End of Tenancy Cleaning in Pimlico

St George's Drive is one of the long straight streets in the Cubitt grid — white stucco on both sides, plane trees in the pavement, and the particular symmetry of a street where every front door is at the same height, every set of railings is the same pattern, and every window line matches the one next to it. The raised ground floor was up four stone steps from the pavement, through the front door, and into a flat that occupied the full width of the house at its grandest level.

Two bedrooms, a double reception room with a bay window facing the street, a kitchen at the rear, a bathroom, and a wide hallway with the original encaustic tile floor. The tenant was a Norwegian diplomat who'd been posted to London for 2 years. Furnished by the embassy's relocation company. The whole tenancy — furniture, deposit, checkout — managed through Savills Pimlico with a full professional inventory. The check-in photos were on a tablet and the clerk would compare them room by room.

Parked on St George's Drive via RingGo. Westminster zone. Found a space about eight houses along.

The double reception room. The best room in the flat. A bay window with three tall sash windows — each over 2 metres high, 4-over-4, 48 panes across the bay. Through them, the stucco frontages opposite and the plane trees. At this height and with these proportions, the glass needed to be immaculate because the light poured in and showed everything. Each pane cleaned, each glazing bar wiped. A rear window — a single tall sash, 4-over-4, 16 panes. Total glass in this room: 64 panes. 20 minutes.

The fireplace. White marble surround with a subtle grey vein, a cast-iron insert with a register plate, a white marble hearth. The marble was in good condition — the diplomat had been careful with it. One water ring on the hearth where a vase had sat without a saucer. Treated with marble cleaner and buffed. The ring lightened to nearly invisible. Iron insert dry-cleaned. Hearth vacuumed. 10 minutes.

Ceiling: 3.4 metres. Cornicing with an egg-and-dart pattern running the full perimeter. A ceiling rose with deep acanthus relief. Extension pole for the cobwebs at two cornice junctions. Rose dusted — the relief patterns hold dust in the crevices and need the brush attachment rather than just a cloth. Picture rail wiped. The floor was the furniture company's rug over original timber boards. Rug vacuumed on both sides. Boards mopped beneath. 16 minutes.

The furniture throughout the flat was embassy-grade — not the landlord's inherited pieces but professionally sourced and inventoried items from a relocation company. A sofa, two armchairs, a dining table with four chairs, a sideboard. Each piece vacuumed or wiped. Under each piece: moved where possible, cleaned beneath, replaced. The sofa: vacuumed with the brush attachment, under the cushions cleared. One 20-krone coin and a paper clip. Noted. Furniture time across the whole flat: about 30 minutes.

The kitchen. A rear room refitted with integrated appliances. An integrated Bosch oven — 2 years of a diplomat who ate in restaurants during the week and cooked Scandinavian food on weekends. The oven was light. Single dwell, one pass. Induction hob — clean except for one faint ring. Stone worktop wiped. Sink descaled. Fridge-freezer cleaned. The ceiling-mounted extraction was better than most Pimlico conversions — it actually worked. Walls clean. Floor — stone tiles — mopped. 28 minutes.

Bathroom. A modern refit — walk-in shower with a frameless glass panel, wall-hung basin, wall-hung toilet, heated towel rail, stone floor. The shower glass had light limescale. Single descaler application, one pass. Everything else light. This was a bathroom used by one careful person for 2 years. 18 minutes.

Two bedrooms. The master: the furniture company's bed frame and bedside tables wiped, mattress surface vacuumed, wardrobe wiped inside. Tall sash window — 4-over-4, 16 panes. 14 minutes. The second bedroom had been used as a study. A desk, a chair, a bookcase — all embassy furniture. The desk had a leather blotter that the diplomat had brought from Oslo and taken with him, leaving a rectangular dust shadow on the surface. Desk wiped, shadow gone. Window — a smaller sash, 2-over-2, 4 panes. 10 minutes.

Hallway. The original encaustic tile floor — a geometric pattern in cream, terracotta, and black that was laid when the house was built and has survived everything since. Mopped with pH-neutral product. The front door — original panelled timber with a brass knocker and a letterbox. Both brass pieces polished. 8 minutes.

Total time: 3.5 hours. Two people. A 2-bed raised-ground-floor Cubitt conversion with 3.4-metre ceilings, 84 sash window panes across the flat, a marble fireplace, original encaustic tiles, and embassy furniture in every room. The glass took 34 minutes. The furniture added 30. The marble took 10. These are the Pimlico specifics — the combination of period features and furnished lets that makes every clean here longer than the bedroom count suggests.

Savills' clerk arrived the next day. She had the check-in tablet and the photo-comparison process that the diplomatic lets require. Every room photographed at check-in, every room compared at checkout.

Reception: she stood at the bay window and checked the glass against the light. Clean. Then the marble. She crouched at the hearth and looked at where the vase ring had been. Nearly invisible. She photographed it at an angle and compared it to the check-in photo, which showed bare marble. The slight residual mark was within tolerance. Ceiling rose: she looked up from the centre. Cornicing: no cobwebs. Furniture: she checked the sofa arms, ran a hand under the sideboard shelf. The 20-krone coin and paper clip: she smiled and noted them for the relocation company.

Kitchen: oven opened, torch in. Clean. Bathroom: shower glass angle-tested. Bedrooms: furniture checked, desk surface checked where the blotter shadow had been — uniform surface, no mark. Hallway tiles: she looked at them from the front door. Brass knocker and letterbox: she didn't touch them but they were clean and the light from the fanlight caught the polish.

Thirteen minutes. Everything passed. The vase ring noted as within tolerance on the marble. The coin and paper clip noted for the relocation company. Report uploaded to Savills' system with photo pairs.

Deposit returned in full within 8 days. The diplomat moved back to Oslo. The embassy's furniture went back to the relocation company's warehouse. The encaustic tiles in the hallway stayed where they'd been since Thomas Cubitt's builders laid them, and the brass knocker on the front door waited for the next tenant to arrive and never quite get around to polishing it.