If you have ended a tenancy in a 17th-century timber-framed cottage on Lower Road in East Farleigh, you know the original blown-glass panes in the leaded casement are where the inventory clerk parks her camera.
Monster Cleaning has been doing end of tenancy work across East Farleigh and the wider ME15 0 patch since 2014, from the timber-framed cottages above the medieval Five-arched East Farleigh Bridge, the small terrace of Victorian railway cottages on Lower Road by the station, the 1930s detached and semi-detached stock on Tile Lodge Road, the modern executive new-build on the village edges towards Coxheath and the Tovil border, and the older lane-side stock running out to Forge Lane and Forstal Road.
We cover the whole village core, the bridge end, the Forstal hamlet and the Maidstone fringe in full. Phone 0333 555 2076 or email office@monstercleaning.com. Three-bed detached from £359, full agent-approved.
Last updated April 2026. We cover ME15 0 across East Farleigh village, the bridge end down to the Cock Inn, the Forstal hamlet, the railway cottages by the Medway Valley Line station, and the lanes running out towards Coxheath and West Farleigh, with same-week turnaround on most postcodes. The full Kent end of tenancy hub lists every Maidstone, Medway and Kent town on the book, including Coxheath end of tenancy two miles south on the B2163.
Why East Farleigh deposits get deducted
East Farleigh is not a cheap-rent village. Average private rent across Maidstone borough sat at £1,282 a month in March 2026, up 4.1% on the year, with detached homes in the borough averaging £1,774 and three-bed houses at £1,442 (ONS Maidstone housing prices tool, March 2026). The mean residence value across the borough was £362,000 in February 2026, a 2.2% rise on the year.
Inside East Farleigh itself the postcode-level numbers run higher than the borough mean: the bridge-end cottages on Lower Road and Forge Lane, particularly anything that retains original timber framing or the medieval-era stonework of the Forstal, change hands at £520,000 to £750,000, while the Tile Lodge Road 1930s detached stock sits at £420,000 to £560,000 and the modern executive new-build on the village edges runs higher still.
When the rent on a three-bed timber-framed cottage by the bridge is closer to £1,650 than the borough average, the deposit on the line is regularly four to five thousand pounds.
The housing stock here splits four ways and the cleaning job changes accordingly. The first and oldest band is the 17th-century timber-framed cottages clustered around the bridge end of Lower Road, the Forge Lane corner and the slope down to the Cock Inn at the foot of the medieval Five-arched East Farleigh Bridge.
These cottages carry low ceilings with exposed oak beams, lath-and-plaster walls, original blown-glass panes in leaded casements where they survive, flagstone or quarry-tile vestibules, and a working open hearth or cast-iron range in at least one downstairs room. The second band is the small terrace of Victorian railway cottages parallel to the Medway Valley Line just west of the station – red-brick, slate-roof, two-up-two-down, with original tile-floor sculleries.
The third band is the 1930s detached and semi-detached stock on Tile Lodge Road – pebble-dash, leaded-light front bays, original parquet under later carpet in some, the Crittall steel windows surviving in a handful. The fourth band is the modern executive new-build and the 1990s-2000s infill on the village edges towards Coxheath, Tovil and West Farleigh. Each archetype hides a different inventory failure pattern.
Then there is the water. South East Water supplies the ME15 patch from the chalk aquifers under the North Downs and the greensand ridge, and the public hardness map puts East Farleigh in the very-hard band, around 290 to 300 parts per million calcium carbonate (South East Water hardness data). Mineral scale on shower screens, kettle elements, toilet rims and chrome taps comes back faster than tenants expect.
Inventory clerks rotating through Wards of Kent in Loose, Page & Wells at Hamilton House on Heath Road in Coxheath, Pages Property in central Maidstone, Hopwood House for the rural lettings book and Strutt & Parker out of Sevenoaks all check the chrome line specifically because the calcium ridge is the most photographable hard-water line item on these houses.
Renters’ Rights Act 2025 – what changed on 1 May 2026
Section 21 no-fault evictions were abolished one week ago. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 27 October 2025 and the headline reforms commenced on 1 May 2026: rolling periodic tenancies replace fixed-term assured shorthold tenancies, Section 21 is gone, and any Section 21 notice served on or before 28 April 2026 has to be acted on with a possession claim by 1 August 2026 or it is invalid.
Landlords also have until 31 May 2026 to send all sitting tenants the government information sheet on the new regime. From a tenant’s point of view this means the deposit-return route is now the cleanest way out of a tenancy, and from a landlord’s point of view the inventory has more weight than ever, because possession routes have narrowed and the deposit dispute is the main remaining lever.
What this means in East Farleigh, in plain prose: clerks are walking inventories more thoroughly than they were six months ago.
The bar moved.
Maidstone Borough Council licensing in 2026
Maidstone Borough Council operates the national mandatory HMO licensing scheme covering any property with five or more occupants forming two or more households. There is no selective licensing scheme in force across the borough, and the council has not made an Article 4 Direction covering East Farleigh – the Article 4 motion brought before the council in 2025 was focused on the ME16 8 postcode area in central Maidstone, not the rural villages south of the town.
Maidstone has instead introduced a Supplementary Planning Document on HMOs through the Local Plan, which means small HMOs of three to six occupants in East Farleigh retain permitted development rights under Use Class C4 and do not need planning permission to convert (Shelter private renting guidance).
Practical effect for an end of tenancy job: if your move-out is from a licensed five-share HMO in East Farleigh, the licence-holder has standing to deduct for shared-area condition that would not get picked up on a single-occupancy let. Stairwells, communal kitchens, shared bathrooms and bin stores get walked separately. We price HMO common parts at standard room rates; you are not paying double.
What is particular about cleaning a 17th-century cottage by the bridge
Three things, in the order they cost cleaners time. First, the original blown-glass panes in the leaded casement windows. The bridge-end cottages on Lower Road and Forge Lane retain original-glass panes wherever earlier repairs did not break them, and original blown glass has the slight ripple and faint waviness that give away the date.
It is fragile. We hand-clean with a damp microfibre and a mild detergent solution, never an acid step, never a spray on the lead came, with one hand cradling the back of each casement to absorb the pressure of the wipe. Second, the lath-and-plaster wall behind a freestanding wardrobe in the front bedroom.
Lath-and-plaster pre-dates plasterboard by two centuries and breathes differently; it picks up fine surface dust along the horizontal lath lines, and where a heavy wardrobe has stood for years, the wardrobe back leaves a shadow line on the wall and the skirting under it. We lift the wardrobe out, soft-brush and microfibre the wall (no spray), wipe the skirting, and replace the wardrobe.
Third, the flagstone or quarry-tile vestibule. Original Kentish ragstone is porous, takes a wet mop badly, and has years of trodden-in mud embedded in the grout. We hand-scrub the grout with a stiff brush, lift the residue with a microfibre, and dry the stone with a fresh cloth so it does not darken in patches.
Coverage – streets and zones
We work the whole ME15 0 patch out to the Forstal, the West Farleigh border on the river and the Tovil edge. The streets and zones we book most often:
- Lower Road – the riverside spine running parallel to the Medway, the bridge-end cottages and the small Victorian railway-cottage terrace by the station
- Forge Lane and the small lane corners feeding it – the older 17th- and 18th-century timber-framed cottages above the bridge end
- The Forstal – the small hamlet east of the village core, mixed period stock and a handful of larger detached
- Tile Lodge Road and the closes feeding off it – the 1930s detached and semi-detached belt with leaded-light front bays
- Forstal Road – the slow run east towards the Tovil border, mixed Edwardian and 1930s stock
- The Holy Trinity Church frontage and the village-hall stretch – the older cottages clustered around the medieval church
- The modern executive new-build on the village edges towards Coxheath, with the integrated kitchen-appliance and silicone-bead failure modes
- The 1990s and 2000s family infill scattered around the village core
- The Cock Inn end of Lower Road – the pub frontage and the cottages immediately around it
- The Medway Valley Line station approach – the small group of railway cottages above the platform
If your address sits a few streets outside this list, ring the office. We almost certainly cover it.
What’s included in our East Farleigh end of tenancy clean
End of tenancy cleaning
from £176
For a studio, fixed by property size, agreed before we start.
Get your price0333 555 2076 · 8am to 7pm
Kitchen
- Oven deep clean – racks soaked separately, cavity by hand, inner door glass where the design allows (most agents check this)
- Hob, extractor hood baffle filter, splashback – all degreased
- Inside, outside, top, behind and underneath every cupboard and drawer
- Fridge and freezer fully defrosted, washed inside and out, seals scrubbed, plinth pulled where possible on integrated units
- Dishwasher filter pulled, salt reservoir checked, body wiped, integrated-appliance silicone seal worked through
- Washing machine drawer and door seal – the rubber gasket where South East Water leaves grey scale
- Sink, taps and waste descaled with a proper scale-paste soak (this is the hard-water step the chalk-aquifer supply needs)
- Tile grout brushed, splashback polished, silicone bead behind the hob worked with a soft-bristle brush on the new-builds
- Skirtings, cornices, light fittings, switches and sockets wiped
- Inside of all windows, including original blown-glass leaded casement panes on the bridge-end cottages and the leaded-light bay panels on the Tile Lodge Road 1930s detached
- Bin washed inside and out, food cupboards lined if requested
- Floor mopped last, after dust settles, finished dry. Engineered timber on the new-builds gets a barely-damp finish, no flooding. Flagstone and quarry-tile in the older cottages gets hand-scrubbed grout and a dry-cloth lift, never a flood mop.
Bathrooms
- Bath, shower tray, screen and tiles – paste descale on shower head and screen runner, rinsed twice
- WC bowl, rim, hinge, base, behind
- Sink, taps, plug, overflow – chromework polished separately after descale
- Mirror, cabinet, shaver socket, extractor grille
- Tile grout scrubbed where shower water hits
- Towel rail and radiator behind it
- Floor mopped, edges done by hand. Under-vanity flooring on the new-builds dried thoroughly to lift hairdryer condensate.
Bedrooms and living areas
- Wardrobes inside and out, drawer runners, rails wiped
- Lath-and-plaster wall behind a freestanding wardrobe lifted out and soft-brushed, skirting wiped, wardrobe replaced – the East Farleigh-specific line item on the bridge-end cottages
- Skirtings, picture rails on the older village-core stock, dado where present
- Original blown-glass leaded casement panes hand-cleaned one by one with a microfibre, hand cradling the back of each casement
- Cast-iron range and inglenook open hearth in the older Lower Road and Forge Lane cottages dusted with a soft brush, soot lifted carefully, not sprayed
- Light fittings, ceiling rose where original
- Switches, sockets, thermostat, doorbell button
- Internal doors both sides, hinges, handles, tops
- Carpet vacuumed in two directions; spot-treat marks (full carpet shampoo is an add-on)
- Hard floors mopped, edges hand-wiped, engineered timber on the new-builds buffed dry
- Flagstone and quarry-tile floors hand-scrubbed at the grout, lifted with microfibre, dried with a fresh cloth so the stone does not patch
- Curtains shaken; nets washed if requested
- Mirrors, picture frames, dust-magnet ledges
- Behind beds, sofas, freestanding furniture
- Cast-iron radiator backs on the older Lower Road frontage stock – hand-wiped, not sprayed
- Wardrobe and drawer interiors – empty, wiped, lined where requested
Throughout
- Original blown-glass leaded casements on the 17th-century bridge-end cottages – the East Farleigh line item
- All internal doors, frames, architraves
- Stairs, banister, spindles, under-stair cupboard – the older cottages have steep narrow staircases that need careful detail work
- Hallway and stairwell skirtings
- Loft hatch and accessible loft ladder where present
- Inside-glass on all windows, frames wiped, locks dusted
- Airing cupboard around the immersion cylinder on the suburban Tile Lodge Road stock – shelves emptied, wiped, board dusted underneath
- Final walk-through with a torch in low light to catch what daylight hides
What it costs in East Farleigh
| Property | EOT price | Carpet add-on | Oven add-on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | £176 | £29 per bedroom | £31 single |
| 1-bed (Lower Road railway cottage) | £227 | £65 (bedroom + living room) | £31 single |
| 2-bed (Tile Lodge Road semi or village flat) | £263 | £94 whole-flat | £62 double |
| 3-bed (timber-framed cottage / 1930s detached) | £359 | £29 per bedroom | £62 double |
| 4-bed (executive new-build / larger period) | £445 | £29 per bedroom | £62 range 90cm |
Pricing is fixed-price not hourly, with the 57-point agent-approved checklist applied and the 48-hour re-clean guarantee included. Hourly bespoke work where a full EOT is overkill runs at £30 per cleaner, two cleaners working in tandem with full kit. For comparison, the National Living Wage rose to £12.21 an hour in April 2025 and is moving to £12.71 from April 2026 (gov.uk minimum wage rates).
What your agent will actually check
The inventory clerks rotating through East Farleigh follow a fairly predictable walk on these property types. The order they tend to take and the line items they tend to flag:
- Front-elevation windows from the path, then from inside under a torch – on the bridge-end cottages this is the original blown-glass casement; on the Tile Lodge Road detached it is the leaded-light bay
- Flagstone or quarry-tile vestibule and the grout lines either side of the front door
- Front reception – cast-iron range or open hearth condition, picture-rail dust, skirting under heavy furniture, lath-and-plaster wall behind freestanding wardrobes
- Kitchen – oven door internal pane, hob trim, extractor filter, fridge and freezer interior, integrated-appliance gap on the new-builds, sink chrome scale
- Bathroom – shower-screen runner scale, chrome mixer-tap base, toilet hinge, extractor grille, under-vanity floor
- Stairs – steep narrow staircases on the older cottages need spindle dust and tread-edge detail; the Tile Lodge Road stairs need carpet edge to the riser
- Bedrooms – wardrobes empty inside and out, drawer runners pulled, behind freestanding furniture, original window-cill paint surface on the period stock
- Back kitchen and back-door area – flagstone grout, threshold, boot-room or back-porch where present
- Loft hatch and any visible loft-ladder mechanism
- Final torch walk in the failing light – the older cottages with low ceilings and small leaded windows lose daylight earlier
End of tenancy vs deep clean vs regular
| Service | When you need it | What you get | Price guide |
|---|---|---|---|
| End of tenancy | Moving out, deposit on the line | 57-point agent-approved checklist, 48-hour re-clean guarantee, all add-ons priced separately, agent-facing report on request | From £227 (1-bed) |
| Deep clean | Once-a-year reset, post-builders, post-illness, before parents visit | Top-to-bottom, similar coverage, no agent guarantee, no inventory framing | From £206 (two cleaners, three hours minimum, kit included) |
| Regular weekly/fortnightly | Ongoing maintenance | Surface clean, kitchen and bathroom hit, hoover and mop floors, rotation tasks across visits | From £23/hour |
If you are unsure which one fits, phone us. We will talk you through it without pushing the higher-priced one.
How booking works
Booking takes three steps
- Your postcode and the property. The form gives the price.
- A date that suits you. Seven days a week.
- We confirm it with you by phone or WhatsApp.
0333 555 2076 · 8am to 7pm
- Phone 0333 555 2076 or email office@monstercleaning.com. Tell us the postcode, the bedroom count, and your move-out date.
- We confirm a fixed quote on the call. Carpet add-on, oven type, any access quirks (parking by the Cock Inn at the bridge end of Lower Road, the narrow lane down to the bridge itself, key handover at the Wards of Kent Loose office or the Hopwood House rural-let book) get talked through then.
- We email a written confirmation with the start time and the team lead’s name.
- The team arrives, usually two to three cleaners depending on size. They work to the 57-point checklist. Photos taken on completion if you want them for the deposit file.
- Inventory clerk attends within 48 hours. If they flag anything that is on our checklist, we come back free. If they flag something outside the checklist (a pre-existing chip in an original-glass pane, a curtain that has yellowed with age), that is not a clean issue, that is an inventory dispute, but we will back you up with our photos.
Related services and neighbouring areas
If you are booking the end of tenancy clean, you may also want one or more of these add-ons or sister services. We send the same teams across the same patch:
- Standalone oven cleaning – if the rest of the property is fine and only the oven let you down
- Carpet shampoo and stain treatment – the most common deposit-deduction line item across rural Kent
- Upholstery cleaning – sofa and armchair fabric, particularly worth doing on landlord-supplied furniture
- Window cleaning – external glazing on the original blown-glass casement fronts and the leaded-light Tile Lodge Road bays
- Hard floor restoration – the flagstone vestibules in the bridge-end cottages, the original parquet under the carpet in some of the older Lower Road cottages
- Removals – same-day-as-the-clean coordination
- After-builders cleaning – if the landlord ran works between tenancies
Neighbouring towns and villages we cover for end of tenancy:
- Coxheath end of tenancy – the village two miles south on the B2163, the 1980s detached cul-de-sac belt
- Maidstone end of tenancy – the county town three miles north up the A229
- West Malling end of tenancy – the market town to the north-west, mixed Georgian and modern stock
- Paddock Wood end of tenancy – the railway town to the south on the Tonbridge line
- The full Kent end of tenancy hub with every Maidstone, Medway and Kent town we cover across the county
We work with 300+ letting agents across our Kent, London and Surrey books, and to date we have helped recover over £1.2m in deposits across the same patch.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does end of tenancy cleaning cost in East Farleigh?
From £176 for a studio, £227 for a one-bed flat or Lower Road railway cottage, £263 for a two-bed flat or Tile Lodge Road semi, £359 for a three-bed timber-framed cottage or 1930s detached, and £445 for a four-bed new-build or larger period. Carpet and double-oven add-ons priced separately. Fixed price, not hourly.
How long does the clean take?
A two-bed Tile Lodge Road semi takes us six to seven hours with two cleaners. A three-bed 17th-century timber-framed cottage on Lower Road or Forge Lane runs eight to ten with three cleaners – the original-glass casements, lath-and-plaster walls and flagstone floors need hand-work, not a fast pass. A 1930s detached on Tile Lodge Road is seven to nine. A four-bed new-build on the village edge is a full day.
Do you guarantee my deposit back?
We cannot guarantee the deposit because the inventory has many lines we do not touch (paint, wear and tear, the landlord’s furniture). What we guarantee is the cleaning side: if the inventory clerk flags any cleaning issue within 48 hours of our visit, we come back at no charge and put it right.
Are you insured?
Yes. Public liability cover is in place. We are Monster Cleaning Ltd, trading since 2014. Insurance certificate available on request.
Do I need to be there for the clean?
No. Most of our East Farleigh clients drop a key with the letting agent, often the Wards of Kent office at Loose or the Hopwood House rural-let book, or use a key safe on the front porch. The Page & Wells reception at Hamilton House on Heath Road in Coxheath is also on the route in. We send a written check-out report by email when we leave.
Do you bring all the cleaning products?
Yes. Everything from the proper hard-water descaler we use on East Farleigh chrome through to the soft brushes and microfibres we use on the original blown-glass casement panes and on the cast-iron range and inglenook surrounds in the older Lower Road and Forge Lane cottages. You do not need to leave anything behind.
What if my landlord uses a specific inventory company?
Tell us the firm when you book. We have worked with most of the inventory clerks who rotate through Wards of Kent, Page & Wells, Pages Property, Hopwood House and Strutt & Parker, and we know which ones lean strict on which categories. We will brief the team accordingly.
Can you clean a property while it is still partly furnished?
Better if it is empty, but we will work around stored furniture if it is confined to one room. We cannot shampoo carpets under furniture, and the inventory clerk will see the difference. On the older bridge-end cottages we particularly want freestanding wardrobes moved out of the bedrooms because the lath-and-plaster wall behind them is one of the photographable line items.
Do you cover the Forstal, West Farleigh and Tovil fringes?
Yes. The whole ME15 0 patch is on our regular round, including the Forstal hamlet east of the village core, the West Farleigh river border, and the Tovil edge running north to the Loose Valley. Rural lane access and key-safe handovers are routine for us.
Do you handle HMO common parts?
We do. HMO common parts (stairs, hallway, shared kitchen, shared bathroom) get priced as standard rooms. Maidstone Borough Council operates only the national mandatory HMO licensing scheme for five-plus-occupant houses, with no selective licensing in force across the borough and no Article 4 Direction covering East Farleigh, so the inventory standards are the same as a regular let.
What about hard-water mineral scale on chrome shower fittings?
South East Water across ME15 runs at around 290 to 300 parts per million, very-hard band. Chrome shower heads, screen runners, mixer taps and kettle elements all carry a calcium ridge by handover. We use a proper scale-paste descale with the right dwell time, then polish. The lower edge of the shower-screen runner is where the line item lands on the inventory walk most often.
Can you clean original blown-glass leaded casement windows?
Yes. The original blown-glass panes in the leaded casements of the 17th-century bridge-end cottages on Lower Road and Forge Lane are the East Farleigh-specific line item. We hand-clean each pane with a damp microfibre and a mild detergent, one hand cradling the back of the casement. Never an acid step on the lead came, never a spray. Included in the standard end of tenancy clean.
Can you clean the lath-and-plaster wall behind a freestanding wardrobe?
Yes, and we recommend it on the older Lower Road and Forge Lane cottages. The wardrobe is lifted out, the wall soft-brushed and microfibred (no spray), the matching skirting wiped, and the wardrobe replaced. The clerk for Hopwood House and Wards of Kent walks the bedroom with the wardrobe still empty – they expect to see behind it.
Can you do same-week or next-day jobs?
Usually yes for the ME15 0 patch. Our Kent rota carries enough cleaners that a same-week slot is normal across East Farleigh, Coxheath, Maidstone, West Malling and Paddock Wood. Same-day is harder but we sometimes manage it for a smaller flat. Phone the office, do not rely on email for short-notice work.
Are there any access quirks I should warn you about?
Tell us if the property is on the narrow Lower Road stretch by the medieval bridge, where two cars cannot pass and parking is by the Cock Inn frontage. Tell us if your move-out date clashes with one of the village events around the Holy Trinity Church or the bridge frontage. Tell us if the key is held with the Wards of Kent Loose office, the Hopwood House rural book, or a key safe on the porch. Five minutes on the call saves an hour on the day.