End of Tenancy Cleaning in Roehampton

An 8th-floor flat in one of the Alton West point towers — the 1950s towers that look out over Richmond Park from eleven storeys up. Two bedrooms, a separate kitchen, a living-dining room, one bathroom, and a hallway. The tenant — a healthcare worker at Queen Mary's Hospital — had been there 4 years on a secure council tenancy. She was transferring to another Wandsworth property and needed the flat signed off before she could move.

Wandsworth Council had done a pre-inspection three weeks earlier and issued a 14-item list: oven interior, hob surface, inside all cupboards, fridge-freezer including defrost, limescale on taps and shower head, mould on the bathroom ceiling corner, sealant condition, bedroom 2 window mould, all floors, front door interior. We pinned the list to the kitchen wall and worked through it.

The kitchen set the pace. A freestanding electric cooker — 8 years old, used daily for 4 years. The cavity had the deep, even residue of long-term single-occupant cooking. Three passes: first dwell got 60%, second spray on the back wall and roof got it to 90%, a targeted third application around the heating element finished it. The hob plates had heat discolouration from 4 years of thermal cycling — cleaned to extent possible, remainder documented as wear. The freezer was a solid 2cm ice sheet — door open, towels down, 40-minute passive defrost running in the background while we cleaned the rest of the flat.

The bathroom was where cleaning met maintenance. The taps had thick limescale — descaler, double application on the bath taps, cotton buds into the crevices. The ceiling corner had black mould at the condensation point where the ceiling met the exterior wall — anti-mould spray lifted the surface mould, but the staining beneath was in the paint. Documented as requiring redecoration. The sealant around the bath was yellowed and had pulled away near the taps, creating a gap — we cleaned the surface and documented the gap as deterioration requiring re-sealing. The pre-inspection had noted 'sealant condition' without specifying cleaning or replacement; our documentation covered both.

Bedroom 2 had the window the pre-inspection flagged — steel-framed Crittall, single-glazed, north-facing. Black mould along the bottom rail and both lower corners from 4 years of condensation. The surface mould came off with anti-mould spray. The dark staining beneath had penetrated the paint — that's a decoration job, not a cleaning one. Documented clearly. The living room's Crittall units had lighter mould in the corners (treated) and spots of surface corrosion on the steel (documented as existing maintenance, not cleaning).

We left the flat with the pre-inspection list annotated: each item marked as completed, with notes distinguishing cleaning from maintenance — hob discolouration (wear), bedroom 2 mould staining (redecoration), sealant gap (re-sealing), window corrosion (existing). The tenant submitted our annotated list alongside the council's original.

The Wandsworth housing officer inspected two days later — room by room with the pre-inspection list and a tablet camera. Oven torched — clean. Hob discolouration accepted as wear. Freezer: defrosted and clean. Taps: descaled. Ceiling mould: surface removed, paint staining noted for the council's maintenance team, not charged to the tenant. Sealant gap: logged for re-sealing by maintenance. Bedroom 2 window: mould removed, staining logged for redecoration. Every cleaning item passed. Every maintenance item was logged for the council's own works team.

Bond released within 7 days. No charges. She was already in her new flat across the borough.

That's Roehampton. No marble fireplaces, no Rangemaster ovens, no 14-page inventory schedules. But the principle is the same: clean everything that's a cleaning issue, document everything that isn't. On the Alton Estate, the right result means no charges against the bond and a clear transfer to the next property. At £195, it's the most affordable clean on our books — and for a healthcare worker moving between council tenancies, it's money that makes sense because the alternative is spending two days off work scrubbing an oven and arguing about window mould that was never hers to fix.