Catford South end of tenancy cleaning

A Corbett street has no pub, and the clerk has no mercy

End of tenancy cleaning in Catford South is most of what we do in this corner of SE6, week in, week out. Monster Cleaning has worked the ward since 2014, covering the Corbett Estate terraces, the 1930s semis off Daneby Road, the ex-council blocks toward Bromley Road and the Barratt flats at Catford Green. We turn tenancies round fast, hand over a 57-point agent-approved checklist, and back it with a 48-hour re-clean guarantee. Call 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected].

Last updated April 2026. Postcode reach: SE6 1, SE6 2 and SE6 4, with onward coverage into Lewisham, Hither Green, Bellingham and Bromley North. Catford South is a ward of the London Borough of Lewisham.

Here is the short version. We clean two-bed Corbett flats and three-bed Corbett houses across Catford South to inventory standard from £243, deposit-back, with a 48-hour guarantee and a 97% first-time pass rate. That is the answer most tenants ring for. The rest of this page is the detail behind it.

Catford South is one of the most heavily rented wards in Lewisham, and the housing is the reason the check-outs are hard. The ward runs south from the South Circular toward Bellingham, bounded roughly by Bromley Road on one side and the railway on the other. The bulk of it is the Corbett Estate: solid late-Victorian and Edwardian terraces, wider than the usual south London terrace, built by Archibald Cameron Corbett on land he bought from North Park Farm. He sold them on 99-year leases at cost and took his profit on the ground rent. More than a century on, those houses still carry the original tiled paths, the deep coving and the cast-iron fireplaces that make agent photos look good and make a clerk’s torch worth fearing.

The covenant is the part people forget. Corbett was a Presbyterian and a temperance man, so the deeds banned the sale of alcohol, and to this day there is no pub inside the original estate boundary. The streets carry Scottish names because he was a Scot, which is why you rent on Torridon Road or Glenfarg Road rather than anything that sounds like the rest of London. None of that changes the clean. It does tell you the kind of stock you are handing back: period, detailed, and judged hard.

The money on the line is real. The ONS Lewisham housing dashboard puts average private rent in the borough at around £1,816 a month in spring 2026, up roughly 2.8% on the year. SE6 is one of the cheaper postcodes in the borough, which is exactly why the Corbett three-beds and the Bromley Road conversions fill up with sharers and young families, and why deposits routinely sit between £1,800 and £2,400 on a family house.

Get the approach wrong and you lose £200 to £400 off that deposit before the carpets are even discussed. The clerk does not argue about taste. They photograph the grease, the limescale and the dust, write the figure, and move on.

Why the licence on your flat raises the check-out bar

Almost every privately rented home in Catford South now needs a licence. The ward sits in Designation 1 of Lewisham’s borough-wide selective licensing scheme, which went live on 1 July 2024 and runs to 30 June 2029. Designation 1 covers Brockley, Catford South, Lewisham Central, New Cross, Perry Vale and Rushey Green. A single-household let or two unrelated sharers needs a selective licence at £640, paid in two parts. A larger house in multiple occupation, five or more people across two or more households, needs a mandatory HMO licence instead.

Why does that matter at the end of a tenancy? Because a licensed property is a property the council can inspect for standards, and managing agents know it. Kitchen ventilation, damp, drainage and bathroom hygiene are exactly the things a clerk now writes up in detail, because the landlord has to be seen keeping the place to standard. A Corbett kitchen extension with an extractor caked in eighteen months of grease is the single most common deduction trigger we see in this ward.

Damp is the other one, and the period houses are prone to it. A north-facing kitchen in an old terrace, a lean-to extension that sweats overnight, a bathroom with a fan that has not turned in months: all of that leaves mould around frames and along silicone, and on a licensed let the clerk records it carefully. We cannot fix a ventilation fault, but we can take the property back to a clean baseline, which is what the inventory is measured against. The difference between a mould stain that wipes off and one that has grown into the sealant is the difference between a pass and a re-clean.

Renters’ Rights Act 2025

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 takes effect from 1 May 2026. It ends fixed-term assured shorthold tenancies, replaces them with periodic ones, and scraps Section 21 no-fault evictions. For a tenant at check-out the practical change is evidence. Deductions have to be backed up properly, and the deposit schemes keep applying the fair wear and tear test. Cleaning sits outside that test, because dirt is not wear. Leave a flat dirtier than the check-in report and you pay. There is a plain-English summary on Shelter if you want to read the detail.

Your deposit itself is held in one of three government-backed schemes. The clerk’s report is what the adjudicator reads if it goes to a dispute.

Selective licence

A council permission a landlord must hold to let most homes in Catford South, valid 2024 to 2029, costing £640. It brings the property under council oversight on condition, which raises the standard a clerk reports against.

Check-in inventory

The report drawn up at the start of your tenancy, usually after a professional clean, with photographs. Your check-out is scored against it. If the kitchen was spotless on day one, it has to be spotless when you leave.

Fair wear and tear

The legal allowance for normal ageing, a faded carpet or a scuffed wall. It does not cover dirt, grease or limescale, which is why cleaning is the deduction landlords win most often.

Deposit scheme

Your money sits with TDS, the DPS or mydeposits. If you dispute a cleaning charge, the scheme’s adjudicator decides on the evidence, which means the photographs and the inventory wording.

The three things you rent in SE6, and how each one fails

You rent one of three things in Catford South, and each one fails a check-out in its own way. Knowing which you are in tells you where the clerk will spend their time.

First, the Corbett terrace. This is the heart of the ward: Sandhurst Road, Torridon Road, Ardgowan Road, Hafton Road, Bargery Road, Glenfarg Road, Castillon Road and the streets running off Brownhill Road. Sash windows with runners that hold dust, picture rails and ceiling roses that gather cobwebs nobody sees from standing height, tiled vestibule floors, alcove shelving beside the chimney breast, and a bay window that needs the glass and the reveals done at every angle. Many still have the original cast-iron fireplace. A Corbett house gives a clerk more to inspect than a modern flat ever will.

Ardgowan Road carries a heavier history than most. The school there was bombed in January 1943, with a memorial garden at what is now Sandhurst Primary, and locals still know the story. It is not cleaning trivia, but it tells you these are settled, lived-in streets where landlords and clerks take the stock seriously.

Second, the 1930s semis and the ex-council stock. Around Daneby Road, Brockman Rise and the blocks toward Bromley Road and Southend Lane you get pebbledash semis and post-war council and former-council homes. Squarer rooms, fewer period traps, but rented hard and often. The deductions here cluster in the kitchen and bathroom rather than the cornicing, and the gardens get overlooked.

Third, Catford Green. Barratt London built 588 flats across thirteen blocks on the old greyhound stadium site at Adenmore Road, the tallest running to eight storeys, launched in 2014. These are modern one, two and three-bed flats with flat surfaces and no period detail, so the clean is quicker. The inventory is no softer for it. New fittings show every smear, the appliances are integrated and inspected closely, and the managing agents run tight check-outs.

The split matters because tenants assume a new flat is the easy one and an old house is the hard one. It is not that simple. A Catford Green flat has fewer surfaces, but the block managers hold the check-in photos against a high finish, and they notice an unbuffed shower screen or a marked oven door fast. A Corbett house has more to do, but a clerk also makes more allowance for a hundred-year-old floor. Either way, you are cleaning to a written report, not to your own eye.

What a Corbett move-out clean actually covers

Our 57-point checklist is the document we hand your agent or inventory clerk when we finish. It has not changed much since 2014, only tightened year on year against what clerks actually flag. Below is the working summary, room by room.

Kitchen

• Oven cleaned to zero carbon, whether single, double, range or AGA
• Extractor hood degreased, mesh filters soaked or swapped
• Hob, splashback and surround back to a factory finish
• Fridge and freezer defrosted, shelves washed, door seals wiped
• Washing machine drum, drawer, door seal and filter cleaned
• Cupboards emptied, washed inside and out, handles done
• Worktops descaled around the taps, sealant checked for mould
• Sink scale removed, taps polished, plughole cleared
• Tiled grout brightened, the silicone bead checked along its length
• Skirting, kickboards and the gaps behind appliances cleaned
• Windows, sills, frames and trickle vents done inside

Bathrooms

• Hard-water scale off taps, shower heads, screens and tiles
• Grout brightened, silicone checked for mould, replaced on request
• Toilet pan, cistern, seat hinges and the floor behind the pan
• Bath, basin and shower tray polished, drains cleared
• Extractor fan cover off, cleaned, refitted
• Mirrors, cabinets and chrome left streak-free
• Window sills, frames and reveals cleaned

Bedrooms and living areas

• Carpets vacuumed right under the beds and behind the doors
• Hard floors mopped or polished to suit the finish
• Skirting, picture rails and dado rails dusted
• Ceiling roses and coving cleared of cobwebs
• Sash runners, glazing bars and window locks cleaned
• Original fireplaces dusted, hearths swept
• Alcove shelving done top and underside
• Built-in wardrobes emptied and wiped out
• Switches, sockets and the thermostat wiped
• Radiators front, back and along the top
• Doors, frames, handles and finger plates
• Bay window reveals and the inside glass

Throughout

• Internal doors, hinges and architraves
• Stairs vacuumed, banisters polished, spindles dusted
• Tiled vestibule floor cleaned, the Corbett original
• Loft hatch surround dusted, accessible storage cleared
• Communal hallway up to your front door in conversion flats
• Bins washed, recycling crates rinsed, rubbish taken away

If the carpets need more than a vacuum, our carpet cleaning service is an add-on at £36 a bedroom, hot-water extraction, drying in four to six hours. The same goes for upholstery, an oven-only deep clean and window cleaning where the inside glass needs it.

The jobs that quietly cost Catford South tenants their deposit

Most deductions in Catford South are not dramatic. They are small, photographable jobs that a rushed clean skips and a clerk does not. These are the ones we get called back to fix when someone else cleaned, and they are the reason our re-clean rate stays low.

The kitchen extractor is the worst offender. On a Corbett kitchen extension the hood sits over the cooker collecting grease for a whole tenancy, and a wipe of the front does nothing for the filter or the housing. The oven is next, especially the inner glass and the runners. After that it is bathroom silicone with a grey line of mould along it, scale on a shower screen, and the floor behind the toilet pan that nobody bends down to reach.

Then the period detail. Picture rails. Dust sits on the top edge for months and shows the moment a torch goes up. Window runners that nobody has touched in a year. Coving in the corners. The tiled path and vestibule, which a clerk treats as a feature and inspects as one. In an ex-council flat or a 1930s semi the traps move: the gardens, the inside of the kitchen cupboards, the gap behind the washing machine where the floor never gets a mop.

The pattern is always the same. A tenant cleans what they can see standing up and at arm’s length, and the clerk inspects what is above eye level, below knee level and behind the appliances. That gap is where the money goes.

The clerk does not argue about taste. They photograph the grease, the limescale and the dust, write the figure, and move on.

One Sandhurst Road job stays with me. A family of four had been in a three-bed Corbett for four years, managed through Acorn on Rushey Green, and the clerk had pencilled in £480 to bring it back to inventory standard. We went in on the Wednesday, finished by Thursday lunchtime, did the lot, including the picture rails and the tiled hall. The clerk passed it on the first walk-through and the full £2,300 came back eight days later. That is the gap between a DIY clean and a clerk-ready one.

It is not always the period stock either. A one-bed at Catford Green came to us last autumn after a single tenant had moved out in a hurry, leaving an oven that had clearly never been touched in the tenancy. The block’s managing agent had flagged it before the clerk even arrived. We stripped the oven to bare metal, sorted the integrated extractor and buffed the shower screen, and the deduction never got written. A clean oven is the cheapest insurance a tenant has.

Prices, the guarantee and how the booking runs

Our SE6 prices follow property size, not the postcode. Catford South is standard London tariff, no period-charm surcharge for a Corbett address.

Where a job is odd-shaped or partial, we quote by the hour at £30 per cleaner. There is no VAT surprise and nothing added unless you ask for carpets or upholstery on top. Full pricing is on the site.

The guarantee is the bit that matters. If your agent or the inventory clerk flags any cleaning issue within 48 hours of the report, we come back and re-clean the flagged items at no charge. We track every Catford South job on a shared system, so the same team usually returns and knows the flat. That is how the 97% first-time pass rate holds, and it is part of why we are on the books of 300+ letting agents and have helped tenants recover £1.2m in deposits that would otherwise have gone on cleaning deductions.

Booking runs in five steps.

1. Call 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] with your Catford South postcode and the property size.
2. We send a fixed quote, usually inside twenty minutes in office hours.
3. Pick a slot. We run seven days, with same-day and next-day on the Corbett three-beds where we can.
4. The team arrives with all the kit and chemicals. You leave nothing behind.
5. You or your agent walks through, and we hand over the 57-point checklist. Anything flagged, we re-clean inside 48 hours, free.

For the difference between this and other jobs: an end of tenancy clean is inventory-spec and deposit-back, on a fixed price from £156. A deep clean is a restoration job for a flat you are staying in, charged at £30 an hour per cleaner with no inventory framework. A regular domestic clean is maintenance. The work on this page is the first one.

The agents on Rushey Green and what their clerks check

The big agents on Rushey Green and Catford Broadway share roughly one check-out method between them. Acorn at 128 Rushey Green, Robinson Jackson, Hunters, Reeds Rains, Mann at 121 Rushey Green and Stanford Estates on Catford Broadway all work to a similar standard, as do the independents like Home Makers on Bromley Road. Here is what their clerk works through on a Catford South check-out.

1. Oven interior, racks, the inner glass and the grill
2. Extractor hood grease and the filter condition
3. Behind and under the fridge, freezer and washing machine
4. Bathroom grout, the silicone bead and tile fields for mould
5. Scale on the shower glass, taps and shower heads
6. Toilet pan rim, hinges, base seal and the floor behind
7. Carpets for staining, pet hair and traffic lanes
8. Skirting in every room, including the dust on the top edge
9. Sash runners and glazing-bar dust on the period houses
10. Picture rail, dado and coving dust
11. The original tiled vestibule and its grout
12. Fireplace hearths and mantels
13. Internal door tops, frames and finger plates
14. Bay window reveals and the inside glass
15. Garden, patio and any rear decking
16. Wheelie bins, the Lewisham brown, green and black ones
17. Loft hatch dust and the communal stairs in conversions

Most tenants here never meet the clerk. Keys go to the agent on Rushey Green or sit in a lockbox for us, and we collect from Acorn, Robinson Jackson, Hunters, Mann, Reeds Rains, Stanford Estates and most of the independents without you needing to be there.

Related services and the wards around Catford South

Move-outs are most of our work in SE6, but they are not all of it. We run the full set of cleaning services across the postcode.

• End of tenancy cleaning
• Deep cleaning
• After-builders cleaning
• Carpet cleaning
• Oven cleaning
• Upholstery cleaning
• Removals

And we cover the wards around Catford South. If your move crosses a boundary, we still take it.

• Rushey Green, the other half of central Catford
• Bellingham, straight down Bromley Road
• Hither Green, the north edge of the Corbett streets
• Lewisham Central
• Grove Park
• Whitefoot, where some streets straddle the ward line
• The parent hub: Lewisham end of tenancy hub

The Corbett streets do not stop neatly at the ward line. The estate spills north into Hither Green and the licensing rules shift one designation south into Bellingham, so a fair few of our jobs sit right on a boundary. It makes no difference to the price or the checklist. We clean the flat, not the map.

Catford South move-out questions, answered straight

How much does end of tenancy cleaning cost in Catford South?

Studios start at 156 pounds, one-bed flats at 207, two-beds at 243, three-bed Corbett houses at 339 and four-beds at 425. The figure depends on condition and any add-ons such as carpets or oven racks. We quote it fixed before you book.

Do you cover the Corbett Estate specifically?

Yes. Sandhurst Road, Torridon Road, Ardgowan Road, Hafton Road, Bargery Road, Glenfarg Road, Castillon Road and the streets off Brownhill Road are core territory for us. We have cleaned Corbett check-outs since 2014 and know where the period detail catches people out.

What is included in the price?

The full 57-point inventory-spec clean, with all equipment, chemicals and consumables. There is no VAT surprise and no add-on fee unless you ask for carpets or upholstery on top of the move-out clean.

Do you guarantee the deposit?

We guarantee the clean, not your landlord. If your agent or inventory clerk flags any cleaning issue within 48 hours of the check-out report, we return and re-clean it at no charge. That is why our first-time pass rate runs at 97%.

How long does a three-bed Corbett house take?

Usually six to nine hours with a team of three or four cleaners. The period detail, the window runners, the picture rails and the tiled hall add time over a modern flat. We aim to finish inside one working day.

Can you do same-day or next-day cleans?

Yes, when a slot is free. Catford South is on our regular daily route. Call before noon for next-day, and before 9am if you need same-day, though same-day depends on what is already booked.

Do I need to be present?

No. Most clients leave keys with their letting agent on Rushey Green or in a lockbox for us. We collect from Acorn, Robinson Jackson, Hunters, Mann, Reeds Rains, Stanford Estates and most of the independents around Catford.

Does Lewisham’s selective licensing affect my check-out?

Often, yes. Catford South sits in Designation 1 of Lewisham’s borough-wide scheme, live from 2024 to 2029, with the licence fee at 640 pounds. Licensed homes face council oversight, so clerks tend to report condition in more detail. Our 57-point checklist is the document agents trust.

Do you clean the oven properly?

Yes, every time, to zero carbon. As a standalone job a single oven is 77 pounds, a double 110 and a 90cm range 114. It is also built into the end-of-tenancy quote at no extra line, since a clean oven is where most clerks start.

Will you do the carpets at the same time?

Yes. Carpet shampoo is 36 pounds a bedroom, 43 a living room, or 115 for the whole carpeted area of a typical two-bed. We use hot-water extraction, and drying takes roughly four to six hours, so plan the handover around that.

What about the new-build flats at Catford Green?

We clean the Barratt flats on Adenmore Road regularly. Modern fittings make the job a little quicker than a Corbett house, but the inventory is just as tight. New surfaces show every smear and the integrated appliances get inspected closely.

Do you handle communal hallways in conversion flats?

We clean from your front door inwards as standard. The shared stairwell up to your door we can do on request, usually free for ground-floor and first-floor flats, and charged at the hourly rate above that.

What payment methods do you take?

Bank transfer, debit card or credit card, paid on completion. We do not ask for a deposit on jobs under 400 pounds, so you settle once the work is done and walked through.

Are you insured?

Yes. We carry 2 million pounds of public liability and full employers’ liability, and the certificate is available on request. Most Rushey Green agents have it on file already.

What happens if the inventory clerk fails the clean?

Call us within 48 hours of the check-out report and we return to address the flagged items at no charge. Because every Catford South job is logged on a shared system, the same team usually comes back and already knows the flat.

Do you work with letting agents directly?

Yes. We are on the books of 300+ letting agents across Greater London, including most of the main Rushey Green names. We can invoice the agent or the tenant, whichever suits, and over the years that work has helped recover 1.2m pounds in deposits.

Moving out of a Catford South rental, a Corbett terrace, a 1930s semi, a Bromley Road conversion or a Catford Green flat, call Monster Cleaning on 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected]. Fixed quote within the hour, a 48-hour guarantee and a 97% first-time pass rate. Get the deposit back without the argument.