End of Tenancy Cleaning in Finsbury

Lever Street is one of those Finsbury streets where a 1960s council block stands directly opposite a warehouse that's been converted into loft apartments costing four times as much per month. You can see both from the same pavement. We were doing the council flat.

Third floor, communal staircase, heavy fire door into a 2-bed flat that had the particular layout of a building designed by someone who believed in right angles and efficient use of space. A hallway that ran the length of the flat with doors off to each room. Two bedrooms on the left, bathroom and kitchen on the right, living room at the end. No bay windows, no cornicing, no original features of any kind. Just rooms.

The family had been there 3 years — a single mum with a 6-year-old daughter. She worked as a teaching assistant at a school near the Angel. £1,400 a month, which is what happens when a council flat gets bought under right-to-buy and then rented out at market rates. The landlord lived in Hertfordshire and managed via OpenRent. Islington Council's housing team would be doing the checkout because the flat was still on the council's maintenance schedule even though it was privately let.

Parked in the estate visitor bay after calling the management office. Carried the kit up three flights.

Kitchen first. A galley, about 5 sqm, the kind of kitchen where you open the oven door and it touches the opposite wall. A freestanding gas cooker — a Hotpoint, single oven, four burners. Three years of a household where one person cooked every day for herself and her daughter. The oven was moderate to heavy. Not the dark crust of a daily-use family of four, but the steady layered grease of someone who roasted a chicken every Sunday and reheated meals during the week. Double dwell on the cavity. One pass on the sides, second pass on the roof. Hob cleaned, burner caps soaked.

A wall fan that rattled when it ran. The wall tiles behind the hob had a grease film extending 30cm above the splashback. Degreased. Worktops — laminate, chipped in one corner, the chip documented. Sink descaled — the tap had a thick white collar after 3 years. Fridge-freezer cleaned. The freezer was solid and took 35 minutes to defrost while we worked the rest of the flat. Inside all the cupboards. Floor — vinyl — mopped. Behind the cooker: pulled out, wall degreased. A pencil, a hair clip, and a fridge magnet that said WORLD'S BEST MUM. Left on the counter. Kitchen total: 34 minutes.

Living room. Carpeted, vacuumed. A UPVC window — single large casement, quick. One radiator wiped. Skirting done. The carpet had a stain near the sofa position — looked like blackcurrant, old enough that it had set. Spot-treated, lightened but didn't fully clear. Documented. 10 minutes.

Bathroom. A white suite — bath with an electric shower over and a plastic curtain, pedestal basin, close-coupled toilet. Three years of London hard water. The shower head was partially blocked. Descaled, cleared. Bath waterline — a thick ring. Double application, manual attention with a non-scratch pad on the stubborn section. Taps — solid white crusts at the bases. Toilet — heavy calcium below the waterline. Proper soak, 10 minutes, manual scrubbing. The grout in the shower area had dark mould at the sealant line. Anti-mould spray, scrubbed. Most came off. The sealant itself was discoloured and cracking in one section. Documented as maintenance. Floor — vinyl — mopped. 28 minutes.

Two bedrooms. The mum's room: carpeted, vacuumed, UPVC window cleaned, wardrobe wiped inside — a built-in unit with sliding doors, the kind the council fitted in every bedroom on the estate. 8 minutes. The daughter's room: carpet vacuumed. Window cleaned. The wardrobe wiped inside. On the windowsill — not stickers this time. Drawings. Three small drawings taped to the glass with sellotape, each about the size of a playing card. A house with a red door, a cat with enormous eyes, and a rainbow with too many colours. The sellotape came off the glass cleanly. The drawings were placed on the kitchen counter next to the fridge magnet. 9 minutes.

Hallway: vinyl floor mopped. Front door wiped — the heavy council fire door with the self-closer that fights you every time. 4 minutes.

Total time: 3 hours. Two people. A 2-bed council flat with a gas oven, hard water, and a 6-year-old's drawings on the bedroom window. No exposed brick, no sash windows, no oiled timber floors. Just a flat that a family lived in and that needed cleaning properly before the next family moved in.

The council housing officer arrived the next day. She had a tablet with a standard form — room by room, tick boxes, a text field for notes, and a camera for anything that needed documenting. She'd done hundreds of these and she moved through the flat with the particular efficiency of someone who knows exactly what she's looking for.

Kitchen: oven opened, phone torch in. Clean. Tap base: touched. Smooth. Worktop chip: photographed, noted on the form. Floor behind cooker: she didn't check. She checked the corners of the floor instead — where the vinyl meets the skirting, where grease migrates if it's not mopped properly. Clean.

Bathroom: toilet torched below the waterline. Clean. Shower head: she turned it on and watched the spray. Even. Bath waterline: finger-tested where the thick ring had been. Smooth. Sealant crack: photographed, noted as maintenance. She wrote 'schedule repair' on her tablet.

Daughter's room: she looked at the window where the drawings had been. Clean glass. She saw the drawings on the kitchen counter. She didn't comment. Housing officers see a lot of things left behind in flats. Three drawings by a 6-year-old are not unusual, but the rainbow with too many colours is the kind of thing you notice even when you're ticking boxes on a tablet.

Eight minutes. Everything passed on the cleaning. The worktop chip and the sealant crack were noted as maintenance items. The blackcurrant stain noted as pre-existing wear.

Deposit returned in full within 10 days. The mum and her daughter moved to a 3-bed further up toward Highbury — more space, a garden, still Islington, still the same school. The fridge magnet went with them. The drawings probably went with them too. The flat on Lever Street got a new sealant bead in the bathroom, a touch-up on the worktop, and a new family behind the heavy fire door that closes itself whether you want it to or not.