End of Tenancy Cleaning in Tulse Hill

Palace Road climbs from Tulse Hill station toward the edge of Brockwell Park, and the gradient is steep enough that by the time you reach the houses near the top you can see the tops of the Brixton cranes over the rooftops behind you. The houses on both sides are Victorian terraces — three storeys, bay windows, the yellow London stock brick that darkens to grey over a century. Most of them have been split. We were doing the ground-floor garden flat of a mid-terrace about two-thirds of the way up.

Own entrance through a side passage. Two bedrooms, a reception room with a bay window, a kitchen at the rear, a bathroom, and a private garden accessed through the kitchen's back door. The tenants were a couple who'd been there 2 years — she taught at a primary school in Herne Hill, he worked in tech in Shoreditch and commuted from Tulse Hill station. £1,700 a month. Managed by Winkworth Herne Hill.

Parked on Palace Road. This section was unrestricted — no CPZ, no meters, free parking after the junction with Thurlow Park Road. Carried the kit in through the side passage.

The kitchen first. A rear room, about 8 sqm, fitted into what had been the back half of a larger room before the conversion wall went in. A freestanding gas cooker — a Beko, single oven, four burners. Two years of a couple who cooked together most evenings and baked on weekends. The oven was moderate — an even, steady grease layer from regular use. Not the heavy crust of a shift-worker family or the light film of a takeaway person, but the honest middle ground of people who cooked properly and didn't clean the oven. Single dwell got the sides and the bottom. The roof needed a second pass — darker around the fan housing. Hob cleaned, burner caps soaked.

A wall-mounted extractor fan that hummed without conviction. The tiles behind the hob had a film extending about 40cm above the splashback. Degreased. The ceiling above the hob was clean — the fan moved enough air to prevent the worst of it. Worktops — laminate, dark colour, forgiving. Sink descaled. Fridge-freezer cleaned. Inside all the cupboards. Under the sink: a recycling bag, washing-up liquid, and a small spider plant that had died some time ago. Removed. Floor — vinyl — mopped.

The back door to the garden. A timber door with a single glazed panel. The door track had dried mud, a few leaves, and the general debris of a garden that backed onto other gardens. Cleaned. The threshold wiped. Through the door you could see the garden — a small patio, a patch of grass, a fence, and beyond it the slope climbing toward Brockwell Park. The park wasn't visible from ground level but you could feel its presence — the air quality, the birdsong at 9am on a Tuesday, the particular quiet of being near 125 acres of green space in South London. Not our job to clean it. Nice to work next to it. Kitchen total: 34 minutes.

The reception room. A bay window facing the street. Sash windows — 4-over-4, but only the bay, so 48 panes. Each pane cleaned, glazing bars wiped. An original fireplace with a cast-iron insert and tiled surround — the tiles were a brownish red, slightly glazed, probably original to the house. Each tile wiped. Iron dry-cleaned. The timber mantel had been painted white at some point and the paint was in fair condition. Wiped. Hearth — slate — vacuumed and wiped. Picture rail around the room wiped. The floor was original timber boards under the tenants' rug. Rug moved, boards mopped barely-damp with specialist product, rug replaced. 18 minutes.

Bathroom. A white suite — bath with a shower over and a curtain, pedestal basin, toilet. The shower head had light limescale. Descaler, standard treatment. Bath waterline — a moderate ring. Taps — limescale at the bases. Toilet — calcium below the waterline, standard soak. Grout was mostly clean. One patch of mould at the sealant line where the bath met the wall. Anti-mould spray, scrubbed. It came off. Floor — vinyl — mopped. 22 minutes.

Two bedrooms. The front bedroom — under the bay window in the room above. Carpeted, vacuumed, a casement window — UPVC replacement, quick. Built-in wardrobe wiped inside. 10 minutes. The rear bedroom — the smaller one. Carpet vacuumed. Sash window — 2-over-2, 4 panes. A hook on the wall where a hanging plant had left a water-drip mark running about 8cm down the wall. Cleaned. The paint beneath was slightly discoloured. Documented as cosmetic. 8 minutes.

Hallway: vinyl floor mopped. Front door — timber, side-passage entrance — wiped. 4 minutes.

Total time: 3 hours. Two people. A 2-bed ground-floor garden flat in a Victorian conversion on a hill in SE24. The oven took 24 minutes. The bay window took 12 minutes. The fireplace took 6 minutes. The garden-door threshold took 3 minutes. A standard Tulse Hill conversion — nothing extraordinary, nothing complicated, just thorough.

Winkworth's negotiator arrived three days later. He covered the Herne Hill and Tulse Hill patch and walked up Palace Road from the station with the same gradient awareness that everyone develops after a few trips. He came in through the side passage.

Kitchen: oven opened, phone torch in. Roof checked where the second pass had been. Clean. Tiles above the hob: finger-tested. Clean. Garden-door threshold: he looked down at it. Clean. He didn't crouch or finger-test the threshold — he'd learned to trust the result at a glance on a conversion garden flat. That comes with experience.

Reception: fireplace tiles checked. Bay window: one pane spot-checked. Picture rail: finger-tested. Floorboards: he asked if they'd been mopped — he could tell from the slight sheen. They had.

Bathroom: bath sealant checked where the mould had been. Taps checked. Bedrooms: the hanging-plant drip mark documented. Wardrobe opened.

Ten minutes. Everything passed on the cleaning items. The drip mark noted as cosmetic. The dead spider plant was not mentioned.

Deposit returned in full via the DPS within 8 days. The couple moved to a 2-bed with a bigger garden on Rosendale Road — the Dulwich side of the tracks, slightly higher rent, slightly better catchment, but still close enough to walk to the Sunday market at Herne Hill and still close enough to feel the park from the garden. That's the Tulse Hill upgrade path. You don't leave the neighbourhood. You just move to the side where the gardens are longer and the school catchments are better.