide From an Albuquerque Crew

“How often should I have my house cleaned?” is the question we get on almost every first phone call, and the honest answer is not a single number. After 21 years and more than 36,000 cleanings in Albuquerque homes, we can tell you what weekly, every-two-weeks and monthly service each actually keep up with, who each one fits, and what slips between visits when the gap is too long. Here is the guide we wish every new client had before they picked a schedule.

The short answer: it depends on four things

Every home re-dirties at its own pace, and four things set that pace: how many people live there, whether there are pets, whether anyone has allergies or asthma, and how much dust the house takes on. That last one matters more here than in most cities. Albuquerque sits in high desert, and the fine soil that blows in on a windy afternoon or rides in on shoes settles as a visible film on dark furniture within days, not weeks. We wrote about why the house gets dustier once the heat comes on in our winter dust guide; the point here is that a home on the West Mesa with two dogs and a toddler does not need the same schedule as a two-adult condo in Nob Hill.

One more thing before the schedules. Routine cleaning and disinfecting are not the same job, and most homes do not need the second one on a regular basis. The CDC’s home cleaning guidance says to clean high-touch surfaces like light switches, doorknobs and countertops regularly and after visitors, and to disinfect when someone in the house is sick or has a weakened immune system. A good recurring schedule handles the first part so you only have to think about the second when it matters.

Weekly: pets, little kids, allergies, or a full house

Weekly service is the right call when the house is working hard. That usually means one or more of these: a dog or cat (or several), children under five, anyone with dust or pet allergies or asthma, or four or more people under one roof. In those homes the kitchen gets used three times a day, the bathrooms do not get a break, and pet hair collects along baseboards faster than a Saturday vacuum can keep up with.

Weekly is also the schedule the allergy authorities quietly assume. The Mayo Clinic’s dust mite guidance recommends washing sheets, blankets and pillowcases every week in water of at least 130°F and vacuuming regularly with a HEPA-filter machine, and the American Lung Association adds weekly HEPA vacuuming wherever carpet stays and frequent damp-cleaning of hard floors. If someone in your home sneezes through the night, a weekly crew that strips and remakes the beds, vacuums with HEPA filtration and damp-wipes instead of dry-dusting is doing the work those recommendations describe. Weekly clients also get our best rate: weekly service is 15% off on our recurring cleaning plans.

Every two weeks: the schedule most Albuquerque homes land on

Every-two-weeks service is the most common choice among our clients, and for most households it is the sweet spot. Two working adults, one or two school-age kids, maybe one well-behaved pet, hard floors in the main rooms: a crew every other week keeps that home at the standard a deep clean set, and the family only has to handle dishes, a quick counter wipe and a pass with the vacuum in between.

What you will notice by day ten in Albuquerque is the dust film on dark wood and screens, soap scum beginning to haze the shower glass again, and toothpaste spots on the bathroom mirror. None of that is a problem at two weeks; it is exactly what the next visit is for. If you are deciding between weekly and every two weeks, ask yourself whether the bathrooms or the floors are the thing that bothers you first. If it is the floors, a mid-cycle vacuum keeps you happy at two weeks. If it is the bathrooms and there are more than three of you, weekly will feel like relief. Every-two-weeks service is 10% off.

Every three or four weeks: the maintenance floor

Who it fits

Every three or four weeks works for one or two tidy adults, no pets, no small children, and a home where the kitchen and one bathroom carry most of the use. It is also the schedule many of our retired clients choose: the house stays presentable, the hard jobs (showers, floors, the stove top) get done properly by someone else, and the light touch-ups in between are easy. Three- and four-week service is billed at our regular rate.

Where it gets honest

Here is what we tell people plainly: by the fourth week, most homes are close to the line between a maintenance visit and a visit that needs more time. If there is a pet, that line gets crossed. A crew that walks into a four-week home with hair under every piece of furniture and a shower that has gone from film to scale is not going to leave it at our standard in the labor hours a maintenance visit carries, and we would rather say so up front than send a crew that has to cut corners. We bill by the labor hour, so when a home needs more time, we ask for it rather than skipping rooms. If you choose monthly and the house has pets or kids, expect the occasional longer visit and budget for it.

When frequency is the wrong question: deep cleans and seasonal resets

Some homes do not need a schedule at all; they need one serious visit. A deep cleaning is the answer when you are getting the house ready for guests, recovering from a remodel, moving in or out (that is its own service, move-in/move-out cleaning), or when the house has gotten ahead of you and a maintenance visit would only skim it. Albuquerque adds two more reasons a year: the fall reset after the swamp cooler shuts down, and the heating-season dust that follows. If you only hire a crew twice a year, those two moments are the ones to pick.

A deep clean is also where recurring service starts. Every recurring plan begins with an initial cleaning that brings the home up to our 50-point standard; the maintenance visits that follow keep it there. If you have been putting that first visit off, now is a good time: our Early Black Friday special adds a bonus labor hour at no charge and waives the products fee on deep, reset and move-out cleans booked through November 30, 2026, for cleanings done by December 31. Just mention “Black Friday” on the confirmation call.

Why the first visit is longer, and what a maintenance visit actually costs

People are sometimes surprised that the first visit is priced differently from the ones that follow. The reason is simple: the first visit is a deep clean. It takes the home from wherever it is now to our standard, which means inside the microwave, the baseboards, the window sills, the shower track and the back of the toilet, not just the surfaces that show. In Albuquerque, an initial, deep, reset or move-in/move-out clean starts at 8.5 labor hours (from $500.23) for homes over 700 square feet, and at 6 labor hours (from $353.10) for units of 700 square feet or less.

“Labor hours” are the combined working hours of everyone on the crew, not the time the crew is in your home. A three-person crew puts in 8.5 labor hours in a little under 3 clock hours. Once the home is at standard, maintenance visits are priced by size: starting at 3 labor hours for homes of 700 square feet or less, 4 labor hours for 701 to 2,000 square feet, and 5 labor hours above 2,000, with the weekly and every-two-weeks discounts taken off that. Visits of 3 labor hours or fewer are billed at $62.50 per labor hour; above that the rate is $58.85. If you only want a short visit, our minimum is 2 labor hours ($125 plus tax). We will accomplish what can be completed well in that time, help you prioritize what matters most, and tell you up front if the home needs more. Current starting prices are on our pricing page, and How Long Does House Cleaning Take? walks through the labor hours by home condition in more detail. Recurring visits are for homes within 15 driving miles of our office at 2901 Juan Tabo Blvd NE, 87112; farther out, every visit is a deep, reset or move-in/move-out clean.

Two details that save a phone call: we bring all of the professional equipment, and we bring green-certified products by default for $15 plus tax, or nothing at all if you would rather we use your own. Oven and refrigerator cleaning are not add-on fees; they are priced by the labor hour and simply add time to the visit.

A quick way to decide, and a straight answer about our reviews

If you are still unsure, use this test. Count the people in the house, add one for each pet, and add one if anyone has allergies or asthma. A total of five or more points to weekly. Three or four points to every two weeks. One or two, with tidy habits, can hold a home at every three or four weeks. Whatever you pick, it is not permanent; most of our clients adjust once they see how the house holds between visits, and moving from four weeks to two is a one-text change.

Since you are deciding who to let into your home, here is something we would rather say ourselves. You may wonder why we do not have as many Google reviews as some companies that have not been in business nearly as long as we have. When we moved our office across the street on Juan Tabo and updated our address, Google removed a large share of our reviews, including every review from before 2015. The reviews that remain are from real Albuquerque customers, and you can read them on our customer reviews page. We have been cleaning homes here since 2005, our cleaners are W-2, background-checked employees who arrive in marked company cars with a Team Leader on every crew, we carry $2 million in insurance, and every visit ends with our 50-point quality inspection. That is the record we would ask you to judge us on.

Ready to pick a schedule? Get an instant estimate or call 505-379-3154. No deposit required, and the first visit is the only one that has to be a big one.