End of Tenancy Cleaning Shirley CR0 | 48-Hour Guarantee

The windmill, the hills and the clean that decides your deposit

End of tenancy cleaning

from £156

For a studio, fixed by property size, agreed before we start.

0333 555 2076 · 8am to 7pm

An end of tenancy clean in Shirley costs between £156 for a studio and £425 for a four-bedroom house, it is priced by the size of the property rather than by the hour, and it follows the same 57-point checklist your letting agent inspects against.

That is the short answer. The rest of this is the detail behind it, because the housing here is older and roomier than the new-build flats nearer East Croydon, and the clean has to match the property the clerk is actually standing in.

The hills

Shirley sits in the green eastern edge of the borough, between the town and the open downland.

The tower mill that Richard Alwen put up in 1854 still stands off Upper Shirley Road, the last working windmill left in Croydon.
Just south of it the land climbs to the Shirley Hills, the slope of heather and gorse that locals also call Addington Hills.
From the viewing platform up there you can see clear across to Docklands and Parliament Hill on a fair day.

That ridge is the reason the air feels different here from the rest of CR0, and it is also the reason the suburb filled with houses rather than flats.

The houses

The rental stock follows from that. This is an owner-occupier suburb of bay-fronted 1930s semis and detached houses, with the Monks Orchard estate built out in the same decade, so the lettings tend to be those houses rather than purpose-built blocks.

They have long hallways, bay windows with deep tracks, fitted kitchens and far more skirting than any flat. They take time. We do not rush them, and the fixed price is built so we do not have to.

The village

You feel the shape of the place along Wickham Road, the spine of the suburb, where the library and the parade of shops sit between The Crown and the Shirley Inn.

St John the Evangelist: The church John Ruskin’s family were tied to, and where his parents are buried, has anchored the old village since the 1850s.
To the south: Spring Park and its Miller’s Pond drop away.
To the west: Coombe Wood and Lloyd Park.
The trams: They run along the foot of the hills towards East Croydon.

It is a leafy, settled corner of the borough, the lettings reflect that, and a deposit deduction here runs to real money, which is exactly why the clean has to be right the first time.

We are not an hourly outfit, and there is a reason we prefer it that way. When you pay by the hour, the clock is the enemy, and a cleaner racing it cuts corners.

We quote a fixed figure for the whole property, then the team stays until the list is done. Tell us these and you will have a price in a few minutes:

the number of bedrooms and bathrooms
whether the oven is single or double
how the carpets are

The 1930s houses here and why they change the job

Shirley grew fast between the wars. House building took off through the 1930s, the fields out towards the hills filled with suburban semis, and the Monks Orchard estate went up in the same stretch.

That is the stock you are most likely renting today, and it shapes the clean in ways a flat simply does not.

Bay windows. A typical Shirley semi off Wickham Road or Shirley Road has them front and back, and the runners under those bays trap years of grit and dead flies that a clerk spots the second the light hits them.
Skirting. There is more of it in a hallway with a staircase than in a whole one-bedroom flat.
Kitchens. They were often extended at the back over the decades, so the floor area is larger than the room count suggests.
Gardens. They mean more dirt walked in across a tenancy, which settles into the carpet edges and the grout of any hard floor.

Some of the bigger detached houses up towards Upper Shirley and the hills have a utility room, a downstairs loo and an integral garage door into the kitchen, all of which go on the list.

A fair number have engineered wood or solid oak through the ground floor that needs the right product, not a sopping mop. We bring all the kit and detergents on the day, free of charge, and we match the method to the surface. You leave the electricity and hot water on.

Age tells in the fittings too:

A genuine 1930s house often keeps deep moulded skirting, picture rails and the odd tiled fireplace, and dust gathers on all of it in a way an inventory clerk notices straight away.
The original casement and sash windows of that era have painted runners that need easing open and wiping out rather than a quick spray over the glass.
Kitchens have usually been replaced once or twice, so you get modern units sitting in rooms with the same old awkward gaps beside the cooker and under the wall cupboards where grease builds.

None of this is hard. It just takes a cleaner who knows to look there, and ours do.

There is a slice of newer stock as well. The Shirley Oaks development on the old hospital and children’s home grounds to the north brought in modern houses and some flats, and you will find purpose-built blocks dotted along the busier roads.

Those clean more like a standard flat, quicker and with less skirting. Whatever the property, the quote is built on what is actually there, the rooms, the bathrooms, the oven and the floors, not on a guess about the postcode.

One honest note about the lie of the land. The roads climbing towards the Shirley Hills and the windmill are leafier and a touch steeper than the flat streets around Monks Orchard, and a few have no easy parking right outside the door.

Tell us when you book and we plan the van and the kit run around it. It is the only slightly awkward part of working up here, and it is a small one.

The deductions that hurt are the ones a quick hoover never reaches.

Room by room, what the clean actually covers

An end of tenancy clean is a full reset of the property to the standard a check-out inventory expects. It is not your fortnightly tidy with more effort behind it.

The clerk compares the place against the check-in report photos taken the day you moved in, and the bar is fair wear and tear excepted, which in plain terms means clean, not worn.

The kitchen

The kitchen is where most of the money sits.

We degrease the oven inside and out and pull the racks.
We do the hob and the splashback.
Every cupboard is wiped inside and out.
We clean behind and beside the appliances, where the grime collects.
The sink and taps are descaled.
The fridge and freezer get cleaned once they are off and defrosted.
Extractor filters, the kickboards, the bin area.

The taps and kettle space take a proper scrub, because scale sets hard once it has had a couple of years to build.

Bathrooms

Bathrooms are the other battleground:

scale round the taps and the shower screen
grout scrubbed, tiles cleaned
the toilet done properly, including the hinges and the back of the pan
mirrors and chrome polished
the extractor vent dusted

The whole house

Then the whole-house work runs through every room:

skirting boards, light switches, sockets, door tops, picture rails, radiators
internal glass, window sills and the tracks the windows sit in
carpets hoovered through
hard floors washed
cobwebs off the ceilings and the cornicing, which the older houses around here have plenty of

It is detailed work. The handful that get queried are usually a single item a clerk wants redone, and that is what the re-clean guarantee is for.

People often ask what the real difference is between this and a regular clean, and the honest answer is reach. A weekly or fortnightly clean keeps the surfaces you see in order. An end of tenancy clean goes after the parts nobody touches all year:

the tops of the kitchen units
the inside of the oven door glass
the runners the windows slide on
the grout behind the taps
the dust line along the picture rails the older Shirley houses still have

A clerk knows exactly where to look, because the same misses come up on every check-out, and a check-out report is written to be defended in a deposit dispute.

End of tenancy cleaning in Croydon by Monster Cleaning — A job our cleaners finished in Croydon.

If you want a sense of where our cleaners spend the time on a typical Shirley house, it breaks down roughly like this:

The kitchen and its appliances take the largest share.
The bathrooms come next.
Then the bedrooms and the living room, where the work is skirting, glass, sockets, radiators and floors.
Hallways and stairs last, and in these houses the hall is rarely small.

A four-bedroom detached place near the hills can be a full day for a team, which is the plain reason a fixed price beats a clock.

57-point

agent-approved checklist

£1.2M

won back in deposits

48-hour

free re-clean if challenged

300+

letting agents we work with

What it costs in CR0, by the size of the house

Prices are fixed and tied to the size of the property, so you know the figure before we arrive.

Studio: £156
One-bedroom flat: £207
Two-bedroom: £243
Three-bedroom house: £339
Four-bedroom: £425
Larger detached houses: Quoted on the same logic once we know the room count.
By the hour: If you would rather book cleaners by the hour for a part-job, that is £30 per cleaner per hour.

The fixed price covers the team for as long as the job takes. For an end of tenancy we steer you towards it, because hourly pricing punishes a thorough clean, and a roomy Shirley semi is exactly the kind of property where the hours add up.

What moves the price is the size, not the address. A three-bedroom semi off Shirley Road costs the same £339 it would anywhere else we cover, because the work is the work. We will not quietly drop the standard for a cheaper-looking flat near the shops.

The number you are quoted is the number you pay, with the add-ons listed separately so nothing lands on the bill you did not agree to.

If a property is unusually large or has been left in a poor state, we say so on the call and quote it honestly, rather than turning up and renegotiating on the doorstep.

Two add-ons are quoted separately because they use machine cleaning the standard service does not include:

Carpet cleaning by hot-water extraction: £29 a bedroom, £36 for a living room, or £94 for two bedrooms and a living room.
Oven deep cleaning: The racks and trays are soaked and the rest scrubbed by hand: £31 for a single and £62 for a double or a range cooker.

More on when those actually earn their keep below.

Deposits, and why Shirley sits outside the licensing map

Your deposit is protected by law. A landlord or agent has to put it in one of the three government-backed schemes within 30 days of taking it and give you the prescribed information, as gov.uk sets out for deposit protection.

At the end of the tenancy the landlord can only keep money for genuine, evidenced costs, and cleaning is the single most common deduction. If you disagree, the scheme runs a free adjudication and the landlord has to prove the cost, which is where your move-in photos earn their place.

Licensing

On licensing, Shirley sits in a useful spot. Croydon brought in a selective licensing scheme that started on 25 September 2026 and runs for up to five years, but it covers only 14 named wards in the north and centre of the borough.

The council’s own scheme page lists them as:

Addiscombe East and West
Bensham Manor
Broad Green
Fairfield
Norbury and Pollards Hill
Norbury Park
Selhurst
South Croydon
South Norwood
Thornton Heath
Waddon
West Thornton
Woodside

The Shirley North and Shirley South wards are not on that list. So a single-family let here does not need a selective licence, which is not the case in nearby Selhurst, South Croydon or South Norwood, all of which are in the scheme.

That is not a free pass, though.

Additional HMO licensing: Croydon also brought this in from the same date, and it runs right across the whole borough, Shirley included. It catches smaller houses in multiple occupation, the kind let to three or more people from two or more households, that the national rules miss.
Mandatory HMO licensing: On top of that, this still applies to larger shared houses of five or more occupants, which the gov.uk guide on houses in multiple occupation explains.

If a Shirley house is shared rather than let to one family, a licence is likely in play even though the suburb sits outside the selective map.

If a deduction lands

If a deduction does land on your statement, the cleaning charge has to be reasonable and evidenced, not a round number plucked from the air. A landlord cannot bill you for a professional clean simply because the contract once said so.

The deposit scheme rules and recent case law look at the actual state the property was left in against the check-in record.

This is the practical reason we promise nothing we cannot show: a clean done to the 57-point list, against the same inventory the clerk uses, is hard for anyone to argue with. When tenants do contest a charge, the move-in photos plus a dated professional clean usually settle it in their favour.

The new law

The bigger shift is the law itself. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 ends fixed-term assured shorthold tenancies and moves everyone onto periodic tenancies, which changes the rhythm of move-outs.

Tenancies will end on notice rather than on a tidy fixed date, so end-of-tenancy cleans get booked at shorter notice. We work seven days a week partly because of that.

For the standard on cleaning at check-out, Shelter’s guidance on tenancy deposits is the plain-English version worth reading before you hand the keys back.

The Shirley North and Shirley South wards are not on that list.

The extras, and when a Shirley let actually needs them

The standard clean hoovers the carpets and wipes the oven to a domestic standard. For most flats that is enough. For the older houses here it sometimes is not, and the honest thing is to tell you when an add-on pays for itself and when it does not.

Carpets

Book the deep carpet clean when the carpets are genuinely soiled rather than only dusty. A family let with a garden tends to grind dirt into the carpet edges and the stair treads, and a clerk who can see traffic lanes will note them.

Hot-water extraction lifts what a hoover cannot, and on a let with pale carpets it is the difference between a pass and a deduction. You can read what the machine work involves on our carpet cleaning service page.

The oven

Our standard clean takes the oven to a good domestic finish, but if the previous tenants baked grease onto the liners and the door glass over a couple of years, it takes a dedicated oven clean to clear it.

The racks and trays go in to soak.
The glass is worked by hand until it is clear again.

On a range cooker in one of the bigger Upper Shirley kitchens that is well worth the £62. The detail is on the oven cleaning service page.

Upholstery and windows

Upholstery deep cleaning and interior versus exterior window cleaning are the other extras people ask about.

Upholstery: If the let came furnished and the sofa is marked, the upholstery treatment is cheaper than a furniture deduction.
Exterior windows: If the windows have not been touched outside in months, the exterior clean stops a clerk pricing it back to you.

None of these are upsells we push. We add them when the property needs them and leave them off when it does not.

A quick word on furnished lets, because Shirley has a fair few. The bigger houses are sometimes let with the landlord’s sofas, dining chairs and beds in place, and an inventory records the condition of soft furnishings as carefully as the carpets. All of it can be charged back:

marks on a fabric sofa
a stained dining chair
a mattress that has seen better days

A hot-water-extraction treatment on the upholstery at the same visit as the clean comes in well under the cost of replacing a landlord’s three-seater. We tell you on the call whether it is worth doing or whether a normal clean covers it.

Booking a clean around the trams and the 130

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

Shirley has no railway station of its own, which surprises people. The suburb runs instead on the buses and the trams.

Buses: The 130, 119, 194 and 198 thread through Wickham Road and Shirley Road and out towards West Wickham and Addiscombe.
Trams: The Tramlink stops at Gravel Hill and Addington Village sit at the foot of the hills, with Sandilands and Lloyd Park a short ride towards East Croydon. The trams run north into the town and on to West Croydon, which is the practical link to the trains.

Worth knowing if your move-out is tied to a connection.

Booking the clean is simple:

Call 0333 555 2076 or email office@monstercleaning.com with the address, the room count and your check-out date.
We give you a fixed price and book a slot.
We turn up with everything.

The property needs to be empty of your belongings, the fridge and freezer defrosted, and the electricity and hot water on. That is it.

Timing-wise, line the clean up for after the removals van has gone and before the check-out inspection, ideally the day before the clerk comes.

If you are moving across the area, we cover the neighbouring patches too, so you can book a sibling clean over in Addiscombe or out at West Wickham through the same office.

Shirley is one of the Croydon-area pages under our main end of tenancy cleaning in Croydon hub, so wherever your next place is in the borough, the booking works the same way.

A practical tip on the order of the day:

Removals first.
Then us.
Then the inspection.

If the van and the cleaners are booked for the same morning you end up with furniture in the way of the skirting and the floors, and the clean suffers for it.

On a big house we would rather have the place empty and to ourselves. If your removals slot and your check-out are tight against each other, tell us and we will work the timing out with you, because a rushed handover is where deposits get lost.

Parking is the one genuine quirk up towards the hills, and it is worth a sentence.

The roads climbing past the windmill: On the leafier roads there is not always a space right outside the door, so the team carries the kit in rather than parking on top of the job.
Monks Orchard and Wickham Road: Down here the streets are easier.

It does not change the price or the result, it just means we plan the van around your road, and a heads-up when you book saves a few minutes on the day.

If the clerk flags anything within 48 hours of our visit, ring us. We come back inside 48 hours and redo the item at no charge, provided the property was empty and the utilities were on for the original visit. The guarantee is straightforward, and we honour it.

The words on your inventory, in plain English

The paperwork around a deposit has its own vocabulary, and a clerk will use it on the day. Here is the plain version of the terms that come up most.

Check-in inventory: The report and photos made at the start of the tenancy that record the condition and cleanliness of the property. Your clean is judged against this, so keep your copy.
Check-out report: The inspection at the end, where a clerk compares the property to the check-in inventory and lists any differences a landlord might claim for.
Fair wear and tear: The normal ageing a landlord cannot charge you for, such as a slightly worn carpet. Dirt and grime are not wear and tear, which is why cleaning is chargeable.
Deposit protection scheme: One of three government-backed schemes that must hold your deposit within 30 days and run a free dispute service if you and the landlord disagree over deductions at the end of the tenancy.
Selective licensing: A council scheme requiring a licence to rent out a home in designated areas. In Croydon it covers 14 named wards from September 2026, and the Shirley wards are not among them.
End of tenancy clean: A one-off full clean to inventory standard when a tenancy ends, priced by property size, not the regular upkeep clean you might have during a tenancy.

Questions Shirley tenants and landlords ask

How much does end of tenancy cleaning cost in Shirley?

It is priced by the size of the property, not by the hour. A studio is £156, a one-bedroom flat £207, a two-bedroom £243, a three-bedroom house £339 and a four-bedroom £425. Larger detached houses are quoted on the same room-count basis, and the price holds for as long as the job takes.

Do you charge by the hour or a fixed price?

A fixed price for the whole property for end of tenancy work. We do offer hourly cleaning at £30 per cleaner if you only want part of a job, but for a move-out the fixed property price is better, because an hourly clock pushes a cleaner to rush a big house.

What is included in the standard clean?

The full property to inventory standard: oven and hob, all kitchen cupboards inside and out, behind the appliances, descaling sinks and taps, bathrooms and shower screens, skirting boards, switches, sockets, internal windows and tracks, radiators, carpets hoovered and hard floors washed. It follows a 57-point agent-approved checklist.

Will my clean pass the check-out inspection?

If a clerk queries something, we come back within 48 hours and put it right at no charge.

What is the 48-hour re-clean guarantee?

If the inventory clerk or letting agent challenges our work, we return within 48 hours and redo the items in question for free. It applies as long as the property was empty of belongings and the electricity and hot water were on for the first visit.

Does a Shirley landlord need a selective licence?

For a single-family let, no. Croydon’s selective licensing scheme from September 2026 covers 14 named wards in the north and centre of the borough, and the Shirley North and Shirley South wards are not among them. A shared house may still need an HMO licence, which is a separate scheme.

Is Shirley covered by Croydon’s HMO licensing?

Yes, for shared houses. Croydon’s additional HMO licensing scheme runs borough-wide from September 2026 and catches smaller HMOs of three or more people from two or more households. Larger shared houses of five or more occupants also need a mandatory HMO licence.

Why do the older Shirley houses take longer to clean?

The suburb is mostly 1930s semis and detached houses with bay windows, long hallways, deep skirting and extended kitchens. There is far more surface to clean than in a flat, and the window runners and picture rails collect dust a clerk looks for. The fixed price accounts for the size.

Do you clean the large houses up near the Shirley Hills as well as flats?

Yes, those are most of what we clean here. The detached houses towards Upper Shirley and the windmill often have a utility room, a downstairs loo and wood floors that need the right product. We bring everything on the day and quote on the room count.

Do I need to provide cleaning products or equipment?

No. We bring all the detergents and equipment on the day, free of charge, and match the product to the surface, which matters for the wood floors common in the bigger houses. You only need to leave the electricity and hot water on.

How should I prepare the property before you arrive?

Move your belongings out first, defrost the fridge and freezer, and make sure the power and hot water are on. An empty property cleans to a higher standard and lets us reach everything the inventory covers.

Should I book carpet or oven cleaning on top?

Only if the property needs it. Deep carpet cleaning by hot-water extraction (£29 a bedroom, £36 a living room, £94 for two bedrooms and a living room) suits genuinely soiled carpets. A dedicated oven clean (£31 single, £62 double or range) clears baked-on grease the standard clean cannot.

Can you clean at short notice or at the weekend?

Yes. We work seven days a week, which helps with the shorter-notice move-outs the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 brought in when fixed terms gave way to periodic tenancies. Call early in the week if you can, but we will fit in weekend and last-minute jobs where we have a slot.

Do you cover the areas around Shirley?

Yes. We clean across the east of the borough, including Addiscombe and West Wickham, and the wider Croydon area through the same office. If you are moving locally, you can book the clean at both ends through us.

How do I get a quote and book?

Call 0333 555 2076 or email office@monstercleaning.com with the address, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, the oven type and how the carpets are. You will get a fixed price in a few minutes, and we will book a slot around your check-out date.

How have you helped other tenants get their deposits back?

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. Cleaning the property to the inventory standard removes the most common reason a landlord withholds money.