End of Tenancy Cleaning in Queens Park

A mid-terrace on Lonsdale Road — one of the Salubrious Streets, three minutes from the park. An unrenovated Victorian terrace: no rear extension, no loft conversion, no refitted kitchen. The house as it was, more or less, with some updates along the way but nothing structural. Front reception room with a bay window. Rear reception room / dining room. A kitchen at the back, not knocked through — a separate room. Three bedrooms upstairs. One family bathroom. A small back garden. The tenants — a couple and a friend, three adults sharing on a joint tenancy — had been there 2 years at £2,400/month. Managed by Winkworth Kensal Rise & Queens Park. Inventory checkout booked with an independent clerk for three days later.

Parked two streets over — Brent CPZ, RingGo paid, 10am on a Thursday. The nearest space was on Harvist Road. Carried the kit along the pavement, through the front gate, past the recycling bins, and in through the original Victorian front door with its stained-glass fanlight.

Front reception room first. A bay window with 2-over-2 sash windows — three sections, 12 panes total. These were original single-glazed sashes, and both lower sashes operated (one stiffly, one smoothly — the difference between a well-maintained pulley and a neglected one). Glass cleaned pane by pane. Glazing bars wiped. The smooth sash: lowered, upper rail wiped, runners vacuumed and wiped. The stiff sash: we got it down about 4 inches, enough to clean the meeting rail and the accessible section of the runner. We didn't force it further — the cord was fraying on one side and we're not in the business of snapping a 130-year-old sash cord to vacuum a channel. Documented the restricted movement. Sill wiped. 18 minutes.

The fireplace — a tiled Victorian surround in deep blue and cream with a cast-iron register grate. The tiles were in excellent condition — the landlord had either restored them or they'd survived remarkably well. Each tile wiped with a damp cloth. The cast-iron grate: a working fireplace, the grate had ash residue from what looked like the previous winter's fires. Ash vacuumed out of the grate and the hearth. The iron wiped dry. The tiled hearth vacuumed and wiped. Mantel shelf — painted timber — dusted and wiped. We didn't clean the flue; that's a sweep's job, and the inventory knows it. 12 minutes.

Stripped pine floorboards throughout the ground floor — sanded and varnished, probably in the early 2000s based on the finish. The varnish had worn on the high-traffic path from the hallway through the living room and into the dining room — a continuous thread of daily movement visible in the slightly matte strip where hundreds of journeys had dulled the sheen. We mopped the full floor with a general-purpose floor cleaner (varnished pine, not waxed — forgiving, no special product needed). The wear path remained visible because it's a finish issue, not a dirt issue. Documented.

Rear reception room. A smaller room — a single sash window overlooking the garden, another fireplace (this one simpler — a painted timber surround with a cast-iron insert, no decorative tiles). Window: 2-over-2 sash, both operable. Cleaned in the same way, faster — no bay, just a flat window. 8 minutes. Fireplace: timber surround wiped, iron insert dry-cleaned, hearth vacuumed. The floor: same stripped pine, same treatment. A dining table had left circular compression marks in the varnish from its feet — four circles, evenly spaced, exactly where you'd expect them. Documented as furniture marks, not cleaning. 10 minutes for the room.

Kitchen. A separate room at the rear of the house — not knocked through to the dining room. About 12 sqm, which is generous for an unrenovated Queens Park kitchen. A freestanding gas cooker — Zanussi, single oven, separate grill, 4-burner hob. Two years of three adults cooking. This oven had been used by someone who roasted (splatter on the roof and back wall) and someone who baked (a burnt-sugar glaze on the bottom that suggested a pie had overflowed at some point and nobody had dealt with it). Door off, glass out, cavity sprayed. First dwell: 20 minutes. The splatter came off. The burnt sugar on the oven floor: stubborn. It had caramelised and hardened into a dark amber crust about 6 inches across. A second spray concentrated on that area, another 15 minutes. Then a targeted scrub with a non-scratch scourer — the degreaser had softened it enough to lift in pieces. Third pass on the area with a damp cloth. Clean. Grill cavity: standard, one dwell. Hob: 4 burner caps and supports soaked, enamel cleaned.

The rest of the kitchen: laminate worktops wiped. The tiles behind the hob — white ceramic, 6x6 inch — degreased. Three adults sharing a kitchen means more grease, more residue, more general use than a single household. The extractor: a canopy hood, the filter hadn't been cleaned during the tenancy. Removed, soaked — the grease was thick enough that the soak water turned opaque within minutes. Hood housing degreased. Cupboard fronts: painted (not the original 1950s ones — these had been replaced, probably in the 2010s). Wiped. Inside all cupboards and drawers. Under the sink: the usual shared-house archaeology — a stained J-cloth, a dried-out sponge, limescale deposits from a loose pipe connection. Cleaned and descaled. Fridge-freezer (freestanding): shelves, drawers, gaskets. The salad crisper had something green and liquid at the bottom — removed, the drawer washed. Freezer: moderate ice on the back wall, defrosted. Sink — ceramic, single bowl — scrubbed. Taps descaled. Floor — original quarry tiles in terracotta, the kind that belong in a Victorian kitchen. These are unglazed and porous, like encaustic — mopped with pH-neutral, barely damp, no detergent puddles. The back door to the garden: threshold vacuumed (mud, a cigarette butt, a bottle cap), door track cleaned. 55 minutes for the kitchen, including the double-dwell oven and the quarry-tile floor.

Bathroom. Upstairs, a refitted bathroom — the one update the landlord had made. A modern white suite: acrylic bath with thermostatic shower mixer and a glass screen (single panel), semi-recessed basin on a vanity, close-coupled toilet. The suite was maybe 8 years old. Bath waterline: moderate limescale ring — not Bromley-hard but not soft either. NW6 water is moderate, around 260 ppm. Descaler applied, 10-minute dwell, one pass. Shower screen: limescale concentrated at the bottom, less severe than a Petts Wood or Keston screen. One application, 10-minute dwell, vertical strips, squeegeed. Shower head: mild scaling, descaler cloth wrap, 5 minutes. Basin: descaled around the taps and the overflow. Toilet: inside the bowl, under the rim, around the base. Floor — small mosaic tiles in grey — mopped. Heated towel rail: each bar. Mirror and vanity: wiped. 25 minutes.

Three bedrooms. The master — front of the house, the full width of the terrace. Two sash windows (not a bay — this was a first-floor room). Both operable, both cleaned — 4 panes per window, 8 total. A built-in wardrobe in the alcove: wiped inside. Original pine floorboards (same stripped pine as downstairs): mopped. A decorative fireplace — bricked up, with a simple timber surround. Surround wiped, the blocked opening dusted. Radiator, skirting, light switch. 18 minutes.

Second bedroom — rear of the house, overlooking the garden. One sash window. Carpeted (a landlord addition — the carpet sat on top of the original boards). Vacuumed: edges, corners, behind the door. A freestanding wardrobe: cleaned behind and inside. 14 minutes.

Third bedroom — the small bedroom between the master and the bathroom. Just big enough for a double bed and a chest of drawers. One sash window. Pine floorboards. A clothes rail instead of a wardrobe — the rail wiped, the floor beneath vacuumed and mopped. 10 minutes.

Stairs and landing. The staircase had a carpet runner on the treads with exposed painted timber on either side. The runner: vacuumed, treads and risers. The exposed painted edges: wiped. The landing: same carpet runner. Bannister: wiped, each spindle. The handrail was polished timber — original, probably mahogany. Wiped with a barely-damp cloth to remove hand grease without affecting the patina. Airing cupboard: shelves wiped, cylinder dusted. The loft hatch: dusted. 12 minutes.

Hallway. Stripped pine floorboards — the most trafficked section in the house. Two years of three adults coming and going: the front-door area showed more wear than anywhere else. Mopped. The front door: wiped inside, the stained-glass fanlight cleaned from the interior (each coloured pane wiped carefully — no excess moisture on the lead). Coat hooks, radiator, the gas meter cupboard (door opened, the meter area dusted — agents check this more often than tenants expect). Letter box: wiped on the inside. 8 minutes.

Total time: 5 hours. Two people. An unrenovated Victorian terrace — no extension, no loft conversion, no range cooker, no stone worktops, no bifold doors. Just a house with its original layout, original features, and the kind of oven that three adults had been cooking in for 2 years without once removing the door glass. The time went on the oven (the burnt-sugar episode added 15 minutes alone), the sash windows across the house (about 50 minutes total), and the quarry-tile kitchen floor (which needed care because of the porosity). A renovated house of the same bedroom count on the same street would have taken longer because of the extension, the range cooker, and the additional en-suite — but it would also have had better extraction, easier ovens, and modern windows.

The Winkworth inventory clerk arrived three days later. He worked from an 8-page schedule — detailed, item by item, the kind of document that a premium NW6 agency produces for a £2,400/month rental. Hallway: he checked the floorboard condition (noted the traffic wear, not a cleaning issue), examined the fanlight glass (clean), opened the meter cupboard. Front reception: sash windows tested and checked (he noted the fraying cord on the stiff sash — pre-existing, in the original inventory). Fireplace tiles examined one by one. Floorboard wear path documented. Kitchen: oven opened (phone torch into the cavity — clean, he checked the spot where the burnt sugar had been and ran a finger across it), quarry tiles checked, extractor filter held to the light. Bathroom: shower screen angle-tested, bath waterline checked, toilet bowl inspected. Each bedroom: windows, wardrobes, floors.

His report was 6 pages of annotated photographs. The wear items — floor traffic paths, furniture marks, sash-cord fraying — were documented as pre-existing or normal use. The cleaning items all passed. No flags.

Deposit returned via the DPS within 10 days. The £2,400/month rent meant a deposit of £2,769 (five weeks at the statutory cap). No deductions. The three tenants had already split — one to Kensal Rise, one to Kilburn, one to Bristol. The shared house dissolved the way shared houses always dissolve: someone gets a partner, someone gets a job offer, someone just wants their own space. They'd agreed to split the cleaning cost three ways — £106 each — rather than spend their final weekend together scrubbing an oven and arguing about whose burnt pie had welded itself to the floor. Reasonable decision. We made the house ready for whoever comes next, and the three of them left NW6 with their full deposit and no cleaning-related grudges against each other. That's not nothing, when you've shared a kitchen for 2 years.