Most of our London carpet jobs are in converted warehouses and ex-industrial flats around Clerkenwell and Farringdon, the sort with exposed brick, a steel beam across the ceiling and one enormous rug doing all the work in an open-plan living room. We clean those carpets and rugs with hot-water extraction, and we quote a fixed price before we start.
Last updated April 2026. Prices on this page are the full rates we actually charge, not a teaser figure with conditions buried underneath.
We clean carpets in London with hot-water extraction, a single bedroom from £36 and a whole two-bed flat at £115.
That is the short answer. Everything below it is the detail: what each room costs, how the method works, what London does to a carpet, and how a visit runs.
Monster Cleaning Ltd has been doing this since 2014. Companies House number 9919639, registered office at 255 Upper Richmond Road West, SW14 8QS. We run a satisfaction guarantee on every carpet we touch, and our Trustpilot sits at 3.1 out of 5 across 128 reviews, which is a real spread of opinion rather than a wall of fives we paid for.
What carpet cleaning costs in London
Here are the numbers, with nothing hidden. A bedroom is £36. A living room is £43. A through-lounge, the knocked-through front-to-back reception you find in a lot of period houses, is £61 because it is really two rooms with the wall taken out. A flight of stairs is £41, and stairs are slower work than they look because every tread and riser gets done by hand.
Rugs are priced by size. A rug up to two square metres is £35. A larger rug over two square metres is £51. If your whole two-bed flat is carpeted, book it as one job at £115 and it comes out cheaper than paying for each room on its own.
No call-out fee. No surprises.
The price you are quoted is the price you pay, assuming the rooms match what you told us on the phone. The only thing that moves a quote is scale: if a “bedroom” turns out to be a double knock-through with two rugs and a walk-in, we will say so before we start, not slide it onto the bill at the end.
How hot-water extraction actually works
People call it steam cleaning. It is not really steam. We spray a cleaning solution into the pile so it has a few minutes to loosen the grime, then a machine forces hot water through the fibres and immediately sucks almost all of it back out, carrying the dirt with it. The carpet comes up damp, not drenched, and that is the whole trick.
The carpet comes up damp, not drenched, and that is the whole trick.
Why this method and not a dry powder or a quick bonnet buff? Because hot-water extraction is the one most carpet makers ask for to keep a warranty valid, and it reaches the dirt sitting at the base of the pile rather than just freshening the top. A bonnet pad makes a carpet look better for a fortnight. Extraction gets the grit out.
The water matters more than people think. London sits on chalk, so what comes out of the tap is very hard, around 293 parts per million of calcium carbonate. A careless cleaner who soaks a carpet and under-rinses can leave a faint mineral stiffness in a heavy synthetic pile once it dries. Our extraction pass pulls the bulk of that water straight back out, which is exactly what stops the problem before it starts.
Drying is usually three to six hours in a warm flat. A ground-floor conversion with the windows painted shut and no through-draught can take longer, sometimes overnight, and we will be honest about that on the day rather than quote you a cheerful number that ignores your actual flat.
London flats, and what they do to a carpet
Carpets in this part of London lead a hard life. A lot of EC1 is old warehouse and factory space turned into flats, the former print works and watch-making buildings especially, and the floors that came with them were never designed for a household. The Punch Magazine print works went to apartments back in 1995 and there are dozens more like it. Big open rooms, one big rug, and grit walked straight in off the street.
And there is a lot of street. Farringdon is the only station in London sitting on both the north-south Thameslink line and the east-west Elizabeth line, with the entrance on Cowcross Street, so the pavements around it are some of the busiest in the city. Exmouth Market spills lunch traffic across the road every weekday. All of that fine black grit ends up ground into the nearest hallway carpet.
Clerkenwell Road is the worst offender we see. Flats fronting it get a steady drift of road dust through every open window, and the hall and stair carpets there wear out years before the bedrooms do. If you live on a main road, clean the high-traffic carpet twice as often as the rest.
That is the pattern. Bedrooms stay fine for a year. Halls and stairs do not.
None of this is a reason to panic about your carpet. It is simply why a yearly extraction clean is worth booking in a busy central flat, and why we ask where the room sits in the building before we quote, because a third-floor bedroom and a ground-floor hallway off Clerkenwell Road are two completely different jobs even when the carpet is the same.
Stains we shift, and the ones we cannot
Honesty saves everyone a row later. Coffee, tea, mud, most food and general dinginess come up well with extraction. We get those out almost every time.
Red wine, pet accidents and dye transfer from a cheap rug bleeding into a pale carpet are the difficult ones. Whether they lift depends on how long they have been sitting, what the carpet is made of, and whether anyone has already scrubbed at them with the wrong thing. A stain someone attacked with bleach a month ago is usually permanent, and no amount of hot water brings the colour back.
We will tell you on the doorstep whether a stain is coming out, before you have paid a penny.
Wool and silk rugs need a gentler hand than a tough synthetic, lower heat and a milder solution, so always tell us the material when you book. Get that wrong and you can shrink a wool rug or set the dye running, which is the kind of mistake we are paid to avoid.
If a patch we treated looks no better once it has dried, that is what the re-clean guarantee is for. Call us within seven days and we come back and redo that area for free. We would far rather fix it than have you leave us a sharp review, and that approach is most of why repeat customers and their neighbours now keep us busy.
How booking and a typical visit go
Booking is a phone call or an email, not a form with twenty boxes. Ring 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] with your postcode, the rooms you want done and a rough idea of how much furniture is in them. We give you a fixed price there and then.
On the day, we turn up in the window we agreed and have a quick look at the carpets first, so we can flag anything tricky before the machine comes out. We move the light furniture, the sofas and chairs and side tables. The heavy stuff with a wardrobe or a glass front stays put and we clean up to it.
You do not have to be in. A lot of our Barbican and Farringdon clients leave a key with the porter or the concierge, and we let ourselves in, text when we start and text again when we lock up. If we could not shift something, you will know from that message rather than discover it later.
Payment is once the job is done, by card or bank transfer. No deposit up front.
If you are moving out and need the carpets done as part of a full hand-back clean, that is a different service and it is worth reading our page on end of tenancy cleaning in London, where carpets are folded into the package. For a one-off carpet job in an occupied home, this page and a phone call are all you need. You can also see the wider carpet cleaning service across our other areas, or book us for oven cleaning and regular domestic cleaning while we are there, which plenty of people do to save a second visit.
Frequently asked questions
How much does carpet cleaning cost in London?
A single bedroom is £36 and a living room £43. A through-lounge runs to £61. We charge a whole carpeted two-bed flat at £115, which works out cheaper than booking the rooms one by one.
What method do you use to clean the carpets?
Hot-water extraction. We work a cleaning solution into the pile, then a machine pushes hot water through the fibres and pulls almost all of it back out with the dirt. It is the method most carpet makers ask for to keep a warranty valid.
How long will my carpet take to dry afterwards?
Usually three to six hours in a heated flat. Damp London weather and a ground-floor Clerkenwell conversion with little airflow can push that toward overnight. We leave the pile damp, not soaked, and we will open windows and set the heating if you are out.
Do you move the furniture?
We shift the light stuff ourselves, sofas and chairs and side tables. Wardrobes, beds and anything with a glass front we leave where it is, and clean up to the edge. Tell us in advance if a room is packed and we will plan the slot around it.
Can you get old stains out of a carpet?
Often, not always. Coffee, mud and most food come up well. Red wine, pet accidents and dye transfer are a coin toss depending on how long they have sat and what the carpet is made of. We will tell you honestly on the doorstep rather than promise a miracle.
Do you clean rugs as well as fitted carpet?
Yes. A rug up to two square metres is £35 and a larger rug over two square metres is £51. We treat wool and silk rugs more gently than a synthetic one, so mention the material when you book.
Is the cleaning safe for pets and children?
The solutions we use are low-odour and we rinse the pile thoroughly with the extraction pass, so very little residue is left behind. Keep cats and toddlers off the carpet until it is dry to the touch, mostly so nobody slips, and you are fine after that.
Do I need to be home while you work?
No. Leave a key with us, or with the building porter as a lot of our central clients do, and we will let ourselves in. You get a text when we start and another when the door is locked, flagging anything that would not come out.
How often should carpets be cleaned in a London flat?
Once a year for a normal household, every six months if you have a dog or the flat sits right on a busy road like Clerkenwell Road where grit gets walked in. Hallways and stairs always wear faster than bedrooms.
What is your re-clean guarantee?
If a patch we treated looks no better once it has dried, ring us within seven days and we come back and redo that area at no charge. We would rather sort it than argue, and it is why most of our work now comes from people we have already cleaned for.
Will hard London water leave marks on the carpet?
It can leave a faint stiffness in a heavy synthetic pile if a cleaner over-wets and under-rinses, because London water is very hard at around 293 parts per million of calcium carbonate. Our extraction pass lifts the bulk of the water back out, which keeps that to a minimum.
How do I book and pay?
Call 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] with your postcode, the rooms and roughly how much furniture is in them. We give a fixed price on the spot, confirm a slot, and you pay by card or bank transfer once the job is done.