End of tenancy cleaning in and around Stepney Green

The inventory clerk on a Stepney Green student let goes for the kitchen extractor before anything else, because the film of old frying grease baked onto the metal and the tiled splashback behind the hob is the one thing four housemates never scrub in two years, and it is nearly always the corner they photographed at check-in. That is what an end of tenancy clean here has to beat: a check-out report, room by room, not a tidy-up. We work to a 57-point agent-approved checklist, price flats by size or part jobs at £30 per cleaner an hour, and stand behind it with a 48-hour re-clean guarantee. Ring 0333 555 2076 for a price.

Last updated June 2026. We cover Stepney Green and the E1 streets around it, from the gardens and St Dunstan’s across to the Ocean Estate and Mile End Road. This page sits inside the borough directory at End of Tenancy Cleaning Tower Hamlets.

Where the money actually comes off a Stepney Green deposit

Start with the mechanism, because almost nobody does. When you moved in, a clerk walked the flat and wrote it up against an inventory, usually with photos, and on a share let to four the check-in detail is thorough, because agents who fill these places every September know exactly what tends to go wrong over two academic years. At check-out a clerk walks it again and marks the flat line by line against that report. Anything materially worse than the check-in entry, beyond fair wear, is chargeable against your deposit. You are being judged against how the flat looked on day one, not against a mop and a free Sunday.

The marks that take money off here are predictable once you have seen a few. A kitchen extractor and filter clogged with grease that never got touched. A splashback gone tacky and yellow in the grout behind the hob. An oven with carbon on the door glass and the racks. Scale crusting the taps, the shower head and the inside of the kettle from the hard supply. Scuffed paint on a communal stair or hallway in an estate block. Mould bloom in a windowless bathroom with no fan. And the flattened, darker strip of carpet where a bed or a wardrobe stood for two years.

Notice what is not on that list: the rooms the tenants scrubbed hardest. Bedrooms come back fine on nearly every job we do here. It is the grease, the scale and the parts nobody looks behind that decide it.

One recent group put it more bluntly than we would. “We’d hoovered every day and done the bathroom twice,” a Queen Mary sharer off Ben Jonson Road told us, “and the only thing the clerk actually cared about was the extractor none of us had ever taken down.” She was right, and it is why this page reads the way it does.

Licensing, and what 1 May 2026 changed for E1 move-outs

Stepney Green sits in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, postcode E1, and licensing bears on the letting market here more than in most places, because so much of the stock around the gardens and the estates is run as shared houses. It is worth being precise about which rules apply, because the local picture is easy to get wrong.

The council’s selective licensing scheme, the one that licenses ordinary private rentals, only runs in four wards: Whitechapel, Weavers, Spitalfields and Banglatown. Stepney Green is a separate ward and sits outside it. What does apply here is the borough-wide additional HMO licence, in force since April 2024, alongside mandatory HMO licensing on the larger shares. A licensed HMO is inspected against management standards, so a landlord re-letting to the next set of students wants the flat back clean enough to turn round fast. That pushes the check-out bar up rather than down.

Now the law that changed the timing. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 went live on 1 May 2026. Section 21 no-fault evictions are gone, and every existing assured shorthold tenancy in England has converted to a periodic one, so a tenant can give two months’ notice at any point in the year rather than waiting for a fixed term to end. Here is the part people get wrong: the cleaning side of a move-out did not change at all. The check-in benchmark still stands, the deposit maths is exactly what it was, and your deposit still sits in a government-backed scheme. What shifts is churn. In a high-turnover, student-heavy patch like this, move-outs get more frequent and less predictable, so the sensible move is to book the clean earlier than you used to. The current detail on the deposit rules is kept on gov.uk, and Shelter has plain-English guidance on what counts as a fair deduction.

The cleaning side of a move-out did not change at all. What shifts is churn.

The 57 things we go through, room by room

Every booking runs to a 57-point checklist built over a decade of local check-outs and tuned to what E1 clerks actually flag. The full list comes with the job, or we walk you through it before we start. Here is the shape of it.

The kitchen, where the deposit lives

This is the whole game in a share, so it gets the time. We take the extractor apart rather than wipe it through the cover, soak the metal filter and degrease the hood until the grease is off the metal, not smeared across it. The tiled splashback behind the hob is degreased tile by tile and every line of grout is brushed, because that is where two years of frying ends up. The oven is taken back inside: racks, trays and the door glass split so the brown film between the panes comes out. Fridge and freezer cleaned inside and out, seals included, and defrosted if needed. Cupboard fronts and interiors wiped, the sink and the scale-furred mixer tap descaled, splashes off the units, and the floor done last so a film does not dry on it.

Bathrooms, where the hard water shows

The scale and any damp turn up here. Taps, the shower arm and head, the valve and the waste come back bright with the scale taken off, not wiped over. Tiles are washed and the grout brushed, any mould spotting in the corners or along the sealant treated, the screen or curtain rail cleaned, the mirror and any glass shelf left smear-free, because a smear shows under a bathroom light at once. The toilet is done inside, behind and at the scale line under the water. A second bathroom or en-suite, common where an old terrace has been split for sharers, gets exactly the same treatment as the main one. Plenty of these flats have only a tiny window and no fan, which grows mould faster, so the corners and the sealant get proper attention rather than a pass with a cloth.

Bedrooms, living areas and the shared parts

In a four-bed share these are usually the rooms the tenants have already cleaned, so the work is finishing them to the report. Windows cleaned inside, frames and runners wiped, the glass left clear. Wardrobes, whether built-in or freestanding, cleared and wiped inside, outside and on top, where dust sits for a whole tenancy unseen. Skirting, doors and frames wiped and scuffs lifted where they come away without taking the paint with them. Carpet where fitted is vacuumed, including the flattened band where a bed or a wardrobe stood; carpet shampoo is an add-on if the inventory asks for it. Some of the older terrace conversions off the gardens carry a picture rail and a deep skirting that hold dust, and those get done, because a clerk does run a hand along them.

Then the shared parts. Hallways and the estate-block stair paint that scuffs so easily, light switches, sockets, internal doors and glass, and the strip of floor where furniture stood. Spot-cleaning of wall marks where they lift cleanly. One thing we will not do is promise to scrub a scuff out of soft paint when the only honest result is a shiny patch that reads worse than the mark. We say straight when something is a landlord paint job rather than a clean, because pretending otherwise just loses you the argument later.

What 344 ppm of Thames Water does to a splashback

The water here is very hard. It comes from Thames Water, and across E1 it runs at roughly 344 parts per million as calcium carbonate, well over the point at which water counts as hard. That one detail loses more deposits than most tenants expect. Scale builds on anything that meets hot water, and a wipe with a cloth does nothing to it. The clerk checks for it: a thumbnail down the tap, the shower screen edge-on against the light, the shower head pulled in close.

In an older terrace flat off the gardens the taps, the head and the kettle crust up over a tenancy. On an Ocean Estate kitchen the same scale dulls the mixer tap and rings the inside of the kettle within months, and two years of a four-person household making tea is a great deal of kettle. We take the taps, the head and the kettle back with a proper scale remover rather than a quick wipe, because a wipe only moves the bloom around and it returns within days. On a splashback the scale and the grease bind together near the hob, which is exactly why the stubborn ones need degreasing and descaling, not one or the other.

Stepney Green street by street: the stock changes as you walk it

There is no single property type here, so the clerk’s report changes street by street. Walk it and you go from the Georgian and early-Victorian terraces facing Stepney Green Gardens, the long tree-lined green with its 1690s Mercers’ almshouses and St Dunstan’s church, the old mother church of the East End, behind, straight into one of the largest regenerated council estates in the country, the Ocean Estate off Ben Jonson Road, and on into the 1960s and 1980s towers and low-rise around it, then pockets of new-build infill. Some of the old terraces are restored single houses; plenty are split into flats or run as shares for the student and young-renter market feeding Queen Mary University at Mile End.

We cover the lot. The restored houses and split conversions around the gardens and the almshouses. The maisonettes and regenerated blocks on the Ocean Estate. The towers and low-rise on the streets between Stepney Green and Mile End. The infill flats and the shares walkable from Stepney Green station on the District and Hammersmith & City lines, out toward the Genesis Cinema on Mile End Road and Stepney City Farm. We also run the same checklist across the wider borough and for the neighbouring patches: end of tenancy cleaning in Mile End the other side of the station, plus Whitechapel, Shadwell and Bethnal Green.

One practical thing about moving out here: the access. The terraces around the gardens are tight for a van, controlled parking runs across most of the streets on weekdays, and the estate maisonettes often mean two floors on a single stair with no lift and a long carry to the bin store. If your removals van and the cleaning team both want the same kerb on the same morning, it goes wrong, so we would rather come once the furniture is out and the flat is empty, which is also when the kitchen and the floors come up properly.

A landlord we clean for near the almshouses keeps it simple. “I turn these flats round in a week in September,” he told us, “so I need the kitchen and the bathroom back to let-standard. Tidy is not enough.” That is the bar, and it is the same one the clerk inspects to.

What it costs, and the maths four housemates never run

Flat prices, fixed by size, not invented per job, and they match the figures in the schema on this page. No survey visit for a standard flat or maisonette. No call-out fee.

Carpet shampoo is an add-on where the inventory wants it: £36 a bedroom, £43 a living room, or £115 for the whole carpeted area of a two-bed. A single oven is built into the price already; a double is £110 and a 90cm range is £114. A four-person share on the Ocean Estate is the £425 line, usually with a couple of bedroom carpets added; a one-bed off the gardens is £207. Split between four housemates, the £425 is not much each against a deposit running well over a thousand pounds, and that is the sum most groups only run after they have failed a check-out and lost the first round.

Across the work we have done we have put more than £1.2m of deposits back in tenants’ hands, and we hold a 97% first-time pass rate against check-out reports, which is the number that actually matters to you. There is a reason so many E1 agents know us: we are on the books of 300+ letting agents, and the report format barely changes from one Stepney Green agent to the next.

Three jobs get muddled here, and it is worth booking the right one.

End of tenancy clean

The hand-back clean, built to pass an inventory check-out and get a deposit back, done with the flat empty and the 48-hour guarantee on it. This is the one a clerk inspects.

Deep clean

A deep clean is the same depth of work for a home you are staying in, with no clerk and no report to hit, from £30 an hour.

Regular domestic clean

A regular domestic clean is week-to-week upkeep by the hour, from £22 an hour weekly.

“There were four of us renting a maisonette on the Ocean Estate, all Queen Mary students, and we’d had it the full two years of the course. We’d cleaned the bedrooms and done the bathroom twice, but none of us had ever properly touched the kitchen. The extractor over the hob had a solid film of old grease right through the filter, and the splashback had gone yellow at the grout, and that corner was the photo the clerk took when we moved in. A scrub with washing-up liquid just smeared it. Monster came the day before check-out, took the extractor apart, degreased the whole splashback tile by tile and descaled the furred-up taps and kettle. The clerk came back the next day and the kitchen was off the deduction list completely. We got the full £1,600 deposit released about ten days later.”
Priya, ex-tenant, Ocean Estate, Stepney Green E1, March 2026

What the clerk checks first, in order

If you want to know where the money is, watch where the clerk goes first. In a Stepney Green flat the order barely changes.

1. The kitchen extractor and its filter, lifted out and checked for grease, not glanced at through the cover.
2. The tiled splashback and grout behind the hob, a finger run down for a tacky film, against the check-in photo.
3. Inside the oven: the door glass, the racks and the trays for carbon.
4. Taps, the shower head and the kettle for the hard-water scale crust.
5. The fridge and freezer inside, seals included, and any cupboard interiors.
6. Bathroom corners, sealant and grout for mould bloom where there is no fan.
7. Shared-stair and hallway paint, skirting and door frames for scuffs on an estate block.
8. The flattened strip of carpet or floor where a bed, sofa or wardrobe stood.

Our 57-point agent-approved checklist is built backwards from exactly that walk, which is why the first-time pass rate sits where it does. None of it is a surprise once you have seen one done. Renters lose money on it for one reason: not knowing the extractor, the splashback and the scale are the whole game in a flat like this. If the oven is the only thing your agent pulled you up on, a standalone oven cleaning visit covers it on its own, and where the inventory names carpets there is a separate carpet cleaning service for the flattened band under where the beds stood. A furnished let whose sofa has to go back as it was is a job for the upholstery cleaning team, and the new-build infill flats handed straight over from a fit-out are what after builders cleaning is for.

How booking works, and the July rush

1. Ring 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] with the Stepney Green postcode, how many bedrooms, and your check-out date.
2. We give you a fixed price on that call from the list above. No survey visit needed for a standard flat or maisonette.
3. We book the team for a slot before your check-out, ideally the day before, so anything flagged can still be sorted.
4. Two cleaners turn up with everything, including the degreaser and scale remover the kitchen and bathroom need. You supply nothing, which matters when the household has already moved out and the cupboards are bare.
5. If the clerk pulls up something that was on our list, the 48-hour re-clean guarantee means we come back within three days and put it right at no extra cost.

Book once you have a move-out date. Stepney Green check-out slots cluster hard in late June and early July, when the Queen Mary year ends and whole student houses hand back in the same fortnight, so the slot you want will be gone if you leave it. If your check-out is tomorrow, ring anyway and we will do what we can.

Questions we get asked

How much is an end of tenancy clean for a Stepney Green flat?

A studio is £156, a one-bed £207, a two-bed £243, a three-bed £339 and a four-bed £425. A four-person student share on the Ocean Estate is the £425 line, usually with a couple of bedroom carpets added; a one-bed off the gardens is £207. If you only need certain rooms doing, part jobs run at £30 per cleaner an hour.

Why does the kitchen decide the deposit in a Stepney Green student let?

Two academic years of four people frying leaves a real film of grease in the extractor and its filter and on the tiled splashback behind the hob, and that corner is usually the exact thing the clerk photographed at check-in. It stalls more hand-backs here than the bedrooms tenants fret over. The kitchen is where a Queen Mary share wins or loses its money.

Do you guarantee the clean against the inventory check-out?

Yes. We work to a 57-point agent-approved checklist, the same walk the clerk does, and back it with a 48-hour re-clean guarantee. If the clerk flags something that was on our list, we return within three days and put it right at no charge.

What is your first-time pass rate?

97%. Across the end of tenancy work we have done since 2014 we have put more than £1.2m of deposits back in tenants’ hands, working alongside 300+ letting agents. We would rather quote you the real figure than a rounded-up one.

Is Stepney Green covered by the Tower Hamlets selective licensing scheme?

No. The council’s selective scheme only runs in Whitechapel, Weavers, Spitalfields and Banglatown, and Stepney Green is a separate ward outside it. What does apply here is the borough-wide additional HMO licence, in force since April 2024, plus mandatory HMO licensing on larger shares. A licensed share is inspected against management standards, so a landlord wants it back clean enough to re-let fast.

Can you take the kitchen extractor apart to clean it?

Yes. We lift the filter out and soak it and degrease the metal hood rather than wipe it through the cover, because a wipe only smears the grease around. The tiled splashback is degreased tile by tile and every line of grout is brushed. That is the exact work that got the Ocean Estate group their deposit back.

Is the hard water really a problem on the fittings here?

It is. E1 sits on very hard Thames Water, around 344 parts per million, so scale crusts on taps, shower heads and inside the kettle over a tenancy, and on a splashback it binds with the cooking grease near the hob. We take a proper scale remover to it rather than a cloth, because a wipe only moves the bloom around and it comes straight back.

Can you come the day before my check-out?

That is the timing we recommend. Booking the clean the day before the inventory check-out means that if the clerk flags anything, the 48-hour re-clean guarantee still has room to sort it before the deposit decision is made. Leave it to check-out morning and there is no buffer left.

Is the oven included, or is it charged on top?

A standard single oven is built into the flat price. Only a double oven at £110 or a separate 90cm range cooker at £114 is added on. Whichever you have, it is taken back inside: racks, trays and the door glass split and cleaned between the panes.

Do I need to supply any cleaning products or equipment?

No. Two cleaners arrive with the lot, including the degreaser and scale remover the kitchen and bathroom need. That matters in Stepney Green, because by the time we clean the household has usually already moved out and every cupboard is bare.

How long does a four-bed Ocean Estate maisonette take?

Most are the better part of a day with two cleaners. The extractor, the splashback and the oven are the slow part; the bedrooms move quickly because the housemates have nearly always cleaned them already. Access can add time too, as a lot of the maisonettes run over two floors on a single stair with no lift.

Can my landlord keep my deposit for cleaning?

Only for genuine cleaning beyond fair wear, and the deposit has to sit in a scheme such as the Tenancy Deposit Scheme or mydeposits. A professional check-out clean with our 48-hour guarantee behind it is the part you can put beyond argument. Shelter has plain-English guidance if it ever goes to adjudication.

Do you cover the rest of Tower Hamlets around Stepney Green?

Yes. We work the terraces around Stepney Green Gardens, the Ocean Estate and the towers off Mile End Road, and we run the same checklist for the streets the other side of the station in Mile End and over toward Whitechapel and Shadwell.

How do I actually book it?

Ring 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] with your Stepney Green postcode, the number of bedrooms and your check-out date. We quote off the flat list on that call, book the day, and send two cleaners with all the kit.