End of Tenancy Cleaning in Thamesmead

Third-floor flat on the Parkview estate — one of the 1970s walkway-access blocks overlooking the green corridor toward Southmere Lake. Two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a balcony. Right-to-buy — the owner bought it in the 1990s and now lets it through Robinson Jackson. The tenant had been there 2 years at £1,200/month. Standard private-let checkout.

Parked on the estate road directly below the block. Free. Thamesmead parking is never an issue.

Kit up to the third floor via the walkway. No lift in this block — concrete stairs, fire doors at each landing. The communal areas weren't our responsibility, but we wiped the tenant's front door both sides.

Kitchen first. Compact — about 8ft by 6ft, everything along two walls. A Hotpoint freestanding cooker, electric (not gas — the ex-council flats here are all-electric). Pulled it forward. The wall behind had 2 years of grease — less than a gas cooker produces, but still a film on the skirting. Degreased. Both cavities sprayed, 20-minute dwell. One pass. The hob was electric ceramic — wiped with a glass-specific product. No extractor hood — just a window. The window reveal was concrete: grey, slightly porous, with a dark condensation stain along the bottom edge that had been there long before this tenant moved in. We cleaned the surface, wiped the condensation, and photographed the embedded stain. That's the building, not the tenant.

The cupboards had the usual. Fridge cleaned. The floor was vinyl — degreased, moderate colour change. The kitchen window itself was uPVC with a trickle vent clogged with dust — opened and cleaned.

Living room. No period features — no cornicing, no fireplace, no original floorboards. Carpet vacuumed. Two storage heaters along the back wall: vents vacuumed with the crevice tool, top surfaces wiped, the wall behind checked for heat discolouration (none). The balcony door — a sliding panel — track vacuumed and wiped. The balcony itself: swept, the concrete railings wiped.

Bathroom. No window. An extractor fan on a timer — running but wheezy, probably years old. Mould in the ceiling corners and along the grouting above the bath. Anti-mould spray, 10-minute dwell. The ceiling mould cleaned up. The grout mould lightened but didn't disappear — it was embedded in the porous grout from years of condensation in a windowless concrete room. Photographed. Bath waterline at ~265 ppm — moderate, one pass with the descaler cloth. Taps done. Toilet done. Floor mopped. The medicine cabinet above the basin had surface rust on the hinges — wiped and noted as a maintenance item.

Two bedrooms. Both had carpet, uPVC windows, and storage heaters. Vacuumed, heaters cleaned, windows and reveals wiped. The master had a built-in wardrobe with sliding doors — runners cleaned, interior wiped. The second bedroom had a small area of wall where adhesive tape had pulled the paint — photographed as damage, not a cleaning issue.

Three hours. Straightforward. No period features to slow us down, no specialist products for waxed floors or Minton tiles. Just a clean flat in a concrete building where the main job is making sure the mould and the condensation staining are properly documented so the tenant doesn't pay for the building's limitations.

Robinson Jackson came the next afternoon. Their Thamesmead negotiator — he manages a lot of right-to-buy lets on this estate — walked through quickly. Kitchen: oven checked, window-reveal stain acknowledged as pre-existing. Bathroom: mould treated, grout stain photographed and accepted as building issue. Storage heaters: clean. Wardrobe runners: working. Tape-pulled paint: noted as tenant damage (small deduction). Passed.

Deposit processed in 10 days. One small deduction for the tape mark — fair. Everything else returned.

That's Thamesmead. No Rangemaster, no freestanding bath, no carved mantel. A concrete flat where the building creates problems the tenant didn't cause and shouldn't pay for. Our job is to clean what's cleanable and document what isn't — so the deposit comes back for the right reasons. Our guide on deposit dispute evidence explains how that documentation works.