End of Tenancy Cleaning in North Kensington

Cambridge Gardens runs parallel to Ladbroke Grove on the quieter side, and the houses are the tall Victorian terraces that North Kensington is built from — three storeys plus a lower ground, London stock brick, sash windows, and the particular front-garden railings that tell you it's RBKC even before you see the parking signs. We were doing the first floor. Two bedrooms, a reception room with a bay window facing the street, a kitchen at the rear, a bathroom, and a hallway connecting everything through a flat that had the proportions of a floor of a house, which is exactly what it was.

The tenants were a couple who both worked in Soho — he was a producer at a post-production company, she was an account director at an agency. Two years at £2,350 a month. They cooked together, they entertained, and they had a lot of books. Managed by Winkworth North Kensington. Checkout with their negotiator booked for two days later.

Parked on Cambridge Gardens via RingGo. RBKC zone, Mon-Sat. The street was quiet on a Wednesday morning.

The reception room first. A bay window with three sash windows, each 4-over-4 — 48 panes total across the bay. Through them, the trees on Cambridge Gardens and the houses opposite. Each pane cleaned, each glazing bar wiped. The rear window, a single sash, 2-over-2, 4 panes. Total glass in the reception: 52 panes. 16 minutes.

The fireplace. A cast-iron insert with a decorative arch, set into a timber surround that someone had painted a dark grey at some point. The hearth was slate. The iron was cool and dry. Iron dry-cleaned with a microfibre. The timber surround wiped with a damp cloth — carefully, because the paint finish was flat and marked easily. Hearth vacuumed. 8 minutes.

Ceiling: about 3.2 metres. Cornicing around the full perimeter. A ceiling rose with an acanthus-leaf pattern. Extension pole for the cobwebs at the cornice junction in two corners. Rose dusted. Picture rail wiped — and this one had dust on both the top surface and in the groove of the moulding. The books. The tenants had removed their books but the floor-to-ceiling shelving unit was the landlord's, built into the alcove beside the chimney breast. Inside and top of the unit wiped. The dust behind and inside a bookshelf that's been fully loaded for 2 years is its own category. 18 minutes for the full reception room.

The kitchen. A galley at the rear, about 7 sqm, installed in what had been a back bedroom in the original house. A freestanding gas cooker — a Belling, single oven, four burners. Two years of a couple who cooked together most evenings and had people over for dinner regularly. The oven was moderate to heavy — darker on the roof and the back wall, lighter on the sides. The roof needed a double dwell. The back wall: a splash mark from something that had reduced enthusiastically. Hob cleaned, three burner caps soaked. One stubborn baked-on ring from a stock pot.

No extractor hood. A ceiling-mounted extractor fan that moved air upward but didn't capture grease laterally. The wall tiles behind the hob had a film extending in every direction. The ceiling directly above the hob had a faint yellow tinge from 2 years of cooking vapour rising straight up. Wall tiles degreased. Ceiling above the hob wiped — it was a small enough area that it came clean without repainting. Worktops wiped. Sink descaled. Fridge-freezer cleaned — a small freezer with a thick ice layer, defrosted while we worked. Under the sink: the usual. Floor — vinyl — mopped. A takeaway menu from a Portuguese place on Golborne Road had slipped behind the fridge. Kitchen total: 38 minutes.

Bathroom. A white suite — bath with a shower over and a glass screen, wall-hung basin, toilet. The shower screen had a moderate limescale haze. Descaler, dwell time, two passes. Taps descaled. Bath waterline — a moderate ring, one pass. Toilet — calcium below the waterline. Grout in the shower area: a few dark spots at the sealant line, anti-mould spray. Floor tiles mopped. 24 minutes.

Two bedrooms. The front bedroom: carpeted, vacuumed, sash window cleaned — 4-over-4, 16 panes. Built-in wardrobe wiped inside. 12 minutes. The rear bedroom: carpeted, vacuumed, a casement window — modern replacement, 4 panes, quicker. A picture hook in the wall that had pulled the plaster slightly when a heavy frame was removed. Not a cleaning issue — documented as minor cosmetic damage. 9 minutes.

Hallway: original timber boards, stripped and lacquered. Mopped barely-damp with specialist product. The front door to the flat — a heavy panelled door with a Yale lock and a brass numeral. The numeral had the same patina as every other piece of brass hardware in a rented flat — used and untouched. Quick brass polish, buffed. 7 minutes.

Total time: 3.5 hours. Two people. A 2-bed first-floor Victorian conversion with 3.2-metre ceilings, 68 sash window panes across the whole flat, a cast-iron fireplace, zero-extraction kitchen, and a brass door numeral that nobody had polished in two years. The glass took 26 minutes. The kitchen took 38. The reception room with all its features took 18. These are the North Kensington minutes — the ones that don't exist in a modern flat.

Winkworth's negotiator arrived two days later. He covered the North Kensington and Ladbroke Grove patch and had been inside this building before.

Reception room: fireplace iron checked — clean. The grey-painted surround: he looked at the edges where the cloth could have left moisture marks on the flat paint finish. Clean, no water marking. Bookshelf alcove: he opened his phone torch and looked behind the unit. Clean. Bay window: one pane spot-checked. Ceiling rose: looked up from the centre. Cornicing: no cobwebs.

Kitchen: oven opened, torch in. The roof checked where the double dwell had been. Clean. The ceiling above the hob: he looked up and checked for the yellow tinge. Gone. That's the check that only happens in a zero-extraction conversion kitchen — the ceiling test. Wall tiles finger-tested. The Golborne Road takeaway menu had been recycled.

Bathroom: shower screen angle-tested, two-pass location checked. Bedrooms: picture-hook plaster damage photographed, noted as cosmetic. Hallway: the brass numeral — he didn't check it specifically. But it was clean, and the clean brass caught the light from the stairwell window, and that was enough.

Eleven minutes. Everything passed. The picture-hook damage noted as cosmetic, not charged. Deposit returned in full within 7 days.