End of Tenancy Cleaning in Aldersbrook

Lancaster Road is one of the interior streets of the Aldersbrook estate — not on the park edge, not facing the Flats, just a quiet tree-lined terrace where the houses on both sides have the same Edwardian frontage they've had since about 1905. Bay windows with stained-glass fanlights above the front doors, tiled paths from the gate to the porch, privet hedges between the houses. The horse chestnut on the pavement outside number 42 was big enough to shade both next-door neighbours. We were doing number 38.

Three bedrooms, a front reception room, a rear dining room, a kitchen with a small extension at the back, a family bathroom, and a garden accessed through the kitchen. The family had been there 2 years — two parents, one child, a girl of 7. He worked in tech in Stratford and cycled across the Flats. She worked from home as a translator. £2,300 a month. Managed by Keatons from their Wanstead office.

Parked on Lancaster Road. Unrestricted, free. Carried the kit in through the front door, over the tiled path, through the porch.

Kitchen first. The rear room had been extended with a small single-storey addition, giving about 11 sqm total. A freestanding gas cooker — a Stoves, single oven, four burners. Two years of a household where one parent worked from home and cooked lunch as well as dinner. The oven was moderate to heavy — not the dark crust of a 3-year tenancy but more than a commuter's weekend-only oven. Double dwell on the cavity. One pass on the sides. Second pass on the roof around the fan. Hob cleaned, burner caps soaked.

Worktops — timber, oiled — wiped with damp cloth, no harsh product. Sink descaled. Inside all the cupboards. Fridge-freezer cleaned. The back door to the garden — timber with a single glazed panel. The threshold had the specific mud of a garden that a 7-year-old runs across every day after school before being told to take her shoes off, which means the mud is on the threshold rather than on the hallway floor because the shoes come off approximately at the doorstep. Cleaned. Behind the cooker: pulled out, wall degreased. A dog biscuit. They didn't have a dog. The previous tenants probably did. Kitchen total: 34 minutes.

Front reception room. A bay window — sash, 4-over-4, three sides, 48 panes. The stained-glass fanlight above the bay was original — coloured glass in a floral pattern, leaded. We cleaned the clear glass panes carefully and left the stained glass alone because leaded glass gets wiped with a dry cloth only, no product, no water on the leading. An original fireplace — a tiled surround in a deep green Art Nouveau design with a cast-iron insert. The tiles were slightly iridescent, the kind of glaze that Edwardian tile-makers used and that you can't replicate. Each tile wiped individually. Iron dry-cleaned. Hearth — slate — vacuumed and wiped. Picture rail dusted. Cornicing dusted. Original timber floorboards — lacquered — mopped with specialist product. 24 minutes.

Rear dining room. Carpeted, vacuumed. A sash window to the garden — 6-over-6, 12 panes. A simpler fireplace — painted timber surround, tiled insert. Wiped. 12 minutes.

Bathroom. Upstairs, at the rear. A white suite — bath with a thermostatic shower over and a glass screen, pedestal basin, close-coupled toilet. Two years of hard water and a family of three. The shower screen had moderate limescale on the lower half. Double descaler, two passes. Taps — moderate crusts at the bases. Bath waterline — visible but manageable. Single descaler with manual attention. Toilet — calcium below the waterline. Standard soak, manual scrubbing. Grout mostly clean. A small patch of mould at the sealant line where the bath met the wall. Anti-mould spray, came off. Floor — original timber boards with a bath mat impression where the mat had protected the finish. Mopped carefully around the impression. The impression was cosmetic — the boards were lighter where the mat had been, darker where they'd been exposed to moisture and foot traffic. Documented. 26 minutes.

Three bedrooms. Master: carpeted, vacuumed. Bay window at the front — sash, 4-over-4, 32 panes across two sashes. Brass door handle polished. Wardrobe — freestanding, wiped. 16 minutes. Second bedroom: the girl's room. Carpeted, vacuumed. Sash window — 2-over-2, 4 panes. The windowsill had a small collection of feathers arranged in a row — pigeon, magpie, and something that might have been a parakeet. Collected from the Flats or from Wanstead Park, clearly, because a 7-year-old who lives between a park and a forest collects feathers the way a 4-year-old in Tolworth sticks dinosaurs on windows. The feathers had left no marks. We moved them to the desk, cleaned the sill, and placed them back. 10 minutes. Third bedroom: used as the translator's home office. Carpeted, vacuumed. Sash window. A desk and a bookshelf — the landlord's furniture — wiped. 8 minutes.

Hallway: original encaustic tiles — a geometric pattern in terracotta, cream, and black. These are the tiles that run from the front door to the foot of the stairs in every Aldersbrook house. Swept, mopped with pH-neutral product. The doormat impression was visible — a rectangle of cleaner tiles where the mat had sat for 2 years. Consistent with the surrounding wear. 5 minutes.

Stairs: carpeted, vacuumed — three flights including the half-landing. Front door — original timber with the stained-glass fanlight — door wiped, fanlight left alone. Brass letterbox and knocker polished. 8 minutes.

Total time: 4 hours. Two people. A 3-bed Edwardian terrace where the sash windows took 40 minutes across the house, the fireplaces took 14, the brass took 8, and the oven took 22. A conservation-area house with Art Nouveau tiles on the fireplace and a collection of feathers on the windowsill and a dog biscuit from a previous tenancy behind the cooker. Aldersbrook cleans like Wanstead and Snaresbrook because the houses are the same era and the agents are the same firms, but it feels different because of the parkland. The green light through the trees on Lancaster Road at 10am in March was noticeably different from the street light on Hollybush Hill or the shopfront light on Earlham Street. The houses were built to be near the park. The park is still there.

Keatons' negotiator arrived three days later. She had a tablet with a digital inventory and the check-in photos from 2 years earlier. She'd walked from the Wanstead office — about a 12-minute walk through the estate, which she did for every Aldersbrook checkout because parking was free but the walk was quicker.

Hallway: encaustic tiles — she crouched and looked across the surface. Clean, even, matte. Doormat impression: she looked at it, compared to check-in. The check-in photo showed a doormat in the same position. She noted it as consistent wear.

Front reception: fireplace first. She went straight to the Art Nouveau tiles. Finger-tested one — the iridescent green. Clean. She looked at the grout lines between the tiles. Clean. The stained-glass fanlight: she looked up at it. Clean, leading intact. Sash windows: she checked one pane in the bay and the glazing bar beside it. Clean.

Kitchen: oven opened, phone torch in. Roof checked. Clean. Timber worktop: she ran a hand across. No sticky residue, no watermark. She checked the oiled surface under the window where sunlight would have dried it — no fading or cracking. Behind the cooker: she didn't pull it out. She asked if we'd done it. We said yes. She noted it.

Bathroom: shower screen angle-tested. Taps touched. Bath mat impression on the timber floor: she crouched and looked at it. Compared to check-in photo. The boards had been uniform at check-in. She photographed the impression and noted it as cosmetic wear.

Girl's room: she looked at the windowsill with the feathers. She didn't move them. She looked at the sill beside them. Clean. She noted the feathers as tenant property.

Brass: she checked the front door letterbox and knocker. The brass had been polished to a soft sheen — not mirror-bright but warm. She touched the knocker. Smooth. No tarnish.

Twelve minutes. Everything passed on the cleaning. The bath mat impression and the doormat impression were noted as cosmetic wear. The dog biscuit and the feathers were noted as tenant property. The dog biscuit was from a tenant two tenancies ago, which made it the oldest found object in the collection.

Deposit returned in full within 9 days. The family moved to a 4-bed on Empress Avenue — still Aldersbrook, still the conservation area, gaining a bedroom and a bigger garden and a view of Wanstead Park from the upstairs windows. The feather collection went with them, headed for a new windowsill with a view of more trees and more birds and more things to collect. The dog biscuit stayed behind on the kitchen counter, a small monument to a tenancy that ended before this one started.