End of tenancy cleaning right across Belleville

The summer-term move-out rush between the commons

Monster Cleaning does deposit-back end of tenancy cleaning in Belleville, SW11 6, from £207, with a 57-point checklist, a 48-hour re-clean guarantee and a 97% first-time pass rate with the agents between the commons. That is the short version.

Most of our Belleville checkouts land in a six-week window around the end of the summer term. Families here move on a school timetable, not a calendar one. A reception place at Belleville Primary on Webb’s Road, or a spot at Honeywell School round the corner, decides which street a household rents, and when that place comes through the family moves to be in catchment. Belleville Primary runs to roughly 900 children across two sites and is oversubscribed on first preference most years, so the pull is real. The result is a churn of family lets every July and August that the agents plan their diaries around.

Belleville is not a council ward you will find on a map. It is the name locals and agents give to the grid of streets off Belleville Road, the patch most people call “between the commons”, with Clapham Common to the east and Wandsworth Common to the west. Northcote Road runs up the middle of it. On a postcode it is almost always SW11 6, and on the council’s books it sits inside Northcote ward.

The phrase you will hear from every estate agent here is “nappy valley”. It is not marketing. The houses are family houses, bought and let to families, and that shapes the cleaning. A double-fronted terrace on Bolingbroke Grove that has held a family of five for four years comes back to the agent in a very different state from a one-bed buy-to-let near the station. There is more floor, more cornicing, more kitchen, and a garden the inventory will mention.

Northcote Road sets the tone for the whole patch. The market runs hardest on Fridays and Saturdays, with fruit and veg stalls, a fishmonger, flowers and street food along the road, and the indoor antiques market that has been there since 1986 with its thirty-odd dealers. Tenants pay a premium to live a short walk from it, and a premium street comes with a premium deposit. That is the connection the cleaning side of this never lets you forget.

This page is for tenants moving out of one of those homes who want the deposit back without an argument. It is the deposit-back end of the trade, and it is what we have done in SW11 6 since 2014.

We cover the whole catchment. Belleville Road, Chatto Road, Cromford Road and Salcott Road on one side; Honeywell Road, Broomwood Road, Wakehurst Road and Bramfield Road on the other; Bolingbroke Grove and Webb’s Road up to Northcote Road and St John’s Road; then the quieter stretches around Nightingale Lane, Dorothy Road, Grayshott Road and Muncaster Road. If you sit in SW11 6, or on the Wandsworth Common side in SW12 8, we clean at Belleville pricing.

What a Northcote-ward inventory clerk writes down

A checkout here is forensic. The clerks bring a torch, and they use it under radiators and up into the cornice returns. We have read enough of their reports back over the years to know the lines that recur, and most deposit disputes between the commons come down to the same dozen items.

The oven is first, every time. Clerks lift the lamp and check the roof plate above the top element, not just the door glass. The extractor hood filter gets its own line, and a clogged one is a near-automatic deduction. Fridge seals come next, because black mould in the rubber gasket is easy to photograph and hard to argue with.

Then come the period-house particulars. Limescale on old brass or chrome taps, because the water round here is hard and the fittings are old. Silicone seals around the bath and shower tray, where mould reads to a clerk as “tenant did not ventilate”. Grout between floor and wall tiles. Dust on the top face of cornicing, dado rails and picture rails, which is exactly where a torch finds it. Cast-iron fireplace surrounds and tiled hearths, even the decommissioned ones nobody has lit in a decade.

The floors get a hard look. Original pine boards and reclaimed-oak boards pick up polish marks, pet scratches and sticky residue down in the gaps, and a wet mop run over them by a generalist cleaner can streak the finish and earn you the deduction you were trying to avoid. Then there are the dull, predictable lines that still cost money: skirting behind where a sofa stood for four years, radiator tops and the floor directly under them, the inside of the alcove cupboards either side of the chimney breast, the dishwasher and washing-machine filters.

On the family houses the garden makes the report too. A patio with leaves, cigarette ends and barbecue grease is a common line on the Broomwood and Wakehurst houses, and the bin store gets checked. If you are in a flat carved out of a larger house, the communal hall counts, and the clerk looks at the skirting and the back of your own front door on the way in.

One pattern is worth naming, because it catches people out who have done their own clean and think they are finished. The deductions are rarely about the obvious surfaces. The kitchen worktop and the bathroom floor usually look fine, because tenants clean those. It is the hidden faces that score against you: the top of a door rather than the front of it, the underside of a toilet rim, the strip of skirting a wardrobe sat against for years, the gasket inside the fridge. A clerk knows precisely where those are, and so do we, which is the whole point of working to a fixed checklist rather than to whatever the eye happens to land on.

None of this is exotic. It is just thorough, and it is tighter now than it was a few years ago, for a reason that has nothing to do with cleaning.

A checkout here is forensic. The clerks bring a torch, and they use it under radiators and up into the cornice returns.

The licensing rules your Belleville landlord now lives under

Two things have changed the move-out dynamic here, and both push the cleaning standard up.

The first is national. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 is in force. Section 21 no-fault evictions are gone, periodic tenancies are the default, and a landlord can no longer end a tenancy simply because a fixed term has run out. That sounds like a tenant win, and it is, but it has a side effect on checkouts. Because a landlord cannot churn tenants on a date any more, the moment a tenant genuinely does leave matters more, and agents are told to document every deduction with dated photographs.

The second is local, and it is the Belleville-specific detail for 2026. On 1 April 2026 Wandsworth Council’s second selective licensing designation came into force, and Northcote ward is in it, alongside East Putney and West Putney. If you rent on Belleville Road, Chatto, Honeywell, Broomwood, Wakehurst or any Northcote-ward street, and the home is let to a single household or to two unrelated sharers, your landlord now needs a selective licence for the property. You can see the rules on Wandsworth Council’s second selective licensing designation came into force page.

The licence costs £885 per property and runs for five years, to March 2031. The council split the fee, with Part A at £529 and Part B at £356, and there is an early-bird discount on Part A until 1 October 2026. That first designation, the one live since July 2025, covers Furzedown, Tooting Bec, Tooting Broadway and South Balham, so Belleville landlords were not caught by selective licensing until this April.

There is also a borough-wide additional HMO licence, live since 1 July 2025, for any home let to three or more people from two or more households who share a kitchen or bathroom. Plenty of the larger between-the-commons houses are let that way to groups of sharers, so the landlord may be holding both kinds of paperwork.

Why does any of this land on your cleaning bill? Because a licensed landlord is a landlord on the council’s radar, with civil penalties of up to £30,000 a property hanging over a breach, and a landlord under that kind of scrutiny is far fussier about the condition they will sign a property back in. A checkout in Northcote in 2026 is a tighter affair than the same checkout was in 2022. Our job is to leave nothing on the report for the clerk to write down.

It cuts the other way for you too, and it is worth knowing. A landlord who has not registered for a licence they need is exposed, because a tenant can apply for a rent repayment order and claw back up to twelve months’ rent. None of that is cleaning advice, but it is the backdrop to why your checkout is run by the book on this side of the borough, and why a clean that genuinely matches the check-in report is the easiest way through it.

Cleaning a double-fronted family terrace, room by room

The housing here is mostly one of three kinds. Grand double-fronted and end-of-terrace family houses on Bolingbroke Grove, Honeywell, Wakehurst and Nightingale Lane, with original cornicing, cast-iron fireplaces, pine or reclaimed-oak floors and a garden. Flats carved out of larger houses on Belleville Road, Chatto, Cromford and Salcott, which share a communal hall. And a thinner stock of mansion flats and newer units nearer Clapham Junction and St John’s Hill. Period stock means period cleaning, and a family house means a lot of it.

Every clean follows the 57-point checklist. Here is what that covers, room by room.

Kitchen

• Oven interior degreased to inventory standard, including racks, side rails, door glass, the roof element and the base, whether the kitchen has a single oven, a double, a range or an AGA
• Hob, splashback and extractor hood, with the filter degreased or replaced and the canopy wiped
• Fridge-freezer emptied, defrosted, seals cleaned, shelves and drawers washed and dried
• Dishwasher filter cleaned and door seal degreased; washing machine drawer, seal and drum cleaned
• Microwave inside and out, turntable and vents
• Cupboards and drawers hoovered inside, wiped outside, handles done
• Worktops descaled and buffed, with marble, composite and timber each treated to their own finish
• Sink, taps and drainer descaled and polished, plughole and waste cleared
• Tiled splashbacks cleared of grease, walls behind appliances wiped, floor washed and grout scrubbed

Bathrooms

• Bath, shower tray and screen descaled, sealant checked and cleaned, glass left streak-free
• Toilet bowl, rim, cistern, seat, base and the floor behind the pan
• Basin, taps, pedestal and waste descaled
• Wall tiles and grout scrubbed, mould spots treated, silicone wiped
• Extractor grille removed and washed, vent vacuumed
• Mirror, glass shelves and light fittings polished, bulbs checked
• Heated towel rail and radiator dusted front and back
• Floor washed, grout scrubbed, skirting dusted

Bedrooms and living rooms

• Carpets hoovered right back, under beds and inside wardrobes included
• Hard floors swept and finished with the right solution, never water-soaked, whether they are original pine, reclaimed oak, engineered board or herringbone parquet
• Skirting, architraves and picture rails wiped top and face, including the deep cornicing these houses run to
• Fireplaces and cast-iron grates dusted, ash cleared, tiled hearths cleaned
• Sash windows cleaned inside, with glass polished, frames wiped and catches checked
• Light fittings, ceiling roses and pendants dusted, including any multi-arm fitting in the front room
• Radiators and painted radiator covers; built-in and alcove cupboards hoovered and wiped inside and out
• Sockets, switches, thermostats and smoke alarms dusted; doors, frames and any period brass handles done
• Behind and under furniture hoovered, with beds moved and sofas lifted

Halls, stairs and outside

• Entrance hall and, in a conversion flat, the communal stairs and landing up to your own front door
• Staircase treads, risers, balustrade and newel post
• Internal glass, side-lights and French doors; loft hatch, meter cupboard and under-stair store
• Garden patio or balcony swept and tidied, bin store cleaned
• Keys counted and a dated, signed checklist left on the kitchen worktop

The period particulars are where a generalist comes unstuck. Limescale on old brass taps, soot in a working or bricked-up fireplace, a waxed floor that streaks if you touch it with the wrong product, and sisal or coir runners that shed fibres the moment you look at them. We brief the teams that work this patch on all of it, because the agents here check all of it.

Scale is the other thing. A flat near the station might be a three-hour job for two cleaners. A double-fronted house on Bolingbroke Grove or Honeywell is a different animal, with two reception rooms, a basement kitchen, four or five bedrooms over three floors, two or three bathrooms and a garden, and that is a full day for a team of four. We do not try to rush a house like that into a half-day slot, because the corners you skip to make the time are exactly the corners the clerk goes looking for. The fixed quote is built around the real hours the property needs.

Fixed prices for Belleville and the Northcote grid

Belleville sits a little above our standard London tariff. That is not a postcode tax, it is the scale of the houses, the density of original features and the level of scrutiny at the checkout, all of which add hours. Every price below is a fixed quote, not an estimate that creeps on the day.

If you would rather pay by the hour for an odd job rather than a full move-out, that is £30 per cleaner. Most Belleville work is not priced that way, because a deposit-back clean is sold on the bedroom and bathroom count, the oven type and any carpet add-on, but the hourly rate is there if you want a half-day on one room.

Add professional carpet cleaning at £36 a bedroom, £43 a living room or £115 for a whole two-bed if the inventory asks for a steam-clean. Add upholstery cleaning on a furnished let, and add external window cleaning for the upper windows you cannot reach from inside. A deep clean is the right spec if you are moving in rather than out; a move-out is always the full end of tenancy job.

That is not a postcode tax, it is the scale of the houses, the density of original features and the level of scrutiny at the checkout.

Where deposits actually go, and how to get yours back

Your deposit is not held by the landlord. By law it sits in one of three government-approved schemes, and which one matters if you end up in a dispute.

Deposit protection scheme

One of three approved schemes that hold or insure your deposit: the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, the DPS and mydeposits. Your landlord must register the deposit within 30 days and tell you which scheme holds it.

Check-in inventory

The dated report, usually with photographs, that records the condition of the property when you moved in. The checkout report is compared against it, and the gap between the two is where deductions come from.

Selective licence

The licence a Northcote-ward landlord now needs to let a home to a single household or two sharers, under Wandsworth’s second designation, live from 1 April 2026.

End of tenancy clean

A clean built to pass that comparison, not a routine tidy. It returns the property to the standard recorded at check-in, which is why it is more thorough than either a regular clean or a one-off deep clean.

If the agent does flag something, the scheme runs a free alternative dispute resolution service, and the adjudicator decides on the paperwork rather than on who shouts loudest. That is why we leave evidence. Every Belleville job ends with a dated, signed 57-point checklist on the kitchen worktop and photographs of the areas clerks check first, so you have something to put in front of the TDS or whichever scheme holds your money.

If your agent flags the clean specifically, you do not need any of that, because the 48-hour re-clean guarantee covers it. We come back free, within 48 hours, and put right whatever was raised before the deposit is returned. Across the firm that approach is how we have helped tenants recover £1.2m in deposits that would otherwise have gone on cleaning deductions, and it is why we are on the books of 300+ letting agents who would rather send us than risk the dispute.

For independent advice that is nothing to do with us, Shelter’s tenancy deposit guide is the clearest free resource, Gov.uk’s deposit protection page explains the three schemes and how to raise a claim, and Citizens Advice on getting your deposit back walks through the dispute process step by step.

Booking a clean around your checkout slot

Booking is quick. Most people call.

1. Ring 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] with the property size and your checkout date.
2. We give you a fixed quote, usually within half an hour, priced on bedrooms, bathrooms, oven type and any carpet add-on. Family houses with an AGA or four-plus bathrooms we quote one by one.
3. We clean on your date. A two-bed flat is usually a two-cleaner team; a between-the-commons family house is three or four cleaners, starting at 8am or 9am to be finished before a late-afternoon inventory appointment.
4. We leave the signed, dated 57-point checklist on the worktop and photograph the areas that matter.
5. If the agent flags anything within 48 hours, we come back and fix it at no charge.

One practical note on the timing. The checkout slot drives everything in this area, because the clerks book back to back through July and August, and a family house can take a full day. Give us the checkout time when you call and we will start early enough to hand back a finished property with hours to spare. The streets themselves are easy enough to work, though the controlled parking around Northcote Road is the usual headache, and we plan the vans around it.

Other jobs we do, and the streets next door

A move-out often needs more than the clean. These are the add-ons that come up most on the family houses here.

• Deep oven cleaning for a single, double, range or AGA
• Carpet cleaning at £36 a bedroom, £43 a living room, £115 for a whole two-bed
• Upholstery cleaning for sofas, armchairs and mattresses on a furnished let
• Hard floor cleaning for pine, oak, engineered board and tile
• Window cleaning, inside and the external panes
• Outdoor cleaning for the patio, decking and garden paths the inventory mentions
• Removals if you want the move and the clean from one firm

If your address is just off our patch we still cover it. We work the rest of the borough and the streets next door, including Clapham Junction, Battersea, Balham, Clapham and Putney, all sitting under our wider Wandsworth (borough hub) coverage. If you came here from the borough page, the full Wandsworth end of tenancy coverage lists every area we clean.

Frequently asked questions

How much does end of tenancy cleaning cost in Belleville?

Studios from £207, one-beds from £227, two-beds from £263, three-beds from £359, four-bed family terraces from £445 and five-plus-bed houses from £525. Carpet and oven cleans are add-ons. Every price is a fixed quote.

Do you guarantee the deposit back?

We guarantee the clean, not the landlord. If the agent flags anything on inspection we come back free within 48 hours and fix it. Our first-time pass rate with agents between the commons runs at 97%, and the scheme that holds your deposit, not the agent, decides any dispute.

Can you clean a Belleville house with an AGA?

Yes. We use AGA-safe products only, no caustic degreaser on the enamelled cast-iron, and we allow an extra 90 minutes on top of the standard slot. A lot of the larger houses on this patch have one.

What about original pine floorboards?

We never wet-mop period pine. We sweep, hoover and then finish with a damp microfibre and the wax or hard-wax-oil that matches your floor. If the boards have been sealed with polyurethane we use a neutral-pH hardwood cleaner instead.

My flat is a conversion on Belleville Road. Do you clean the communal hall?

We clean the communal section up to your own front door on a normal end of tenancy, so the stairs, landing, skirting and the mat area that the conversion inventory lists. A full block communal clean is a separate quote.

How long does a Belleville end of tenancy clean take?

A studio is three to four hours with one cleaner; a one-bed four to six with two; a two-bed seven to eight; a three-bed flat eight to ten with three cleaners; a four or five-bed family house is a full day with a four-cleaner team.

Do I need to be out of the property when you clean?

Yes. We need it empty of furniture, belongings and people for an unfurnished let. The one exception is a furnished tenancy, where we work around the landlord’s furniture and the price accounts for it.

Can you do a same-day or next-day clean?

Usually, yes. Our Wandsworth teams are out daily and a weekday next-day slot is almost always there; a Saturday next-day depends on the season. Ring 0333 555 2076 before 6pm the day before.

What about carpets and rugs?

If the inventory asks for a steam-clean, or the carpets are visibly soiled, add our carpet service at £36 a bedroom, £43 a living room or £115 for a whole two-bed. Sisal, coir and jute are dry-cleaned only and priced on site.

How do I pay?

Card online or over the phone, bank transfer or cash on the day. We invoice after the job, not before, and there is no deposit to pay on a residential end of tenancy clean.

Are you insured?

Yes. We carry £5m public liability and £10m employers’ liability, and we will send the certificates straight to your letting or managing agent before the job if they ask.

Does selective licensing in Northcote affect my clean?

Not directly, but it does indirectly. Licensed landlords on Belleville Road and the rest of Northcote ward are under active council scrutiny under the scheme that started on 1 April 2026, so they are markedly fussier about the condition they accept a property back in. Expect a tighter checkout than in past years.

What if I am disputing a deposit deduction?

Our signed 57-point checklist, the photos and the time-stamped job report are built to be used as evidence with the TDS, DPS or mydeposits. We have never lost a cleanliness dispute where our documentation went in full.

Do you clean the outside of sash windows?

Yes, at £35–£70 for a domestic property depending on the number of windows and how reachable they are. The sash windows here often have external ledges the clerk checks, so it is worth adding if you have been in the property a few years.

Can you clean the garden patio and bin store?

Yes. Our outdoor cleaning service covers a patio jet-wash, decking and a bin-store clean. The Broomwood and Wakehurst houses often add it because the inventory specifies a tidy outside space.

Do you know the Belleville letting agents?

Yes. We have worked again and again with Rampton Baseley, Dexters, KFH, Hamptons, Douglas & Gordon, Winkworth, Marsh & Parsons and Savills, and our checklist maps onto every one of their inventory formats.

Where do I get independent advice on deposit disputes?

Shelter’s tenancy deposit guide and Gov.uk’s deposit protection page are the best free starting points, and Citizens Advice on getting your deposit back covers the dispute steps in plain terms.

Ready when you are

Call 0333 555 2076, email [email protected] or book online. We will quote within half an hour, fix a date and have your Belleville property deposit-ready on checkout day. Since 2014, on the books of 300+ letting agents, £1.2m in deposits recovered, a 48-hour re-clean guarantee and a 97% first-time pass rate between the commons.