End of Tenancy Cleaning in Crayford

Claremont Crescent is a cul-de-sac of Vickers semis that curves around a patch of grass with a single tree in the middle. The houses are the cottage type — red brick, steep tiled roofs, small-paned casement windows, front doors with arched porches, and front gardens separated by privet hedges that most people keep trimmed and a few have let go. They were built in the late 1920s for the workers at the Vickers factory half a mile away, and they have the particular solidity of houses built by people who made things for a living and expected their houses to be made properly too. The factory closed decades ago. The houses are still here.

Three bedrooms, a front lounge with a tiled fireplace, a rear dining room, a kitchen off the dining room, a family bathroom, and front and back gardens. The front hedge was privet, trimmed to about waist height, with a path from the gate to the porch. The family had been there 2 years — a couple with one child, a boy of 5. He drove to a distribution centre in Dartford. She worked part-time at a school in Bexleyheath. £1,750 a month. Managed by Livermores from their Crayford office.

Parked on the driveway. No restrictions. The cul-de-sac was quiet enough to hear the birds and the distant hum of the A2.

Kitchen first. A compact rear room, about 6 sqm, the original layout with a window overlooking the back garden. A freestanding gas cooker — an Indesit, single oven, four burners. Two years of a household where she cooked when she was home and he cooked when she was at work, which meant the oven had an even, moderate grease layer from consistent but not heavy use. Single dwell on the cavity. One pass on everything. The roof was slightly darker around the element but didn't need a second pass. Hob cleaned, burner caps soaked.

A wall extractor that was better than most — the Vickers houses had been refitted at various points over the decades and this kitchen had been done in the 2010s, so the extraction worked. Walls behind the hob clean. Worktops — laminate — wiped. Sink descaled. The tap had a moderate limescale collar. Single application cleared it. Fridge-freezer cleaned. Inside all the cupboards. Under the sink: washing powder, a carrier bag, and a small plastic sword from a pirate costume. Floor — vinyl — mopped. Behind the cooker: pulled out, wall wiped — barely needed it. A single raisin. Kitchen total: 26 minutes.

Dining room. Carpeted, vacuumed. A casement window — the original small-paned type with six lights per casement, each pane about the size of a paperback book. These windows are slower than UPVC because each small pane has a wooden glazing bar around it, and the cloth has to go around each one individually. 6 minutes for the window. Radiator wiped. 10 minutes total.

Front lounge. Carpeted, vacuumed. Another small-paned casement bay — three sides, six panes per casement, 18 panes total. Each cleaned. A tiled fireplace — green glazed tiles with a black cast-iron insert. The tiles were original to the house and in good condition. Each wiped. The iron dry-cleaned. Mantel — timber, painted white — wiped. Hearth wiped. 16 minutes.

Bathroom. A white suite — bath with an electric shower over and a curtain, pedestal basin, close-coupled toilet. Two years of Bexley hard water. The shower head was lightly blocked. Descaled and cleared. Bath waterline — moderate, a clean ring rather than a thick one. Single descaler pass with manual attention at the tap end. Taps — light crusts. Toilet — calcium below the waterline, moderate. Standard soak, manual scrubbing. Grout mostly clean. One small patch of mould at the sealant line in the shower area. Anti-mould spray, scrubbed. Came off. Floor — vinyl — mopped. 22 minutes.

Three bedrooms. Master: carpeted, vacuumed. Small-paned casement window — same slow pane-by-pane routine. Built-in wardrobe wiped inside. 12 minutes. Second bedroom: same. 10 minutes. Boy's room: carpet vacuumed. Window cleaned. The windowsill had a line of small plastic soldiers — not stickers, actual toys, about 15 of them, arranged in a battle formation across the sill. The soldiers had left no marks, no residue, nothing. They were just standing there. We moved them carefully to the bed, cleaned the sill, and put them back in approximately the same positions because there's no way to know which arrangement matters to a 5-year-old boy and all of them might. 9 minutes.

The front path. The porch had dried leaves and hedge clippings that had blown in. Swept. The porch tile — a single quarry tile at the threshold — wiped. 3 minutes.

Stairs and hallway: carpeted, vacuumed. Front door — the original timber door with the arched porch — wiped. 6 minutes.

Total time: 3.5 hours. Two people. A 3-bed Vickers semi where the small-paned casement windows added about 15 minutes compared to what UPVC would have taken, and the oven was done in 16 minutes because the extraction worked and the cooking was even. The plastic soldiers on the windowsill took no time to clean around but a certain amount of care to replace. The raisin behind the cooker is the least dramatic found object in the collection.

Livermores' negotiator arrived two days later. He drove from the Crayford office — about a 3-minute drive — in a branded car, which told you this was a local firm with local coverage. He knew this house. He'd let it to the family 2 years earlier and he'd let the house next door last month.

Kitchen: oven opened, phone torch in. Clean. He looked at the wall behind the hob — no grease film. He touched the tap base. Smooth. The plastic sword was on the counter next to the keys. He moved it slightly to check the surface beneath it. Clean.

Bathroom: toilet crouched, looked below the waterline. Clean. Shower head: checked the nozzles visually. Clear. Taps touched. Smooth. Sealant where the mould had been: he looked but didn't touch. Clean.

Front lounge: fireplace tiles — he finger-tested one. Clean. The small-paned casement bay: he looked at the window from the centre of the room rather than walking up to it. If you can see marks on a casement from the middle of the room, the panes haven't been done properly. No marks.

Boy's room: he looked at the windowsill. The soldiers were back in position. He didn't move them. He looked at the sill beside them. Clean.

Nine minutes. Everything passed. No notes, no photos — he just ticked the boxes on his tablet and said 'all fine.' That's a local agent who knows his houses, knows his tenants, and knows when a clean is clean.

Deposit returned in full within 7 days. The family moved to a 3-bed Edwardian terrace on Bexley Lane — more space, higher ceilings, a bigger kitchen, but still Crayford, still DA1, still close enough to the school and the distribution centre. The plastic soldiers went with them, already planning a new campaign across a new windowsill in a house that was built 20 years before theirs for people who made slightly different things at a slightly different factory.