End of Tenancy Cleaning in Hampton

Percy Road is one of those Hampton streets that feels like it should be in a market town rather than a London borough. Edwardian semis with big front gardens, mature trees along the pavement, and the kind of quiet where you can hear a woodpecker from Bushy Park three streets away. The houses have the proportions of a time when builders gave people more space because the land was cheaper — wide frontages, deep plots, rooms that don't make you feel like you're eating dinner in a corridor.

Three bedrooms, a front reception, a rear reception-diner, an extended kitchen at the back, a family bathroom, and a garden that ran about 50 feet to a fence beyond which you could see the playing fields and, further off, the edge of Bushy Park. The family had been there 2 years — two parents, two children aged 10 and 7. He commuted to Waterloo from Hampton station. She did something with sustainability consultancy and worked from home three days a week. £2,500 a month. Managed by Chase Buchanan from their Hampton Hill office.

Parked on the driveway. Percy Road was unrestricted. A woodpecker was doing its thing somewhere in the direction of the park.

Kitchen first. The single-storey rear extension had created a kitchen of about 14 sqm with bi-fold doors to the garden. A Stoves Richmond 110 — double oven, five gas burners, a grill. Two years of a family that cooked together most evenings and baked at weekends — she'd been doing sourdough for the last year, which explained the flour residue in the gaps between the worktop and the units that most people wouldn't think to check. The main oven was moderate to heavy. Consistent family grease. Double dwell, one pass on everything, second pass on the roof. Secondary oven lighter — used for proofing the sourdough and warming plates. Single dwell. Grill moderate. Total oven time: 40 minutes.

Quartz worktop — wiped with specialist product. The flour gaps between the worktop and the units: a thin blade wrapped in cloth, pulled through each join. Three minutes just on the gaps. Sink descaled. Integrated fridge-freezer cleaned. Inside all the cupboards. Bi-fold door tracks: dried mud, a crushed acorn, and grass clippings. Tracks vacuumed, cloth pulled through. Floor — large-format porcelain tiles — mopped. Behind the range: pulled out — heavy, two of us on it — wall degreased. A wine cork and a magnetic poetry word. The word was 'dream'. Kitchen total: 58 minutes.

Front reception. A bay window — sash, 4-over-4, three sides, 48 panes. Each cleaned. An original fireplace — tiled surround in an Arts and Crafts green with a cast-iron insert. Each tile wiped. Iron dry-cleaned. Timber mantel — stained dark, not painted — wiped with dry cloth only, no product on stained timber. Hearth — slate — vacuumed and wiped. Picture rail dusted. Original floorboards — lacquered — mopped. 22 minutes.

Rear reception-diner. Carpeted, vacuumed. A sash window to the garden. A simpler fireplace — painted timber surround. Wiped. 10 minutes.

Bathroom. First floor. A white suite — bath with a thermostatic shower over and a glass screen, wall-hung basin, close-coupled toilet. Two years of Richmond hard water and a family of four. The shower screen had moderate limescale on the lower half. Double descaler, two passes. Taps — moderate crusts at the bases. Bath waterline — the reliable ring of a household where the children have a bath every evening and the parents shower every morning. Standard treatment. Toilet — calcium below the waterline. Standard soak. Grout mostly clean. Floor — original timber boards with a bath mat area of lighter colour where the mat had protected the finish. Mopped carefully, documented as cosmetic. 26 minutes.

Three bedrooms. Master: carpeted, vacuumed. Bay window — sash, 32 panes. Built-in wardrobe wiped inside. 14 minutes. Second bedroom: the 10-year-old's room. Carpet vacuumed. Sash window cleaned. A desk with textbooks and a pencil case — the landlord's desk, the tenant's pencil case. Pencil case placed on the counter. A small whiteboard had been screwed to the wall — not Blu-Tacked, actually screwed in. Two screw holes visible where the bracket met the wall. The whiteboard was the tenant's. We noted the screw holes. Not our call whether they're damage or wear. 10 minutes.

Younger child's room: carpet vacuumed. Sash window cleaned. The windowsill had a collection of things arranged in a row — an acorn, a conker, a piece of bark, a small feather, and a deer antler fragment about 4cm long. Bushy Park treasures. A 7-year-old's nature table on a windowsill. No marks, no residue, no adhesive — just objects placed carefully on the sill by someone who found them and wanted to keep them. Moved to the desk, sill cleaned, placed back. 9 minutes.

Stairs: carpeted, vacuumed. Hallway: original timber strip flooring. Mopped. Front door — original timber with a brass knocker and letterbox — door wiped, brass polished. 8 minutes.

Total time: 4 hours. Two people. A 3-bed Edwardian semi where the range cooker took 40 minutes, the flour-gap worktop joints took 3, the sash windows took 36 across the house, and the bathroom took 26. A Hampton house where the children bring the park home with them one acorn and one deer antler at a time, and the parents bake sourdough and keep magnetic poetry on the range cooker and the word they lost behind it was 'dream'.

Chase Buchanan's negotiator arrived three days later. She had a tablet with a digital inventory and the check-in photos from 2 years earlier. She drove from the Hampton Hill office — about 4 minutes.

Kitchen: range cooker — both ovens opened, phone torch in. Roof: clean. She checked the grill pan — clean. Quartz worktop: she ran a finger along the join between the worktop and the unit. No flour. She knew what to check because she'd seen the residue in other TW12 kitchens where the tenant baked. The flour accumulates in the gaps and nobody thinks to clean it except the teams that know it's there. Bi-fold tracks: she ran a finger through. Clean.

Front reception: fireplace — she checked the Arts and Crafts tiles. Finger-tested one. Clean. She looked at the stained timber mantel. No product residue, no watermarks. Good.

Bathroom: shower screen angle-tested. Bath mat timber area: she crouched and compared to check-in. Boards were uniform at check-in. The lighter mat area was documented as cosmetic wear.

Older child's room: the screw holes from the whiteboard. She photographed them. Measured the distance between them with her fingers. Noted. That would be between the landlord and the deposit.

Younger child's room: the nature collection on the windowsill. She looked at the acorn, the conker, the bark, the feather, and the deer antler. She didn't touch them. She looked at the sill beside them. Clean. She noted them as tenant property.

Brass: front door knocker and letterbox. She touched the knocker. Smooth, warm sheen.

Twelve minutes. Everything passed on the cleaning. The screw holes, the bath mat impression, and the nature collection were noted separately. None charged as cleaning items.

Deposit returned in full within 10 days. The family moved to a 4-bed on Park Road — still TW12, still Hampton, gaining a bedroom and a bigger garden and being one street closer to Bushy Park. The deer antler fragment went with them. The acorn went with them. Everything went with them because a 7-year-old's nature collection is not the kind of thing you leave behind, and in Hampton there would always be more acorns and more antlers and more things to bring home from a park that has been there since Henry VIII and will be there long after every family on every street has moved to the next house.