End of Tenancy Cleaning in Selsdon

A 1930s semi on Queenhill Road — a residential street running between Addington Road and the recreation ground, lined with the bay-windowed semis that Selsdon was built from. Three bedrooms, a front lounge, a rear dining room, a separate kitchen, a conservatory off the dining room, a utility cupboard under the stairs, one family bathroom, a downstairs WC, and a 65-foot rear garden with a patio and a lawn that had been mowed sometime in the last month. The tenants — a couple with a primary-school-age daughter — had been there 2 years on a fixed-term AST at £1,850/month. Managed by Kingstons Selsdon, inventory checkout booked with their in-house clerk for two days later.

Parked on the driveway — a block-paved frontage beside the garage. No restrictions anywhere on Queenhill Road. Carried the kit through the side gate and in through the back door — the tenants had left the keys under the mat at the rear, the classic Selsdon key exchange.

Kitchen first. A separate galley kitchen, about 10 sqm, running along the side of the house. A freestanding gas cooker — a Hotpoint, dual fuel, single oven, 4-burner gas hob. Two years of family cooking: steady, regular, three meals a day when the daughter was home. The oven was a solid mid-range job — not the burnt-pie drama of the Queens Park shared house, not the 4-year bake-in of the Roehampton council flat, just 2 years of normal family use that had left a uniform grease layer in the cavity and some darker patches on the roof near the fan. Door off, glass out, cavity sprayed. Single dwell, 20 minutes. One pass: 80% done. A targeted second spray on the roof and behind the back panel. Ten more minutes. Second pass: clean. Grill: single dwell, one pass. Hob: 4 burner caps and pan supports soaked, enamel surface wiped.

Then the taps — and this is where Selsdon announces itself. The kitchen tap was a single-lever mixer, probably installed when the kitchen was refitted 6 or 7 years ago. The base of the lever had a thick ring of limescale — not a film, not a dusting, a solid ring about 3mm high that had been building for 2 years. The aerator in the spout was partially blocked, reducing the flow to a thin off-centre stream. Descaler applied to the base, a 10-minute dwell. The ring softened but didn't lift in one pass. Second application, another 10 minutes. Then a plastic scraper worked carefully around the base — the scale came off in chips. The aerator: unscrewed, soaked in descaler for 15 minutes, the holes cleared with a pin. Reassembled — full flow restored. That single tap took 20 minutes. It set the tone for every water-contact surface in the house.

The rest of the kitchen: laminate worktops wiped. Cupboard fronts (white gloss) wiped — fingermarks around every handle, some at adult height, some at daughter height. Inside all cupboards and drawers. Under the sink: the drip tray cleaned, the pipe connections descaled. Fridge-freezer (freestanding): shelves, drawers, gaskets. The freezer had light ice on the back wall — not a full defrost job, scraped and wiped in 5 minutes. Sink — stainless steel — descaled. The drainer had white limescale deposits in the ridges that had been there so long they'd almost become part of the surface. Descaler, dwell, a toothbrush into the ridges. They came up. Extractor hood: canopy style, filter soaked, housing wiped. Floor — vinyl tiles — mopped, behind the cooker done (pulled out: dust, crumbs, a fridge magnet). Kitchen total: 50 minutes, the extra time entirely driven by the hard water.

Conservatory. A lean-to UPVC conservatory off the dining room — about 12 sqm, with glass walls on two sides and a polycarbonate roof. It had been used as the daughter's play-and-homework space: a small desk, craft supplies (now removed), and the residual evidence of creativity — a glitter smear on the window frame, a dried PVA glue spot on the floor tile, felt-tip marks on the sill. Interior glass cleaned pane by pane — 10 panes on the two glass walls plus 2 in the door. The glitter on the frame: persistent, as glitter always is. A damp cloth picked up most of it; the remaining specks came off with a targeted wipe using a barely-damp microfibre pressed firmly and dragged in one direction. Glitter is the end-of-tenancy world's most resilient adversary — it migrates, it embeds, it reflects light at the exact angle an inventory clerk is looking. We got it. Felt-tip marks on the sill: general-purpose cleaner, circular motions with a cloth, three passes. They lifted. The PVA on the floor: dried white, came off in a single peel once we got under the edge with a plastic scraper. Floor — ceramic tiles — mopped. Door track vacuumed. 25 minutes.

Dining room. Carpeted, a single window to the garden, a radiator, no fireplace (this one had been removed and plastered over at some point — a smooth chimney breast with no feature). Vacuumed: full floor, edges, under the radiator. Window cleaned. French doors to the conservatory: glass cleaned from this side, handles wiped. Skirting, radiator, light switch. 12 minutes.

Front lounge. Carpeted — a beige that had served well. The bay window: three casement panes (UPVC double-glazed replacements, not original). Cleaned in 8 minutes. A gas fire in the original fireplace opening — the kind with decorative coals behind a glass front. The glass front wiped. The surround: a timber mantel painted cream, wiped. The tiled hearth: vacuumed and wiped. Radiator done, skirting done. Curtain poles dusted. 15 minutes.

Downstairs WC. Under the stairs — compact, low ceiling following the stair angle. A small basin with a single tap. The tap had the same thick limescale ring as the kitchen mixer — Selsdon water is consistent, it builds everywhere at the same rate. Descaler, dwell, scraper. Basin descaled. Toilet: inside the bowl, a calcium ring at the waterline that was visible as a brown-white band. Descaler poured around the rim, 15-minute dwell. Pumice stone on the stubborn section where the calcium had thickened at the back of the bowl. Two passes. Clear. Floor — vinyl — mopped. Mirror wiped. 15 minutes — the limescale turned a 5-minute WC into a 15-minute one.

Family bathroom upstairs. A white suite, refitted within the last decade: acrylic bath with a thermostatic shower mixer and a curved glass screen, semi-recessed basin on a vanity, close-coupled toilet. Every chrome surface had the same limescale signature as downstairs — thick, layered, serious.

Shower screen first. The lower two-thirds were hazed with scale — not spots, not streaks, a continuous mineral film that turned the glass translucent rather than transparent. Descaler applied to the full panel. 12-minute dwell. First wipe, top to bottom: the upper third cleared. The lower half needed more. Second application concentrated on the bottom 40%. Another 10 minutes. Second pass: the haze lifted, revealing a scratch in the glass about 4 inches long — pre-existing, invisible under the limescale, now exposed. Documented as pre-existing damage revealed by cleaning, not caused by it. Squeegeed dry.

Bath waterline: a thick calcium ring. Descaler, 10-minute dwell, one pass. The ring had a brownish tinge — iron content in the water mixing with calcium. It came off. Shower head: a rainfall-style head on a riser rail. The face plate was partially blocked — maybe 30% of the nozzles had white scale plugging them. Descaler-soaked cloth wrapped around the head, 15-minute dwell. Then each nozzle checked and cleared with a pin where the descaler hadn't fully dissolved the blockage. Flow restored.

Basin: descaled around the taps (same thick rings), the overflow hole, the bowl edge. Toilet: same process as the downstairs WC — descaler, long dwell, pumice on the back-of-bowl calcium band. Wall tiles: half-height, wiped. Grout: mostly clean, one corner of the shower area had dark mould in the grout lines — anti-mould spray, dwell, scrubbed with a grout brush. The mould came out. Sealant around the bath: intact, cleaned, no gaps. Floor — ceramic tiles — mopped. Heated towel rail: each bar wiped. Extractor fan cover: removed and cleaned. 40 minutes for the bathroom — the longest single-room time of the day, every minute driven by the water.

Three bedrooms. The master: carpeted, built-in wardrobes (sliding doors, tracks vacuumed, interior wiped — shelves, rail, base). Window: casement, cleaned. Radiator wiped. 15 minutes. Second bedroom — the daughter's room. Carpeted, vacuumed. The windowsill had sticker residue (unicorn stickers, based on the outline shapes still faintly visible in the adhesive) — plastic scraper, general-purpose cleaner, wiped clean. A small patch of blu-tack shadow on the wall where a poster had been — we cleaned the shadow to the extent possible, the remaining mark was in the paint rather than on it. Documented. Wardrobe wiped inside. 15 minutes. Third bedroom — box room, used for storage. Carpet had furniture indentations from a bookcase. Vacuumed, window cleaned, radiator done. 10 minutes.

Stairs and landing. Carpet vacuumed — treads, risers, the landing. Bannister wiped. Airing cupboard: shelves wiped, cylinder dusted. Loft hatch: dusted. The understairs utility cupboard (the other side from the WC): coats and shoes had been removed, leaving dust, a stray glove, and crumbs. Vacuumed, shelves wiped. 12 minutes.

Hallway. Carpet vacuumed. Front door wiped inside and out. Radiator. Coat hooks. The doorbell housing: wiped. 5 minutes.

Total time: 4.5 hours. Two people. The hard water added at least 35 minutes across the entire house — every tap, every shower, every toilet, every screen needed extended treatment. Without the limescale, this house would have been a 3 hour 45 minute job. That's the Selsdon premium: not complexity, not size, not period detail — just calcium carbonate, relentlessly deposited by the chalk aquifer beneath the Surrey downland.

The Kingstons clerk arrived two days later. She was local — she'd done dozens of Selsdon checkouts and she knew the hard-water problem. Her first check in the bathroom was the shower screen, which she held at three different angles to the window light. Clear — and she noted the exposed scratch, checking the check-in inventory photos on her tablet. The scratch was visible in the original photos, confirming it was pre-existing. Good. She checked every tap in the house for limescale residue — kitchen, both WCs, bathroom basin. Clean. Toilet bowls: she used her phone torch below the waterline in both. Clear. Kitchen oven: torch into the cavity. Conservatory: she ran a finger along the frame where the glitter had been — nothing. She smiled at that one. We're not the first team she's seen defeated by craft glitter.

Bedrooms: wardrobes opened, sticker residue on the daughter's sill checked (gone), blu-tack shadow on the wall noted (accepted as minor cosmetic — paint touch-up, not a cleaning charge). Carpet furniture marks documented as fair use.

Her report was 6 pages. Everything passed. She confirmed by email that afternoon with a one-line note to the landlord: 'Property presented to a very good standard. Recommend full deposit return.'

Deposit returned via the DPS within 8 days. No deductions. The family had moved to a 4-bed detached half a mile away on Farley Road — the Selsdon upgrade, keeping the school, keeping the friends, adding a bedroom and 15 feet of garden. They'd hired us because the thought of spending a weekend descaling every tap in the house while packing boxes and keeping a 7-year-old entertained was exactly the kind of calculation that makes a £275 cleaning fee feel like the obvious answer.