End of Tenancy Cleaning in Southfields

Astonville Street is the eastern edge of the Grid and the houses on this side feel like they're trying to leave Southfields and join Earlsfield, which is about 100 metres away across Garratt Lane. The terraces are the standard Grid type — three storeys, bay windows, the shared front path between each pair of houses that always has a bike locked to something. We were doing the first floor of a mid-terrace.

Up the communal stairs. The staircase had the checkerboard tiles that half the Grid houses have in their hallways — black and white, slightly uneven, the kind that have been there so long they've settled into their own geography. Through the flat's own door into a 2-bed that had been converted properly about 15 years ago. Two bedrooms, a reception room at the front with the bay window, a kitchen at the rear, a bathroom, and a hallway. The reception room had the original floorboards — wide planks, lacquered, in good condition. The kitchen and bathroom had been fitted into what must have been a bedroom and a box room in the original layout. About 600 sqft. £2,100 a month.

The tenants were a couple — she worked in marketing in Soho, he taught at a secondary school in Wandsworth. Eighteen months. They'd cooked together most evenings and the flat showed the comfortable wear of two people who used every room for what it was designed for. Managed by Douglas & Gordon from their Earlsfield office.

Parked on Astonville Street via RingGo. Wandsworth CPZ. Carried the kit up.

Kitchen first. A rear room, about 7 sqm, modern refit. Integrated oven — a Bosch, single — behind a handleless unit. Eighteen months of a couple who cooked together regularly. The oven was moderate — the even grease of people who did pasta, stir-fry, and a roast on Sundays. Single dwell, one pass on everything. Roof slightly darker around the fan, didn't need a second pass. Hob — ceramic — cleaned. Quartz worktop wiped. Sink descaled. Inside all the cupboards. Floor — vinyl — mopped. Behind the fridge: pulled out, wall wiped. A bottle cap and a cocktail stick. Kitchen total: 22 minutes.

Reception room. The bay window — sash, 4-over-4, three sides, 48 panes. Each cleaned. The south-facing glass caught the afternoon light and needed the same second-pass attention as the west-facing windows in West Kensington and the south-facing sashes in Holborn. An original fireplace — a tiled surround in a brownish-red glaze with a simple cast-iron insert. Each tile wiped. Iron dry-cleaned. Timber mantel painted white — wiped. No hearth — the floorboards ran to the surround. The boards — lacquered — mopped with specialist product. Picture rail dusted. 22 minutes.

Bathroom. A modern refit — shower cubicle with a glass door, wall-hung basin, close-coupled toilet. Eighteen months of a couple. Moderate limescale on the shower glass. Single descaler, one pass on the lower section, a second pass on a stubborn strip at the hinge side where water pools after every shower. Taps — light crusts. Toilet — moderate calcium. Standard soak. Floor — vinyl — mopped. 18 minutes.

Two bedrooms. Front bedroom — the larger one, carpeted, vacuumed. Sash window — 4-over-4, 16 panes. Wardrobe — freestanding — wiped. Under the bed: vacuumed. A single tennis ball. It had rolled under there at some point and stayed. During Wimbledon fortnight the Grid fills with tennis energy and even people who don't follow tennis end up with tennis balls in their house because the kids playing on the street have spares and the spares end up everywhere. 12 minutes.

Rear bedroom — the smaller one. Carpeted, vacuumed. A casement window — UPVC replacement, quick. A desk — the tenant's, gone. The wall behind where the desk had been had two rawlplug holes at about 130cm where a shelf had been mounted. The shelf was gone, the rawlplugs were still in the wall. We noted them. Not our call. 8 minutes.

Hallway: carpeted, vacuumed. Front door wiped. 3 minutes.

Total time: 3 hours. Two people. A 600 sqft 2-bed first-floor conversion in a Grid house where the bay window had 48 panes, the fireplace had brownish-red tiles from the 1890s, the floorboards were original, the shower had a stubborn strip at the hinge side, and a tennis ball had been under the bed long enough to forget it was there. Southfields cleans like the rest of inner South London's Victorian stock — same era, same features, same hard water — but the Grid gives it a particular regularity. Every street is the same width. Every house is the same height. Every bay window has the same number of panes. The Grid is the Grid.

Douglas & Gordon's negotiator arrived two days later. She drove from the Earlsfield office — about 4 minutes if the traffic on Garratt Lane cooperated, which it sometimes does.

Reception: fireplace tiles — she finger-tested one. Clean. Floorboards — she looked across them from the hallway. Even sheen, no watermarks. Bay window: she checked a lower pane where the light hit. Clean. She didn't need to check all 48. One pane in the right light tells you whether the job has been done properly.

Kitchen: oven opened, phone torch in. Clean. Quartz: hand-tested. No residue. She opened the cupboard nearest the hob — the one most likely to have degreaser overspray on the inside of the door. Clean. That's a check that tells you the negotiator has seen overspray damage before.

Bathroom: shower glass — she opened the door and looked at the hinge side where water pools. Clean. That's the second check that tells you she knows where the problems hide. Toilet crouched.

Rear bedroom: the rawlplug holes. She photographed them, measured the distance between them — checking whether they were for a shelf bracket or something else. Noted. Between the landlord and the deposit.

The tennis ball was on the kitchen counter. She didn't comment.

Nine minutes. Everything passed on the cleaning. The rawlplug holes were noted separately. The tennis ball was not noted. Some things are too small to write down.

Deposit returned in full within 8 days. The couple moved to a 3-bed Grid house further south on Beaumont Road — staying in Southfields, gaining a bedroom, gaining a garden, keeping the District line and the village shops and the particular geometry of a neighbourhood where every street crosses every road at a right angle and every house faces the same direction and the tennis ball that rolled under the bed came from a game played on a street that looks exactly like every other street in the Grid.