What does the inventory clerk on a Shepway semi actually look at before anything else? The chrome. Five winters of Maidstone’s hard water leave a ring under every bath tap that a Sunday-morning wipe never shifts, and it is usually the first thing an agent’s clerk circles on the report.
Monster Cleaning has worked end of tenancy jobs across ME14 since 2014, running to a 57-point checklist, a fixed price by bedroom count, backed by a 48-hour re-clean guarantee measured against whatever the check-out report says. Ring 0333 555 2076 and we will price the job in about three minutes.
Last updated July 2026. We cover ME14 postcodes across Maidstone town centre, Tovil, Shepway, Park Wood, Penenden Heath, Allington, Bearsted and the Lockmeadow riverside, and we work out into the ME15 and ME16 fringe when a job needs it. This page sits inside the Kent directory at End of Tenancy Cleaning Kent.
What a Maidstone inventory clerk checks before the kitchen
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
Every Maidstone tenancy starts with a check-in inventory, and that report is the standard you are held to when you leave, not some vague idea of tidy.
- A clerk walks the flat, photographs every surface, and writes descriptions that usually include the words “new” or “as new” against the kitchen and the bathroom.
- At check-out a second clerk, sometimes the same one, walks it again and compares line by line.
- Anything worse than the check-in entry, beyond fair wear and tear, gets charged against the deposit.
In a town on South East Water’s hard-water supply, the bathroom carries most of that weight, and the clerk knows exactly where to look:
- chrome on a bath tap or a shower head that has sat under a 224 to 225 milligram-per-litre supply for three or four winters, which builds a ridge that a cloth alone will not touch;
- grout, which goes the same way;
- the silicone bead at the bath edge, which yellows quietly and gets photographed close up.
None of this is optional cleaning theatre, and two rules sit behind it.
- The Tenant Fees Act 2019
- A Maidstone landlord cannot make professional cleaning a contractual condition of the tenancy, so nobody can force you into booking us.
- Damp and mould
- A landlord’s obligation under the Homes Act 2018, not a tenant’s cleaning failure. Where we find genuine structural damp behind a wardrobe in a Tovil terrace we photograph it separately so the charge sits where it belongs.
What 1 May 2026 changed for Maidstone move-outs
The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 went live on 1 May 2026.
- Section 21
- No-fault evictions are gone.
- Existing tenancies
- Every assured shorthold tenancy in England has converted to a periodic tenancy.
- Notice
- A tenant can give two months’ notice at any point rather than waiting for a fixed term to end.
- The cleaning
- It did not move an inch. The Tenant Fees Act still applies. The check-in benchmark still applies.
What changed is timing, and timing matters more in a commuter town than people expect.
Maidstone already carried a heavy churn of short lets around the station and the town centre, tenants using the fast Southeastern service into London and moving on after a year or two for work.
Rolling notice periods instead of fixed end dates mean those move-outs land more often and less predictably, so the slots around month-end, already tight, are not going to get any easier to book.
The cleaning side did not move an inch.
The eight things flagged most on a Maidstone check-out
Our lead cleaner works from the full 57-point list on every job, but eight items decide most Maidstone disputes on their own.
- Chrome bath taps, shower head and screen runner, hard-water ridge
- Silicone bead at the bath edge, yellowed over time
- Oven door glass, brown film trapped between the panes
- Cooker hood housing behind the filter
- Stair-edge or hallway carpet wear strip
- Skirting top edge, every room, easy to miss
- Window reveals and sills, condensation tide-lines
- Meter cupboard and bin store
Get those eight right and most Maidstone check-outs never turn into an argument.
The 57-point clean, room by room
The checklist covers the property from the meter cupboard to the loft hatch. Here is the shape of it.
Kitchen
- The oven, booked as an add-on from £31, is cleaned rather than wiped: racks into a soak, interior, fan and seals all done by hand, and the film trapped between the door panels lifted out where the design allows.
- Hob rings off and washed, extractor hood degreased inside and out, filter soaked or swapped.
- Every cupboard, inside and out, including the deep awkward-cornered units common in the older Tovil kitchens.
- Fridge, freezer and washing machine pulled out so the gaps behind and under get done, then put back.
- Washing machine drum, drawer and door seal. Dishwasher filter and spray arms.
- Sink, taps and drainer descaled. Tiles and grout scrubbed. Bins washed.
- Floor lifted where it moves, hoovered and mopped.
Bathrooms
- Chrome taps, shower mixer and screen runner descaled with a proper dwell time rather than a quick spray, because the South East Water supply needs it.
- Grout scrubbed back as far as honest effort takes it, and photographed first where it is clearly beyond saving.
- Toilet done properly: inside, under the rim, base and cistern.
- Bath, taps and overflow, with the underside of a roll-top bath in an older Tovil property getting the same attention as the visible parts.
- Mirrors and cabinets, and behind them where they pull away from the wall.
- Extractor fan vent wiped. Floor into the corners and behind the pedestal.
Bedrooms and living rooms
- Wardrobes, drawers and any built-in storage opened out fully.
- Skirting, door frames, handles and finger plates.
- Light fittings, switches and, in the older Tovil and Loose Road houses, the picture rail line that collects dust nobody ever reaches.
- Window sills, reveals and frames on the inside. Radiators behind, under and on top.
- Walls spot-wiped for marks, with a realistic line drawn, because nail holes and scuffs are a decorator’s job and not yours to scrub away.
- Carpet vacuumed on the highest setting throughout, with hot-water extraction available on the wear strips that build up on a stair run or a hallway inside three winters.
- Upholstery hoovered through.
Two of those steps often need their own pass.
- Carpet cleaning covers the hot-extraction work a lot of Maidstone tenancies specify by name.
- Oven cleaning stands alone too, for the jobs where the oven is the only thing the agent flagged.
What South East Water’s numbers do to a Maidstone bathroom
Maidstone sits on South East Water’s supply, and its hardness figure loses more Maidstone deposits than almost anything else on the list.
- Postcodes
- ME14 and ME15.
- Hardness
- Roughly 224 to 225 milligrams per litre as calcium carbonate, well into the very-hard band.
- What it does
- Calcium builds on taps, shower heads, screens and tile joints faster than most tenants expect, and a wipe with a cloth does nothing to it.
The clerk checks for it directly. They run a thumbnail down the tap, they angle the shower screen against the light, they pull the shower head in close.
Limescale that has set hard into the chrome is not a five-minute job. In the older Tovil and Loose Road terraces the fittings are sometimes original brass rather than modern chrome, which rules out the aggressive descalers a newer flat could shrug off.
Grout is the other one. Kitchen and bathroom grout decides more Maidstone check-outs than carpets do.
We scrub it rather than wipe it, and where it is genuinely past saving, which happens in long-standing Shepway and Park Wood tenancies, we photograph the state before we start so nobody bills a tenant for wear that was already there at check-in.
Maidstone top to bottom: the stock changes every street you cross the Medway
Maidstone is Kent’s county town, sitting on the River Medway with a working town centre built up over centuries and a housing map that changes completely depending which side of the river you are on.
A studio flat above a shop on Earl Street and a four-bed period house on the Bearsted village edge share a postcode area and very little else.
Town centre and the Lockmeadow side
Earl Street, King Street and the Royal Star Arcade sit at the commercial heart of it. Above the shops and offices there is a growing stock of flats let to young professionals commuting into London on the fast Southeastern service out of Maidstone East, a journey that runs to around an hour into Victoria on the quickest trains.
Cross the river and Lockmeadow, built on the old cattle-market site with its indoor market and leisure buildings, has newer apartment blocks aimed at the same commuter tenant. These lets tend to come with:
- integrated appliances and open-plan kitchens, which need their own approach;
- building management that sometimes wants a signed checklist rather than a verbal handover.
Shepway and Park Wood, the estate belt south of the centre
South of the centre, Shepway and Park Wood are mostly 1950s and 1960s council-built stock, semis and short terraces on wide roads, much of it now owned by Golding Homes or sold on into the private rental market.
These are family lets, often long ones, and the kitchens tend to sit in a rear extension added decades after the original build. A five-year tenancy on one of these streets means five winters of hard water working on the same taps.
Tovil and the older terraces along Farleigh Hill
West and south-west, Tovil grew up around the Medway papermills and kept its Victorian and Edwardian terraces long after the mills closed:
- narrow hallways;
- a chimney breast in most front rooms;
- picture rails that still hold their line of dust.
Loose Road and the Tonbridge Road corridor carry the same period stock heading out of town.
Allington, Penenden Heath and Bearsted, the family fringe
North and east of the centre:
- Allington
- Sits off the A20 with a mix of established semis and newer estate infill.
- Penenden Heath
- Keeps its open green and older detached and semi-detached houses.
- Bearsted
- Holds onto a proper village feel around the green, with period houses that back onto orchards.
These are the four-bed family lets, and they take longer on site simply because there is more house to get through.
What it costs, and the maths nobody runs until it is too late
| Property | Typical duration | Estimated cost |
|---|---|---|
| Studio (Earl Street or Lockmeadow flat above a shop) | 3-4 hours, 1 cleaner | From £176 |
| 1-bed (station-side or Tonbridge Road conversion) | 4-5 hours, 2 cleaners | From £227 |
| 2-bed (Tovil terrace or Lockmeadow apartment) | 5-7 hours, 2 cleaners | From £263 |
| 3-bed (Shepway or Park Wood semi) | 6-8 hours, 2 cleaners | From £359 |
| 4-bed (Bearsted or Penenden Heath house) | 8-10 hours, 2-3 cleaners | From £445 |
| Hourly or part job | By arrangement | £30 per cleaner |
| Carpet hot-extraction add-on | Same visit | From £29 per bedroom |
| Oven-only booking | 1.5-2 hours | From £97 |
- How it is priced
- Maidstone prices are fixed by bedroom count, with kit and products included.
- What the figures assume
- A flat in ordinarily lived-in shape. A long tenancy with heavy wear, a smoker’s flat or somewhere that has not had a proper clean in years costs more, and we say so on the phone rather than after the invoice lands.
Run the maths the way the deposit forces you to. A two-bed Tovil terrace at £263 to protect a deposit north of £1,200 is not really a decision.
Every Maidstone booking carries a 48-hour re-clean guarantee: flag anything inside 48 hours and we come back and put it right free, provided the flat is still empty and in the state we left it.
We work to the 57-point agent-approved checklist. We work with 300+ letting agents across Kent and London, and that work has helped tenants recover £1.2m in deposits that would otherwise have gone on cleaning deductions.
Booking it, and the commuter timing problem
Maidstone bunches its check-outs the way most commuter towns do: hard at month-end, softer mid-month. The steps are simple.
- Ring 0333 555 2076. Price in about three minutes. Postcode, property size, check-out date and anything the check-in report already flagged.
- We book you in, ideally the day before check-out with a buffer. Allow 5 to 7 days for an end-of-month slot, 2 to 4 days mid-month.
- Flat empty when we arrive. Furniture out, personal items gone, rubbish cleared.
- Photo proof at the end. Every room, before and after, with an itemised invoice.
- Check-out happens. Anything flagged inside 48 hours, we come back and fix it free.
Parking in the town centre and around Lockmeadow gets tight on a moving day, especially near the King Street offices where several letting agents sit within a few doors of each other. Tell us the arrangement when you book, whether that is a permit, a meter or a key safe, and we will plan the van around it.
Add-ons, and the difference between a clean, a deep clean and a tidy-up
A Maidstone move-out often pulls in more than the core clean.
- Carpet cleaning is the common one, frequently written into Shepway and Park Wood tenancies as a specific clause rather than an optional extra.
- Oven cleaning is an add-on to an end of tenancy job, from £31, and it also stands alone, from £97, if that is all the agent flagged.
- Upholstery cleaning covers furnished lets, which are common in the Lockmeadow and town-centre apartment blocks.
Three different jobs get muddled here, worth separating properly.
- Check-in inventory report
- The document a clerk writes on day one describing every surface, with photographs. It is the benchmark your check-out is judged against.
- End of tenancy clean
- Built to pass that inventory and get a deposit back, against the letting-agent benchmark, with the flat empty and the 48-hour guarantee attached at a fixed price by bedroom count.
- Deep clean
- A deep clean resets a home you are keeping, lived-in, with no formal standard to hit, from £206 for two cleaners and at least three hours, with the kit included.
- Regular domestic clean
- Ongoing maintenance cleaning, from £23 an hour weekly or £24 an hour fortnightly.
The licensing position in Maidstone:
- HMO licence
- Maidstone Borough Council runs the national mandatory HMO licence scheme for any let to five or more people forming two or more households sharing a kitchen or bathroom, checked via maidstone.gov.uk.
- Selective licensing
- There is no borough-wide selective licensing scheme at the time of writing, so a standard family let on a Shepway street or a couple’s flat above a King Street shop needs no separate council licence, just a clean handover that the deposit scheme will accept.
Questions we get asked
How much does end of tenancy cleaning cost in Maidstone?
Studio £176, 1-bed £227, 2-bed £263, 3-bed £359, 4-bed £445. Hourly or part-job work is £30 per cleaner. A typical Tovil two-bed terrace or a Lockmeadow apartment runs to £263 with the 48-hour re-clean guarantee included.
What postcodes do you cover around Maidstone?
ME14 is the core, and we work out into ME15 and ME16 as needed. That covers the town centre, Tovil, Shepway, Park Wood, Penenden Heath, Allington, Bearsted, Loose Road and the Lockmeadow riverside.
Does the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 change anything for Maidstone tenants?
From 1 May 2026, Section 21 evictions are abolished and every assured shorthold tenancy in England converts to a periodic tenancy, with two months’ notice available at any point. The cleaning obligations at end of tenancy do not change. In Maidstone the real effect is more frequent and less predictable move-outs, so book earlier than you would have last year.
Do you handle South East Water’s hard-water scale on the chrome?
Yes. Maidstone reads at roughly 224 to 225 milligrams per litre as calcium carbonate across ME14 and ME15, well into the very-hard band. Chrome taps, shower heads, screen runners and kettle elements all carry a chalky ridge by handover. We use a proper descaler with a real dwell time, then polish.
How long does a clean take on a Shepway or Park Wood semi?
Six to eight hours with two cleaners on a typical three-bed semi. Years of hard-water build-up on the chrome, plus a stair-edge carpet wear strip and a rear-extension kitchen, extend the run compared with a smaller flat.
Do I need to be there for the clean?
No. Most Maidstone clients drop a key with the letting agent or use a key safe or a concierge arrangement in the newer apartment blocks. We email a written check-out report when we leave.
What if my landlord uses a specific inventory clerk?
Tell us the firm when you book. We have worked with the clerks who rotate through the King Street agents and the independents across ME14, ME15 and ME16, and we know which ones lean strict on which categories.
Is carpet cleaning always necessary in Maidstone rentals?
Often, particularly on Shepway and Park Wood tenancies, which routinely write in a specific clause requiring professional hot-water extraction with a receipt at check-out. If that clause is in your agreement and you skip it, the deduction is close to automatic.
What happens if my Maidstone agent disputes the clean after a re-clean?
Escalate to the deposit scheme’s own adjudication process, whether that is TDS, DPS or mydeposits. Our invoice, dated photo report and re-clean record are admissible evidence, and a tenant with a complete professional-clean paper trail rarely loses that argument.
Do you cover Tovil, Loose Road and the older terraces?
Yes. Tovil, Farleigh Hill, Loose Road and the Tonbridge Road corridor are all on the regular round, and we know the chimney-breast plaster and picture-rail dust that come with that Victorian and Edwardian stock.
Do you cover Bearsted, Penenden Heath and Allington?
Yes. All three sit on the regular ME14 round, and the larger four-bed family houses on the Bearsted village edge and around Penenden Heath get priced and staffed for the extra size.
Does the property need to be completely empty?
Yes, fully empty is strongly preferred. Furniture left behind blocks access and creates uncertainty at check-out. One piece left for the next tenant can usually be worked around, but the more that stays, the less complete the clean can be.
Are you insured, and who are you?
Yes. Public liability cover. Monster Cleaning Ltd has done end of tenancy work since 2014. Certificate on request by email at office@monstercleaning.com.
Can you do same-week bookings in Maidstone?
Usually yes across ME14, ME15 and ME16. Same-day is harder but sometimes possible on a smaller flat if the rota has headroom. Ring the office and ask; short notice is far more workable than most tenants expect.