End of Tenancy Cleaning in Brandwood End

What an emptied interwar semi reveals once the furniture goes

An empty interwar semi exposes what a furnished one conceals. Carpet that has been under a wardrobe since the nineties is a different colour from the rest of the room. The floor and skirting behind a freestanding cooker and washing machine have never once been cleaned. Marks show along the old picture rail line and around every switch, and the bay window boards carry years of condensation staining nobody had looked at. On a tenancy the oven still leads whatever a clerk writes down. On a sale it is more often the kitchen floor and the bathroom sealant, because those are what a buyer registers at the door and at the top of the stairs.

• Tenancies that end at their own times, not in a seasonal wave, so a slot within the week is usually possible
• Private landlords with one or two houses, with few agents or portfolios involved
• Vacant possession cleans after a sale, where there is no inventory but the expectation is higher
• Empty rooms exposing furniture shadows, condensation staining on bay boards and the gaps behind freestanding appliances
• Gardens and driveways, which a tenancy sometimes covers and an incoming buyer certainly notices

Working to the inventory on a let and the clerk list on a sale

Where a check-in inventory exists we work down it, and where there is none, which is always the case on a sale, we use the clerk’s standard list because it is the most complete one available. The kitchen takes longest: oven cavity, racks and door glass, hob, hood filter, cupboards inside and out, and the floor and skirting where the appliances stood. Bathrooms come back to the sealant. Then the empty rooms, which move quickly with nothing in them, and the hall and stairs last so nothing is walked back through.

• Cleaned to the check-in inventory where there is one, and to the clerk’s list where the property has simply been sold
• The gaps behind freestanding cookers and washing machines done once the appliances are out, which is the only moment they can be
• Bay window boards and reveals included, since condensation staining is what shows up in an empty room
• Each room photographed as it is finished and sent to you the same day

More detail on the equipment and the order of work: our end of tenancy cleaning method.

Sold as often as let

Geographically it is scattered: one house here, another three streets away, mostly on the interior roads with a little more towards the Alcester Road South. There is no cluster and no season, which works in your favour, and two or three days’ notice is normally workable. What does bunch is completion dates, which pile up at the end of a month.

Size, condition and the oven: pricing an empty Brandwood End semi

Size and condition set the price, and an empty property costs less than the same one full, because nothing has to be worked around or photographed as unreachable. The oven is usually the biggest variable, and a neglected one can add two or three hours by itself. Next come the bathrooms: how many, and how far mould has travelled into the sealant. Then whether carpets are being extracted, which on a sale is usually worth it since the floor is the last thing a buyer walks across. A landlord with one house is quoted on exactly the same basis as anybody else.

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Timing the clean around the removal van or the check-out

Once per tenancy, or once per sale. Timing is where it goes wrong. On a sale, book the day after the removal van, not the morning of completion, because a clean fits badly around people still carrying boxes down the stairs. On a let, a few days before the check-out leaves room to put right anything the clean turns up, which is usually failed sealant or a door that has never been washed.