What a landlord actually checks before returning your deposit

They start high

The top of the door frame, the top of the refrigerator, the blades of the ceiling fan, the light fixtures. A finger along any of those tells an inspector how thorough the rest of the clean was, and it sets their expectation before they have looked at anything else.

Then inside everything

Inside the oven, including the door glass and under the drawer. Inside the refrigerator, including the seals and the crisper channels. Inside cabinets and drawers, which are the most commonly skipped surfaces in a move-out and the easiest to check.

Then the edges

Baseboards, window tracks, the runner under a sliding door, switch plates, and the floor where the wall meets it. Edges are where a rushed clean shows, because a vacuum and a mop both stop short of them.

The bathroom decides it

Soap scum on glass, mineral scale at the base of the faucet, grout, and the floor behind the toilet. A bathroom that has been descaled rather than wiped reads as professional immediately, and it tends to end the inspection early.

What this is worth

A security deposit in metro Atlanta commonly runs one month of rent. Against that, a move-out clean is the cheapest insurance in the process — which is the entire reason the service exists.