End of Tenancy Cleaning in Snaresbrook

Hollybush Hill climbs toward Epping Forest, and the houses get bigger as the road gets steeper. At the top you can see the trees. At the bottom you can see the rooftops of Wanstead stretching south toward the Flats. The house we were doing was about two-thirds of the way up — an Edwardian semi with a double-height bay window at the front, a tiled front path, a privet hedge, and a horse chestnut tree in the front garden that was old enough to have been there when the house was built. The tree was dropping seeds on the path. The seeds were bringing squirrels. The squirrels were leaving husks on the doorstep. That was before we'd even opened the front door.

Four bedrooms, two reception rooms, a kitchen-diner extended at the rear, a family bathroom, an en-suite shower room, a ground-floor WC, a utility room, and a garden that backed onto the gardens of the next street with the forest visible beyond the back fence. The family had been there 3 years — two parents, three children aged 11, 8, and 5. He took the Central line to Bank every morning. She worked from home as a consultant. £2,750 a month. Managed by Petty Son & Prestwich from their Wanstead office.

Parked on the driveway. The street was unrestricted. Three of us on this job because a 4-bed Edwardian with three bathrooms and a range cooker doesn't clean itself in under 4 hours with two people.

Kitchen-diner first. The rear extension had created a large open-plan kitchen-diner of about 20 sqm with bi-fold doors to the garden. A Rangemaster 110 — double oven, five burners, a grill. Three years of a family of five where the mum worked from home and cooked lunch as well as dinner. Both ovens were heavy. The main oven had the dark, layered grease of daily use — Sunday roasts, weeknight pasta bakes, the steady output of someone who cooked for five people every day and baked with the children at weekends. Main oven: double dwell, two passes on everything, a targeted third pass on the roof. Secondary oven: double dwell, one pass. The grill: heavy. Soaked for the entire duration of the kitchen clean and still needed manual scrubbing. Total oven time: 55 minutes. The biggest single oven job in a while.

Induction hob — five zones, quartz worktop. Hob cleaned. Quartz wiped with specialist product. Sink and tap descaled. American fridge-freezer with water dispenser — descaled. Inside all the cupboards. Utility room: washing machine drum and seal, dryer filter, shelving wiped. Bi-fold door tracks: forest leaves, fine soil, and a conker. Tracks vacuumed, cloth pulled through. Floor — large-format porcelain tiles — mopped. Behind the range: pulled out, wall degreased. A cocktail umbrella and a pen lid. Kitchen total: 72 minutes.

Front reception room. A double-height bay window — 4-over-4 sashes, three sides, 48 panes. Each cleaned. An original fireplace — a marble surround with a cast-iron insert and decorative tiles. The marble was a pale cream with grey veining. Wiped with barely-damp cloth and pH-neutral product. No harsh chemicals on marble. The tiles wiped. The iron dry-cleaned. Hearth — slate — vacuumed and wiped. Picture rail dusted. Cornicing dusted with extension tools — the ceiling was about 3.2 metres. Original timber floorboards — lacquered — mopped with specialist product. 22 minutes.

Rear reception room. Carpeted, vacuumed. A casement window to the garden. A second fireplace — this one painted timber with a tiled insert, simpler than the front room. Wiped. 10 minutes.

Family bathroom. A white suite with a separate shower enclosure, a freestanding bath, pedestal basin, close-coupled toilet. Three years of hard water and a family of five. The shower enclosure glass had a thick limescale haze. Triple descaler application. The freestanding bath had a waterline ring and limescale at the base of the freestanding taps where water pooled. Double descaler, manual work on the tap bases. Toilet — heavy calcium. Proper soak. Grout in the shower: mould at the sealant line, anti-mould spray, came off. Floor — stone tiles — mopped with pH-neutral product. 34 minutes.

En-suite. Walk-in shower, wall-hung basin, wall-hung toilet. Less use than the family bathroom — the parents' bathroom. Light limescale. Single descaler pass. 14 minutes.

Ground-floor WC. Tap descaled, toilet soaked. 6 minutes.

Four bedrooms. Master: carpeted, vacuumed. Bay window — sash, 24 panes. Built-in wardrobes wiped inside. Brass door handles polished. 16 minutes. Second bedroom: carpeted, vacuumed, sash window — 12 panes. 10 minutes. Third bedroom: the 8-year-old's room. Carpet vacuumed. Window cleaned. A bookshelf built into the alcove beside the chimney breast — every shelf wiped, the books had been removed but the dust outlines of their spines remained on the shelf surface, each one a different height. Wiped clean. 10 minutes.

Fourth bedroom: the youngest's room. Carpet vacuumed. Window cleaned. The door had a small wooden plaque screwed to it that said the child's name in painted letters. Not our property — that's the tenant's. Left in place. The windowsill had a watercolour painting taped to the glass — a tree with green blobs for leaves and a brown stripe for a trunk. It looked like the chestnut tree in the front garden, which meant the child had painted what they could see from their bedroom window. The tape came off the glass cleanly. The painting was placed on the desk. 9 minutes.

Stairs: carpeted, vacuumed — four flights including the half-landing. 8 minutes.

Hallway: original encaustic tiles — a geometric pattern in black, terracotta, and cream, similar to the Minton-effect tiles in the South Croydon seed but these were genuine encaustic. Swept, mopped with pH-neutral stone product. The front door — the original timber door with stained-glass panels in the fanlight above. Door wiped. Glass cleaned carefully without product on the leading. Doorstep: chestnut husks swept, step wiped. 8 minutes.

Total time: 5.5 hours. Three people. A 4-bed Edwardian family house near Epping Forest with a range cooker that took 55 minutes, three bathrooms that took 54 minutes between them, 84 sash panes across the house, original encaustic tiles, marble and slate fireplaces, and a child's watercolour of the chestnut tree in the front garden. The biggest job in the collection so far.

Petty Son & Prestwich's inventory clerk arrived three days later. She had a tablet with a digital inventory, the check-in photos from 3 years earlier, and a printed floor plan. She'd done the check-in herself and remembered the property.

Hallway: encaustic tiles — she crouched and looked across the surface at floor level, checking for product residue. Clean, matte, even. Front door fanlight: she looked at the stained glass. Clean, leading intact.

Kitchen: range cooker — both ovens opened, torch in. Main oven roof: she looked at the triple-pass zone. Clean. Secondary oven: clean. Bi-fold door tracks: she ran a finger through one track. Clean. The conker was on the counter. She didn't comment.

Front reception: marble fireplace — she ran a finger along the top edge. No residue, no watermark. She checked the marble against her check-in photo. At check-in, there had been a faint ring on the mantel from a vase. Three years later, after cleaning, the ring was still there — it was in the marble, not on it. She compared. She'd noted it at check-in. Same ring, same position. Pre-existing.

Family bathroom: shower glass — she stood at an angle and looked at the lower section where the triple descaler had been. Clear. Freestanding bath tap bases: she crouched and looked. Clean. She checked the grout where the mould had been. Clean.

Youngest's room: she saw the watercolour painting on the desk. She looked at it for a moment. She'd seen a lot of things left behind in a lot of properties. A painting of the tree outside the bedroom window was not unusual but it was specific. She noted it as tenant property.

Book-dust outlines in the third bedroom: she opened the alcove and looked at the shelves. Clean.

Fifteen minutes. Everything passed on the cleaning. The marble vase ring was confirmed as pre-existing from the check-in report. The name plaque on the bedroom door was noted as tenant property for collection. The watercolour was noted separately.

Deposit returned in full within 12 days. The family moved to a 5-bed detached further up toward Woodford — more space, more forest, more conkers on the path in September. The watercolour painting went with them, and the chestnut tree stayed where it had been since before the house was built, dropping its seeds on the path for the next family to sweep.