The fortnight clean and the rest of the year
End of tenancy cleaning in Southfields starts at £156 for a studio and is priced by the size of the flat, not by the hour, so the team stays until every room on the checklist is signed off. That is the short answer. Most people reading this want their deposit back, and in SW18 the deposit usually turns on the clean rather than on any real damage.
The tennis is the part outsiders know. Southfields station, on the District line between East Putney and Wimbledon Park, is a five-minute walk down Wimbledon Park Road from the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, so for the Championships fortnight it becomes the main route in. The station gets dressed up, stewards line the road, and the queues run past the front gardens. Households along that walk let spare rooms and driveways to spectators for a fortnight, then have to reset the place afterwards.
Those short summer lets matter for a cleaning page because they end the same way a year-long tenancy does. Keys go back, someone inspects, and a deposit or a damage retention is on the line. We clean both kinds. The rest of the year the work is ordinary Southfields: families and professionals moving out of terraced houses and converted flats on the Grid, booking a clean to clear the final inspection.
Geography is on the tenant’s side here in one way. Southfields is hemmed by green space, Wimbledon Park and its lake to the south-east, the golf course beyond, and King George’s Park running north along the line of the Wandle, so the flats are light and the gardens real. None of that helps the clean. A garden flat tracks more mud through in winter, and a top-floor conversion bakes dust onto the picture rails in summer, and the clerk checks both.
Who calls us is fairly predictable. It is usually the outgoing tenant, organising the clean for the day after they have moved their things out so the place is empty when we arrive. Sometimes it is the landlord or the agent on the parade, booking the clean between tenancies. Either way the brief is the same: get the property back to the standard in the check-in inventory so the deposit is not docked for cleaning, which is the one deduction that is entirely avoidable.
The Grid, and what its terraces do to a clean
Locals call the core of Southfields the Grid. It is a block of streets laid at right angles between Replingham Road in the north and Revelstoke Road in the south, running from Elsenham Street in the west across to Astonville Street, with Merton Road as the eastern edge. Builders put up these terraces after the station opened in 1889, and the bulk of them are Edwardian, three to five bedrooms, brick fronts with bay windows.
Plenty of those houses were split into flats years ago. Wandsworth has since stopped allowing new conversions on the Grid, which is why the streets stay terraced-house in feel even though a single front door might hide two tenancies. For a clean it means two common patterns: a whole-house move-out where one family hands back four or five bedrooms, or a converted flat where you are cleaning a maisonette carved out of an old terrace with the original layout half-intact.
Where a terrace has been split, the conversion usually keeps the old bones, so a one-bed flat here often means a high-ceilinged front room with the original bay, a hallway with the tiled path still outside, and a kitchen squeezed into what was once a back parlour. Nice to live in. More to clean than a square new-build of the same bed count, because there is simply more surface, more moulding and more awkward corners to get into.
The age of the stock is the thing that catches tenants out. These are not new-build flats with flat surfaces and a fan oven that wipes clean.
You get cast-iron fireplaces and tiled hearths, picture rails, moulded cornices, deep Victorian-pattern skirting, and timber sash windows with runners and beading. Each of those holds dust and each is on a thorough check-out report. A clerk who runs a finger along a picture rail or opens the sash box is testing exactly the spots a rushed clean skips, and on the Grid those spots are everywhere.
A clerk who runs a finger along a picture rail or opens the sash box is testing exactly the spots a rushed clean skips, and on the Grid those spots are everywhere.
Who hands back keys around Replingham Road
Replingham Road is the high street, such as it is, with Wimbledon Park Road running off it toward the tennis. The shops, cafes and estate agents on that parade are where most Southfields tenancies are arranged and where the inventory firms are based. If you have rented here, you have walked that stretch.
It is a small parade and a tight catchment, which is partly why tenancies here are sought after and why landlords hold tenants to a clean check-out. There is not a glut of rental stock, so a flat that shows badly at the inventory is the landlord’s problem only briefly before the next tenant takes it; the deduction lands on whoever left it dirty. That is the practical reason a paid move-out clean pays for itself on the Grid more reliably than in areas with looser turnover.
The renter mix is steady. A lot of young professionals and couples share the converted flats because the commute into the City and the West End is quick off the District line. Families take the whole terraced houses on the Grid, drawn by the catchment and the gardens, and they tend to stay for years before a job or a school move ends the tenancy. Then there are the seasonal tennis lets, short and self-contained, that come and go in July.
Each of those leaves a different state behind. A two-year family let has worn carpets, scuffed paint and a kitchen that has cooked a thousand dinners. A young-professional flat share is usually tidier but the oven and the bathroom sealant tell the truth. The short tennis lets are barely lived in, yet the landlord still wants the place reset to the inventory before the next tenant. We quote all three the same way, by the number of rooms and their condition, after a couple of questions on the phone.
The agents matter for timing as well as standard. Tenancies on the Grid often turn over in summer, around the school year and the tennis, so late June and July are the busiest weeks for check-outs in SW18. If everyone on your street is moving in the same fortnight, the inventory clerks are stretched and the appointment slots go fast, which is the real reason to book the clean ahead rather than the day before.
The agents along Replingham Road know our work. Being on the books of 300+ letting agents across south London means a clerk who sees our paperwork on a Southfields check-out usually knows the standard already, which makes the sign-off quicker for everyone.
What the 57-point clean covers
Our move-out clean follows a 57-point checklist that was built around what inventory clerks and letting agents actually mark down. It is the same list whether the property is a studio or a five-bed house on Engadine Street, and the team brings a printed copy on site so nothing gets skipped.
The kitchen takes the longest. Inside and outside of every cupboard and drawer, the worktops, the splashback, the sink and taps descaled, the extractor, and the oven taken apart and cleaned to the glass. We pull out the freestanding appliances where it is safe to, because the gap beside a washing machine or behind a fridge is a standing favourite on inventory reports. Bathrooms get the same treatment: limescale off the taps and shower screen, grout scrubbed, the toilet, basin and bath done, mirrors and tiles left clear, the extractor fan dusted.
Every room then gets the dust work. Cobwebs down from the cornices, skirting and picture rails wiped, switches and sockets, doors and frames, the insides of any fitted cupboards, and the floors hoovered and mopped or the carpets hoovered through. Window sills and the interior glass are done as standard, with the exterior available as an add-on where the inventory asks for it. Light fittings, radiators and the tops of doors, the spots above eye line that a tired tenant misses at eleven at night, are on the list precisely because the clerk will look there.
We do not clean by the hour. The price is fixed on the size of the property, so the team stays until the whole list is done rather than stopping when a clock runs out. On about 97% of jobs the property passes its inventory check the first time. When a clerk does flag something, the 48-hour re-clean guarantee means we come back and put it right within three days at no extra cost, which is the bit that actually protects the deposit.
That guarantee, plus the standard the checklist holds to, is how we have helped tenants recover £1.2m in deposits that would otherwise have been swallowed by cleaning deductions.
The jobs in a Southfields flat that take longest
Some jobs eat the clock in a Southfields property more than they would in a modern block, and it is worth knowing which before you book.
Hard water is the first. South-west London sits in a hard-water belt, and scale builds up on taps, kettles, shower screens and around the base of mixer taps. It does not wipe off, it has to be treated and worked, and a check-out clerk will run a thumbnail over a tap to see if it has been done properly. The bathrooms and the kitchen sink are where this bites.
Then the period features. The original windows have a runner channel and a sill that collect grime, and the panes themselves are usually divided, so glass cleaning takes longer than a single sheet of double glazing. Cast-iron fireplaces and tiled hearths need the right approach so you lift the soot and dust without smearing it into the tile. Picture rails and the tops of tall Edwardian doors are above eye line, which is precisely why they get forgotten and precisely why a clerk checks them.
Fitted wardrobes and the gaps behind freestanding furniture are the last trap. A long family tenancy on the Grid leaves dust and the odd lost sock under a wardrobe that has not moved in years, and the inventory photos from the check-in will show that floor clean. We clean behind and underneath where we can move things safely. Mould around bathroom sealant, common in these older flats where ventilation is weaker, gets treated rather than painted over, because a clerk can tell the difference.
None of this is difficult work. It is just slow, and it is the slowness people underestimate when they reckon they will do the clean themselves over a moving weekend. A first-time tenant clean of a three-bed Grid house tends to run a full day and still misses the window runners and the cooker hood, which is precisely the gap a paid clean closes.
Licensing in Wandsworth, and whether it touches your let
Wandsworth Council brought in two new landlord licensing schemes on 1 July 2025, and where your Southfields property sits decides whether either one applies. This is worth getting right, because an unlicensed let that needs a licence is a problem for the landlord, not the cleaner, but tenants ask us about it constantly on move-out.
Selective licensing, which covers ordinary private rented homes, does not currently include Southfields. The first phase from July 2025 named Furzedown, Tooting Bec, Tooting Broadway and South Balham; a second phase added East Putney, West Putney and Northcote from 1 April 2026. Southfields ward is in none of those designations as things stand.
Additional HMO licensing is the one that can reach a Southfields property. It runs borough-wide from 1 July 2025 and applies to houses in multiple occupation, the kind of shared, room-by-room let that some of the larger Grid houses become. If a terrace has been let to three or more people from more than one household, the landlord may need an additional licence even though selective licensing does not apply here. The council runs an interactive map and licence check by postcode if you are unsure which scheme, if any, covers an address.
Wandsworth set both schemes out when it launched the licensing in July 2025, with the stated aim of raising standards in privately rented homes. A licence does not change what a clean has to achieve, but a licensed landlord is one more party with an interest in the property being handed back in good order, which tends to make the check-out stricter rather than looser.
Why it matters at the end of a tenancy: the standard a property is handed back in, and the deposit deductions a landlord can fairly make, sit inside the same set of rules. A landlord must protect your deposit in a government scheme, and can only deduct for genuine issues such as a property left less clean than at check-in. The big change coming is the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, which received Royal Assent in October 2025 and ends fixed-term assured shorthold tenancies as it comes into force through 2026. None of it changes the cleaning test on check-out, which is the same one it has always been.
What a Southfields move-out clean costs
The price depends on the size of the property and nothing else, so you know it before we arrive. These are the standard end of tenancy rates.
- Studio flat, £156.
- One-bedroom flat, £207. The common converted-flat size on the Grid.
- Two-bedroom, £243.
- Three-bedroom, £339.
- A four-bedroom house from £425, with the larger five-bed Grid terraces quoted on the same per-room basis.
If you would rather have a couple of cleaners for a fixed window, for instance to tackle a flat alongside your own packing, that is charged at £30 per cleaner per hour. For a full move-out though, the by-size price is almost always the better value, because the team works the whole 57-point list to a finish rather than to a clock.
Quotes are free and given over the phone. We ask the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, whether the carpets or oven need separate attention, and the rough condition, then the figure is fixed. No deposit-style charge to book, and the team brings all the cleaning supplies and equipment, so the flat does not need anything beyond electricity and running hot water on the day.
One thing worth saying plainly, because tenants ask: the price does not creep on the day. A move-out clean is quoted on the size you tell us, and unless the property turns out to be far worse than described, or you add a service like deep carpet cleaning, that is what you pay. We would rather give an honest number on the phone than a low one that climbs once the team is inside, which is the trick that gives the trade a bad name.
Carpets, ovens and the extras clerks flag
A standard move-out clean hoovers carpets and wipes the oven, but two jobs sometimes need more than that to clear a Southfields inventory, and they are the two clerks flag most.
Carpets are the first. A long family let on the Grid grinds dirt deep into a stair runner or a bedroom carpet, and a hoover will not lift it. Our deep carpet cleaning uses hot-water extraction to pull the ground-in dirt out, and it is priced at £36 a bedroom, £43 for a living room, or £115 for a whole two-bedroom flat. Booked with the move-out clean it is one visit, not two.
Ovens are the other. The check-in photos almost always show a clean oven, so a greasy one is an easy deduction. A standard clean degreases it, but a neglected oven, or a range cooker in one of the bigger terraces, is better booked as a separate deep oven clean: the door comes apart, the racks and removable parts are cleaned off the appliance, and the inside is brought back. That is £77 for a single oven, £110 for a double, and £114 for a range. Upholstery and exterior window cleaning can be added the same way when the inventory calls for them.
Whether to add either comes down to the check-in report and the condition. If your carpets went in new at the start of a four-year let, they will need the extraction; if the oven has been wiped weekly, the standard clean covers it. We will tell you straight on the phone which extras a Southfields flat in that state actually needs, rather than selling you the lot. The aim is a single visit that clears the inventory, not a longer bill.
Booking around the District line and the crowds
We clean Southfields seven days a week, weekends included, which matters because most tenancies end on a Friday or a Saturday and the check-out is booked tight against it. Give us a day or two’s notice in normal weeks and we will fit the clean in before your inventory appointment.
The one window to plan around is the Championships. For that fortnight the area around the station and Wimbledon Park Road is busier, parking is tighter, and the 39 bus from Clapham Junction to Putney Bridge and the 156 along Merton Road get slower in the crowds. If your tenancy ends in late June or early July, book the clean earlier in the week and earlier in the day, and we will sort access and parking around it. The rest of the year access is straightforward.
If you are one of the residents who has let a room or a driveway for the tennis, the reset is its own small job. Spectator lets are usually clean enough day to day, but a fortnight of strangers through a hallway leaves marks on the paintwork, a kitchen used hard for quick breakfasts, and a bathroom that needs the scale knocked back off the taps before the next arrangement or your own routine resumes. We can do that as a one-off rather than a full end of tenancy clean, priced the same way by size.
For a normal van, the Grid streets are residential and permit-controlled, so the team parks where it can and carries in. That is fine outside the tennis. During the fortnight the closer streets to the station fill early, and the simplest thing is a morning slot before the crowds arrive, which we will arrange around your inventory time.
To book, call 0333 555 2076 or send the details to [email protected] and we will confirm a fixed price and a time. You can also use the contact page if that is easier. We will tell you what the property needs to be ready, an empty flat with the fridge defrosted, electricity and hot water on, and no belongings left behind.
Southfields sits in a tight cluster of our coverage, so if you are arranging a move across the wider area we also clean in Putney and Earlsfield next door, and over the borough line in Wimbledon. The full borough picture is on our Wandsworth end of tenancy cleaning hub.
End of tenancy terms for Southfields renters
A few terms come up on every move-out, and they are worth knowing before the clerk arrives.
- Check-out inventory
- The report the clerk compiles when you leave, compared line by line against the check-in inventory and its photos. Cleaning is graded on it, and it is the document a deposit dispute turns on.
- Deposit deduction
- Money a landlord keeps from your deposit for a genuine issue, such as a flat left less clean than at check-in. Citizens Advice notes a receipt for a professional clean is useful evidence if you challenge one.
- Deposit protection scheme
- By law your deposit must sit in a government-approved scheme, and any cleaning dispute can go to that scheme’s free adjudication. The official guidance sets out how it works.
- Additional HMO licence
- The borough-wide Wandsworth licence, in force from 1 July 2025, that a landlord may need where a property is shared by three or more people from different households.
- Hot-water extraction
- The carpet-cleaning method we use to lift ground-in dirt, rather than a surface hoover, on worn Grid carpets that a standard clean cannot fully restore.
Questions Southfields tenants ask
How much is end of tenancy cleaning in Southfields?
It is priced by the size of the flat, not by the hour. A studio is £156, a one-bed £207, a two-bed £243, a three-bed £339 and a four-bedroom house from £425. The larger five-bed Grid terraces are quoted on the same per-room basis. The quote is fixed before we arrive.
Do you guarantee I will pass the inventory check?
We pass first time on about 97% of jobs. If the inventory clerk flags anything in the clean, the 48-hour re-clean guarantee means we come back and put it right within three days at no extra cost, so your deposit stays protected.
What is the 57-point checklist?
It is the agent-approved list our team works to on every move-out, built around what inventory clerks actually mark down. The team brings a printed copy on site and works through it whether the property is a studio or a five-bed house, so nothing is skipped.
Can you clean a converted flat on the Grid?
Yes. Many of the Edwardian terraces between Replingham Road and Revelstoke Road were split into flats, and we clean those maisonettes as well as whole-house lets. We quote by the number of rooms and their condition either way.
Do you clean the short tennis lets near the station?
We do. Rooms and flats let to spectators for the Championships fortnight end the same way any tenancy does, with an inspection and a deposit or retention on the line, and we reset them to the inventory for the next tenant.
Is my Southfields rental covered by Wandsworth selective licensing?
Selective licensing does not currently include Southfields. The scheme covers Furzedown, Tooting Bec, Tooting Broadway and South Balham from July 2025, plus East Putney, West Putney and Northcote from April 2026. Southfields ward is in none of those designations.
Does my landlord need an HMO licence here?
They might. Wandsworth’s additional HMO licensing runs borough-wide from 1 July 2025 and can apply to a Southfields house shared by three or more people from different households. The council’s online licence check confirms what covers a specific address.
How far in advance should I book?
A day or two is usually enough in normal weeks, and we work seven days a week including weekends. During the Championships fortnight, book earlier in the week and earlier in the day, because the streets around the station get busy and parking is tighter.
Do I need to provide cleaning products or equipment?
No. The team brings all the supplies and equipment. The property just needs electricity and running hot water on the day, the fridge defrosted, and no belongings left behind, so every room can be deep cleaned.
Should I add carpet cleaning?
If a carpet has had years of family wear, a hoover will not lift the ground-in dirt and a clerk will mark it. Our hot-water extraction carpet clean is £36 a bedroom, £43 a living room, or £115 for a whole two-bed, and it can be done in the same visit.
Is the oven included or is it extra?
The standard clean degreases the oven. A badly neglected oven or a range cooker in one of the bigger terraces is better booked as a separate deep oven clean, from £77 for a single, £110 for a double and £114 for a range, where the door and removable parts come apart.
Why does hard water make the clean harder?
South-west London is a hard-water area, so limescale builds on taps, shower screens and kettles and will not simply wipe off. It has to be treated and worked, and a check-out clerk will test a tap with a thumbnail, so the bathrooms and kitchen sink take longer.
Can you clean if I have already moved out?
Yes, and an empty flat is ideal because we can reach behind and under furniture and clean every floor. If you are still part-packed we will work around what is left, though a clear property gives the best result against the check-in photos.
Do you cover the rest of the area around Southfields?
We do. We clean across Putney, Earlsfield and over the line in Wimbledon, and the full borough coverage is on our Wandsworth end of tenancy cleaning hub. Call 0333 555 2076 for a quote anywhere in SW18 and the surrounding postcodes.