End of tenancy cleaning in and around Lewisham Gateway

How do you get back the full deposit on a Get Living two-bed at The Switch when the on-site team is using an internal property-condition report plus a third-party inventory clerk? You stop treating it like a tidy-up and book a hand-back clean against the same 57-point sheet the clerks read from. Lewisham Gateway is 100% build-to-rent and private new-build, sitting on top of the rerouted Ravensbourne and Quaggy where they meet at the old roundabout. The clerks here know what to look for on a 2017-and-later Bosch oven and a frameless walk-in shower fed by 285 mg/l Thames Water. So do we.

Last updated April 2026. Pricing reflects standard Lewisham Gateway SE13 rates. Premium pricing applies only to inner-prime postcodes (Mayfair, Belgravia, Chelsea, Holland Park, Notting Hill); Lewisham Gateway is a base-tier zone despite the tower-block stock.

We’re Monster Cleaning, a Mortlake-based domestic cleaning firm trading since 2014. End of tenancy cleans at Lewisham Gateway start from £156 for a studio, with the 48-hour re-clean guarantee, the 57-point agent-approved checklist and bookings that are usually next-day on the SE13 rota.

Why Lewisham Gateway deposits get deducted

Lewisham Gateway is one of the cleaner archetypes to write about because the property stock is genuinely uniform. Phase one opened in 2017 under Muse Developments with Get Living taking on the rental management, then The Switch and the second phase added more units through 2024 and into 2026. There are no period flats here. No picture rails, no cornicing, no airing cupboards full of old gas-meter junk. What there is: Bosch and Siemens integrated kitchens, induction hobs, MVHR ceiling vents, frameless walk-in showers, engineered-wood floors in the living areas, and carpet only in the bedrooms. The buildings sit directly over Lewisham station, with the DLR terminus on one side and the Southeastern platforms on the other, so the tenant base is a mix of young professionals, NHS staff at Lewisham Hospital fifteen minutes up the hill, Crossrail commuters who use the Lewisham-Cannon Street fast train, and the postgrad overflow from Goldsmiths in New Cross.

Inventory clerks for Get Living and the third-party agencies have a tight, standardised checklist for these units. The walkthrough is usually 30 to 45 minutes for a one-bed. The clerks know exactly which items get missed by a DIY clean: the trim around the oven inner glass, the gasket inside the dishwasher door, the underside of the toilet rim where the new-build coatings hold limescale more visibly than older porcelain, the MVHR vents, the inside of the washing-machine detergent drawer, and the rubber seal on the integrated fridge.

That’s where deposits go.

Renters’ Rights Act 2025 and Get Living tenancies

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 abolished assured shorthold tenancies and the section 21 no-fault eviction route during 2025, replaced them with periodic tenancies, and tightened rules around rent rises and pet permissions. None of that changed the cleaning clause at hand-back. Deposits at Lewisham Gateway still sit in DPS, TDS or mydeposits. Get Living’s standard tenancy uses DPS Custodial in most cases. The cleaning condition column on the check-out report still gets read against the original check-in, fair wear and tear is still excluded from deductions, and the alternative dispute resolution route at the scheme is still free to the tenant. The bargaining shift in the Act is real for rent increases and eviction. It’s not real for a hand-back report on a frameless shower screen with a visible scale ring.

Lewisham Council and the Gateway redevelopment

Lewisham Gateway is the largest active regeneration scheme in the borough, sitting at the junction of Lewisham High Street, Loampit Vale and Molesworth Street where the old gyratory used to run. Phase one (the Renaissance towers and the public realm with the daylit rivers) completed in 2017; phase two added The Switch and is continuing through 2026 under London Borough of Lewisham oversight. The build-to-rent stock here doesn’t fall under the borough’s selective licensing scheme that applies to most private landlords on Loampit Hill or Belmont Hill, because BTR operators run under different consent arrangements with the council. What that means at hand-back is that the inspection standard isn’t council-driven; it’s operator-driven. Get Living’s own property-condition team sets a tighter bar than most independent landlords would, because turnover speed matters to their commercial model. A two-week void between tenancies is the operating target. That gives you a sharper inspection but also a faster deposit return if the clean is right.

Thames Water hardness and the frameless shower problem

Lewisham sits inside the Thames Water supply zone, which runs at the upper end of the very-hard band, around 280 to 300 mg/l calcium carbonate per thameswater.co.uk. The Lewisham Gateway bathrooms are almost all frameless walk-in showers with a single glass screen. That design shows a scale ring more clearly than the older shower-over-bath suites on Loampit Hill. A four-month tenancy is enough to leave a visible mineral film at chest height. We descale every glass surface, the shower head, the chrome controls, the tap mixers and the kettle on every Gateway hand-back, and we let the product sit long enough to actually do the work.

“Monster came on a Thursday afternoon, the day before our Renaissance studio at Lewisham Gateway phase one got handed back to Get Living. I’m an NHS junior doctor up at Lewisham Hospital, I was on a 22-month tenancy, and the one thing I’d genuinely failed to clean was the inside of the integrated dishwasher gasket. There was a black mould stripe right round the seal. The team brought a separate product just for rubber gaskets, pulled the seal back and worked it with a fine brush. The condition column came back clean across the six-page Get Living report and the full £1,560 deposit landed in DPS three working days later.” – Priya, ex-tenant, Renaissance studio, February 2026

Coverage – blocks and streets

Lewisham Gateway is a tight, well-defined footprint. We cover all of it.

• Renaissance (the Confluence Tower and the lower-rise blocks above the DLR, SE13 7DL)
• The Switch (phase two, the taller of the Gateway buildings, SE13 7AY)
• Phase two private new-builds along Thurston Road and the Lewisham Gateway public realm
• Lewisham Gateway public realm itself – the daylit Ravensbourne and Quaggy confluence
• Loampit Vale frontage (where phase two meets the older 1930s parade)
• Molesworth Street side of the development (close to the Lewisham cinema)
• The retail and leisure ground floors (Sainsbury’s, the cinema, the gym)

What’s included at Lewisham Gateway hand-back

Variant E format. One tight bullet list, 22 to 28 items, bold prefix labels. Everything below is in scope on a standard EOT booking. Add-ons (carpet shampoo, oven, range cookers) come on top of the headline price.

• Kitchen oven: Inner glass off, trim degreased, racks soaked, control knobs pulled where removable, door seal wiped.
• Induction hob and surround: Glass top descaled, surround silicone wiped, splashback front and behind.
• Extractor and hood: Cowling washed, hood filter pulled out, degreased and replaced; on Gateway models the filter clips out, no tools.
• Integrated dishwasher: Filter pulled, gasket worked back, detergent drawer flushed, exterior fascia wiped.
• Integrated fridge-freezer: Interior emptied, shelves and salad drawers hand-washed, rubber door seal worked with detergent, exterior fascia and ice-box pulled.
• Washer-dryer: Drum maintenance wash run, detergent drawer pulled, door seal worked, filter checked at the base.
• Microwave: Interior, turntable, door and seal.
• Sink, taps and waste: Descaled. The kitchen mixer on Bosch units holds mineral build under the swivel collar; we hit that with the descaler.
• Worktops and splashbacks: Front, behind, underside of the upper cupboards.
• Cupboards: Tops, insides, outsides, undersides, handles, drawer runners.
• Kickboards and skirting: Wiped down; the engineered-wood floor edge is where dust accumulates in BTR kitchens.
• Bathroom shower screen: Frameless glass descaled with a dedicated scale remover, both faces, edges and seal.
• Shower head and controls: Head taken off and soaked; chrome thermostatic control descaled.
• Bath: Surround, taps, overflow, sealant line. Most Gateway one-beds are shower-only; two-beds usually have a separate bath.
• Basin and taps: Descaled, basin pedestal underside, behind the basin.
• Toilet: Bowl, rim underside, cistern, behind the pan, base around the floor seal.
• Wall tiles and grout: Both bathrooms, descaled and rinsed.
• Mirror cabinet: Inside and out, hinges, shelves.
• Extractor fan grille: Pulled out and washed; on Gateway flats the bathroom extractor links to the MVHR, so the grille comes out cleaner than older slot fans.
• MVHR ceiling vents: Each vent removed, dust deposit wiped from the cone face, replaced. This is a Gateway-specific item that DIY cleans almost always miss.
• Wardrobes: Inside, outside, top shelf, hanging rail, drawer interiors. The fitted wardrobes in phase two units have soft-close hinges; we wipe the hinge housings.
• Bedrooms throughout: Skirting wiped, light switches and sockets, radiator front and behind, window tracks.
• Living areas: Engineered-wood floor swept and damp-mopped with a wood-safe product, no over-wet; skirting wiped; sliding-door tracks on the balcony doors hoovered out.
• Balcony glass and rail: Inside face of the glass and the metal rail; outside face only on ground-floor and accessible flats.
• Internal doors and frames: Wiped front and back, handles polished, hinges dusted.
• Internal windows and frames: All accessible glass, tracks and frames; external faces above ground floor are out of scope for safety reasons.
• Light fittings, switches, sockets, thermostat: Wiped down without water near electrics.
• Carpets in bedrooms: Vacuumed as standard; shampoo extraction is an add-on we strongly recommend on any Gateway tenancy over a year.

Common reasons we get re-called

A 97% first-time pass rate means roughly one in 33 hand-backs gets a callback. The pattern is narrow and consistent at Gateway specifically.

• Oven door inner glass. The most-flagged item. If we pull the inner glass off but miss the rubber trim around the outer pane, the clerk catches it on a torch sweep.
• Dishwasher gasket. Black mould on the rubber seal underneath the door lip. It needs a specific rubber-safe product and a fine brush, not a general spray.
• MVHR ceiling vents. The cones come off easily but every cone in the flat has to be done. Missing one in the second bedroom is the typical mistake.
• Frameless shower screen edges. Descaling the face of the glass is the obvious bit; the rebated edge where the glass meets the cubicle base holds the scale longest and gets missed.
• Engineered-wood floor edges along skirting. Dust deposit in the expansion gap. Not visible from standing height; visible to a clerk on hands and knees.

What it costs

Studios start at £156. One-beds £207. Two-beds £243. Three-beds £339. Four-beds £425. Add £36 per bedroom for carpet shampoo extraction, £43 for a Lewisham Gateway living-room rug area (most are 12 to 15 square metres in the BTR units), and £115 for whole-flat carpet on a two-bed. Oven add-on if the cooker is a separate booking rather than part of the EOT: £77 single, £110 double, £114 for a 90cm range. Hourly bookings run at £30 per cleaner if you want a top-up clean instead of the full inventory-grade EOT. These are base-tier rates – Lewisham Gateway is not in the inner-prime band where pricing gets bumped £20 to £80 per tier upward (Mayfair, Belgravia, Chelsea, Holland Park, Notting Hill, Kensington, St John’s Wood, Marylebone, Hampstead, Knightsbridge, Primrose Hill). The price quoted on the call is the price invoiced.

What your agent will actually check

1. Integrated oven – inner glass, trim, racks, door seal.
2. Integrated hob and extractor – induction surface, filter, cowl.
3. Integrated dishwasher – gasket, filter, drawer.
4. Integrated fridge-freezer – seals, interior, ice-box.
5. Washer-dryer drum and detergent drawer.
6. Frameless shower screen – both faces, rebated edge.
7. Shower head, taps and chrome controls – mineral build.
8. Toilet rim underside and base seal.
9. Bathroom tiles, grout and silicone.
10. Wardrobe interiors, top shelves and rails.
11. MVHR vents in every room.
12. Engineered-wood floor edges and skirting.
13. Internal windows, tracks and frames.
14. Balcony glass internal face and rail.
15. Door handles, hinges and frames.
16. Light switches, sockets and thermostat fascia.
17. Carpet condition in each bedroom.

How booking works

1. Phone 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected]. Tell us the block (Renaissance / The Switch / phase two new-build), the apartment number, the move-out date Get Living or your agent has on file, and any add-ons you want (carpet, oven if separate).
2. We quote against the standard SE13 base-tier rate card.
3. We confirm the slot, usually next-day across the Lewisham Gateway rota, and we send you the 57-point checklist by email so you can see exactly what’s being covered.
4. Team arrives with all kit and product. Keys via the on-site Get Living reception desk, a key-safe code, or you meet on site – all three work.
5. We invoice on completion. Bank transfer or card. If anything fails the inventory check, we come back inside 48 hours at no charge.

Related services and neighbouring areas

If your hand-back also needs the carpets extracted (we recommend it on any Gateway tenancy over a year because the BTR bedroom carpets show traffic faster than the inventory description allows), see our carpet cleaning service for hot-water extraction. For oven decarbonising as a standalone job, see our dedicated oven cleaning service for SE13 properties. If you’ve got an upholstered headboard or a fabric sofa Get Living’s inventory listed as part of the furnished package, the upholstery cleaning service for fabric sofas page covers that. Sibling Lewisham pages: our Lewisham borough end of tenancy hub, Lewisham Central end of tenancy cleaning across the wider SE13 catchment, Deptford Bridge end of tenancy cleaning around the DLR, and Convoys Wharf end of tenancy cleaning for the Thames-side BTR.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is end of tenancy cleaning at Lewisham Gateway?

Studios from £156, one-beds from £207, two-beds from £243, three-beds from £339 and four-beds from £425. Lewisham Gateway sits in the standard SE13 base-tier zone, so we don’t add the inner-prime loading that applies in Mayfair, Belgravia, Chelsea, Notting Hill, Holland Park, Kensington or St John’s Wood. Carpet extraction is £36 per bedroom or £115 for whole-flat carpet on a two-bed. The oven add-on is £77 single, £110 double, £114 for a 90cm range. The price we quote on the phone is the price you pay – no surcharge on completion.

Do you cover Renaissance and The Switch specifically?

Yes. Both buildings are core to our SE13 Lewisham Gateway rota. We’ve handed back studios, one-beds and two-beds in Renaissance phase one, the lower-rise blocks alongside it, and The Switch in phase two. We know the lobby routes, the key-safe systems most Get Living units use, and the parking arrangements for the on-site service yard. Phase two units that opened from 2024 onwards through 2026 are also covered.

What’s in the 57-point agent-approved checklist?

Every surface, fitting and integrated appliance the inventory clerk inspects. Oven inner glass, trim and racks; hob and extractor with filter pulled; integrated dishwasher gasket, filter and drawer; integrated fridge seals and interior; washer-dryer drum maintenance wash; sink, taps and waste descaled. Both bathrooms descaled including frameless shower screen edges, shower head, chrome controls, toilet rim underside and tile grout. Wardrobes inside, outside, top shelves and rails. MVHR ceiling vents in every room. Engineered-wood floor edges and skirting. Internal windows, doors, handles. Balcony glass internal face. Carpets in bedrooms vacuumed (extraction shampoo is an add-on). The full sheet goes by email when we confirm the slot.

What’s the 48-hour re-clean guarantee?

If the inventory clerk or the Get Living property-condition team flags anything our crew should have caught, we come back inside 48 hours and put it right at no extra charge. The 48-hour window runs from the time we finish the original clean. We need a copy of the check-out report or an email from Get Living’s lettings team listing the items. We book the re-clean into the SE13 rota fast. The 3% of jobs that need this are almost always a single missed item – one MVHR vent in the second bedroom, one corner of the shower screen edge, one filter.

What is your first-time pass rate at Gateway?

97% first-time pass rate against agent-led and operator-led inventory inspections across Lewisham. At Lewisham Gateway specifically the rate is at the upper end of that range because the stock is uniform and our checklist matches it tightly. Across the company we’ve helped recover £1.2m deposits during the trading life of Monster Cleaning Ltd. The 3% callbacks are usually a single missed item that gets put right inside the 48-hour window.

Which letting agents and operators handle Gateway lettings?

Get Living manages the bulk of the BTR stock at Renaissance and The Switch directly. The remainder of the private rental units (the phase two new-builds along Thurston Road, the smaller private landlord portfolios) goes through Foxtons Lewisham, Hamptons, Acorn, and a handful of buy-to-let landlords using Carter Jonas, Robinson Jackson or independent letting desks. Across the company we’ve worked with 300+ letting agents covering south-east London, so the inventory clerks at SE13 hand-backs recognise our 57-point checklist when they arrive for the inspection.

Is the water at Lewisham Gateway really hard enough to matter?

Yes. Thames Water reports calcium carbonate at roughly 285 mg/l across the SE13 supply zone, which sits at the upper end of the very-hard band. Every frameless shower screen, every chrome tap mixer, every kettle and every dishwasher accumulates a visible mineral film over a tenancy. We use a dedicated descaler with proper contact time on every glass and porcelain surface and we descale the kettles and shower heads as a standard step. It’s the single biggest cause of a Lewisham Gateway DIY hand-back failing inspection.

How does the build-to-rent inspection differ from a normal letting agent inspection?

Get Living and the other BTR operators run their own internal property-condition team alongside the third-party inventory clerk. The internal team focuses on commercial turnover speed (the two-week void target between tenants); the third-party clerk focuses on the inventory document. You’re effectively getting checked twice. The good news is that a clean booked to inventory standard passes both checks together. The bad news is that any single missed item, like a dishwasher gasket or one MVHR vent, gets flagged by whichever team spots it first.

How long does a Gateway clean take?

A Renaissance studio runs about three hours with two cleaners. A one-bed is closer to four. A two-bed at The Switch is five to six hours with two or three cleaners depending on condition. The integrated appliance work and the MVHR vents add about 45 minutes versus an equivalent non-BTR flat, which is why we schedule a slightly longer slot for Gateway jobs than for a comparable Loampit Hill conversion of the same bed count.

Do you do carpet shampoo extraction in the same visit?

Yes. We bring the hot-water extraction kit on the same van. £36 per bedroom, £43 for a Gateway living-room rug area, £115 for whole-flat carpet on a two-bed. Drying time is around three to four hours with the windows open and the MVHR running. If you’ve got an evening hand-back, book the carpet for first thing in the morning and the EOT clean to follow.

What about the integrated Bosch and Siemens appliances?

Standard EOT scope. Get Living, the phase two private landlords and most of the BTR developers across Lewisham Gateway use Bosch and Siemens integrated kit – induction hob, oven, microwave, dishwasher, washer-dryer, fridge-freezer. The inner glass on the oven door is removable; the dishwasher filter pulls out; the washer-dryer takes a drum maintenance wash with a dedicated product. The oven door trim and the dishwasher gasket are the two single most-flagged items on Gateway inspections, so they get extra time in our scope.

What if I’m renting through Get Living direct rather than through a high-street agent?

Same process. Phone or email with the block name (Renaissance, The Switch, the relevant phase two building), the apartment number, and the move-out date Get Living have on the portal. We’ve done a lot of these. Get Living’s own cleaning checklist tracks closely against ours, the on-site reception team usually passes our work first time, and keys move through either reception or a key-safe code. Either works for us.

Do you do same-day or next-day bookings on Gateway?

Next-day is the normal turnaround across SE13. Same-day depends on the rota and the time of the call; we keep some morning Saturday capacity but it goes fast in late summer when university lets and Get Living moves cluster. Phone the office number rather than emailing for anything urgent. We’ve covered moves from a Wednesday call to a Friday hand-back more times than we can count.

How does the deposit dispute route work if Get Living deduct?

Get Living’s tenancies are normally protected in DPS Custodial, with some older arrangements in TDS or mydeposits. Every scheme runs a free alternative dispute resolution service for tenants. If the cleaning deduction looks wrong, raise it. A documented professional EOT clean from us, with our invoice and the 57-point checklist on file, is solid evidence in an ADR submission. Shelter publishes free legal guidance if the dispute moves further.

Are you insured?

Yes. Public liability and employer’s liability cover, both £1m, with a UK underwriter; certificates available on request. We’re a registered limited company – Monster Cleaning Ltd, Companies House number 9919639, trading since 2014, head office at 255 Upper Richmond Road West, SW14 8QS London. Trustpilot 3.1 out of 5 across 128 reviews.

Ready to book?

Phone 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected]. Tell us the block, the apartment number, the move-out date and any add-ons. We’ll quote on the call, email the 57-point checklist, and confirm the slot – normally next-day across the Lewisham Gateway rota.