End of Tenancy Cleaning in Church End

The hallway floor told us this was an Edwardian house that someone had looked after. Original geometric tiles — a pattern of black, red, and cream running from the front door to the foot of the stairs — in the condition that says a landlord has either maintained them or been lucky with their tenants. Probably both. We mopped them barely-damp with pH-neutral and moved on with the quiet satisfaction of a surface that would take 5 minutes rather than 15.

An Edwardian semi on Etchingham Park Road — a wide residential street between Squires Lane and Victoria Park, tree-lined, the kind of N3 road where the houses have bay windows on two floors and front gardens deep enough for a mature hedge. Three bedrooms (two original, one loft conversion), a front reception room, a rear kitchen-diner extended in the 2010s, a family bathroom, a loft en-suite, a downstairs WC, and a 50-foot garden. The tenants — a couple with a toddler and a baby on the way — had been there 2 years at £2,400/month. Managed by Squires Estates. Inventory checkout with their clerk three days later.

Parked on the street at 9:15am. The CE CPZ on Etchingham Park Road: Mon–Fri 2pm–3pm. For a morning start, that's a 1-hour restriction window that you drive past without thinking about. Free parking from 9am until 2pm, free again from 3pm. The gentlest CPZ in our North London coverage.

The kitchen-diner was the largest room — the original rear kitchen and an adjacent room knocked through and extended into the garden in a single-storey rear addition. About 22 sqm. A freestanding gas cooker — a Stoves Richmond 900DFT, dual fuel, two cavities, 5-burner hob. Two years of a household that cooked daily: the main oven had the standard layered grease of regular use, darker on the roof, lighter on the sides. Double dwell on the main cavity. Second oven: moderate, single dwell. Hob: 5 burners stripped and soaked. The enamel had a spill ring around the front-left burner (the porridge position again — families with toddlers always have a porridge burner) that took two passes. Total cooker time: 45 minutes.

Granite worktops (Nero Impala, dark grey) — pH-neutral, wiped dry. Belfast sink: non-abrasive product, two passes on the tea staining. The taps: moderate limescale at the base — N3's ~240 ppm water after 2 years. Single descaler application, standard dwell, cleaned. Quicker than Sutton, quicker than Bromley, about the same as Chessington. Fridge-freezer cleaned. Inside all cupboards. Extractor hood: filter soaked. The back-door threshold to the garden extension had the usual family debris — soil, a dried leaf, Play-Doh fragments. Floor — large-format porcelain tiles — mopped with pH-neutral. Kitchen-diner total: 55 minutes.

The front reception room was the Edwardian set piece. A bay window with 4-over-4 sash windows — 16 panes across two sashes. Each pane cleaned, glazing bars wiped, runners vacuumed. A fireplace — cast-iron insert with an Art Nouveau tiled surround in green and cream. Each tile wiped, iron dry-cleaned, timber mantel wiped, hearth vacuumed. A ceiling rose: dusted with an extension tool. Cornicing around the perimeter: dusted. Picture rail: wiped. The floor was carpeted (the original boards presumably beneath). Vacuumed thoroughly. Radiator, skirting, light switches. 25 minutes — the period features adding about 12 minutes compared to a modern room of the same size.

The family bathroom: a white suite — bath with a shower over and a glass screen, pedestal basin, close-coupled toilet. Shower screen: light limescale haze, single application, 10-minute dwell, cleared. Taps: moderate limescale, single application. Toilet: light calcium below the waterline, single dwell, one pass. The ceiling was clean — no mould, the bathroom had a working extractor. Floor tiles mopped. 22 minutes.

The loft conversion added a bedroom and an en-suite that the Edwardian builders never imagined. A shower cubicle with a glass door, a basin, a toilet — all fitted into the eaves with the particular geometry of a loft conversion: sloped ceilings, a Velux skylight, and the shower positioned where you can stand upright. Descaled throughout. The Velux: glass cleaned, frame wiped. 18 minutes.

The downstairs WC under the stairs: 7 minutes.

Three bedrooms. The master (first floor, front — overlooking the bay): sash window (4-over-4, matching the reception room below), carpet vacuumed, built-in wardrobe wiped inside. The toddler's room (first floor, rear): carpet vacuumed, a small stain near the cot position (spot-treated), sticker residue on the windowsill. Not dinosaurs, not butterflies, not farm animals. Stars. Gold foil stars, the kind that come on a sheet of 50 from a craft shop, applied with the enthusiasm and the adhesive commitment of an 18-month-old. Each one peeled, the adhesive cleaned, the paint beneath intact. 14 minutes for the stars alone. The loft bedroom: carpet vacuumed, Velux cleaned (already done during the en-suite pass), wardrobe wiped inside. 35 minutes across all three bedrooms.

Stairs — ground to first floor: carpeted, vacuumed. Bannister wiped — original Edwardian turned spindles. First floor to loft: narrower, steeper (the loft-conversion staircase, modern, carpeted). Hallway: the geometric tiles (already done on the way in). Landing: vacuumed. 10 minutes.

Total time: 5 hours. Two people. A 3-bed Edwardian semi with a rear extension, a loft conversion, period features on the ground and first floors, modern finishes in the loft, and a toddler who had decided that the windowsill needed stars.

Squires Estates' clerk arrived three days later. She was a Finchley specialist — the kind of inventory clerk who knows which N3 roads have Edwardian houses and which have 1930s semis, and who adjusts her inspection accordingly. She started in the hallway: looked at the geometric tiles, crouched to check the grout ('these are original — they've been maintained'). Front reception: she checked the fireplace tiles at close range, tested one sash window (smooth), glanced at the ceiling rose. Kitchen: cooker opened cavity by cavity (torch — clean), granite finger-tested, Belfast sink inspected. Bathroom: shower screen angle-tested, toilet torched.

The toddler's room: she checked the star-sticker location on the windowsill. Felt the surface with her fingertip. Smooth — no adhesive residue, no paint damage. She noted it on her clipboard without comment, but the absence of a comment was itself the comment.

The loft: she checked the en-suite, the Velux, the wardrobe. The loft staircase: she ran a finger along the handrail. The hallway tiles again on the way out — she looked at them a second time, as if confirming that they were as good as she'd first thought.

Her report was 11 pages. All cleaning items passed. The geometric hallway tiles noted as 'maintained to a high standard throughout the tenancy.' The star-sticker location: 'clean, no residue.' The loft conversion: 'presented as new.'

Deposit returned in full via the DPS within 9 days. The family had moved to a 4-bed detached further along Etchingham Park Road — trading up within the same street because the baby arriving in three months needed the extra bedroom and they'd decided that Church End was where they wanted to raise their family. The stars came off the windowsill in N3, and somewhere in the new house, on a new windowsill, the toddler was already reaching for the next sheet of gold foil stickers. The species changes. The adhesive never does. But in Church End, at least, the stars were gold.