End of tenancy cleaning in The Blue Bermondsey, from £156

The first thing an inventory clerk does in a flat off Southwark Park Road is tilt the shower screen to the window, and on a bright Bermondsey Spa bathroom the scale and the grey grout light up like a fault report. That one room decides more deposits around The Blue than anything except the oven. So an end of tenancy clean here has to be built for the person writing that report: checklist-led, deposit-focused, £30 per hour per cleaner if you want it by the hour, and carried by a 48-hour re-clean guarantee measured against the check-out itself. Ring 0333 555 2076 for a fixed price in about three minutes.

Last updated June 2026. We cover the SE16 streets around the Blue market, from Southwark Park Road and Market Place out to Alexis Street, Reverdy Road, Galleywall Road and the Bermondsey Spa blocks. This page sits inside the borough directory at End of Tenancy Cleaning Southwark.

How the check-in report decides it on this side of Bermondsey

Start with the mechanism, because almost nobody does. Your deposit is the landlord’s to claim against, and in England it has to sit in one of three government-backed schemes. When you moved in, a clerk walked the flat and wrote a check-in report describing every surface, nearly always with photographs. At check-out a clerk walks it again and compares, item by item. Anything materially worse than the check-in entry, past fair wear and tear, can be charged. You are not marked against a tidy flat. You are marked against the day-one pictures.

That matters because cleaning is the single biggest category of deposit dispute in the schemes’ own figures, ahead of damage, and it is the one a tenant can fully control. The clerk is not judging whether the place is clean in any everyday sense. A flat handed back clean enough for tea but plainly below the day-one standard gets written up, and an adjudicator reading the two reports weeks later sides with the documented account nearly every time.

The Blue adds a local squeeze. This is a long-standing working neighbourhood with a high share of privately rented and ex-council homes, the kind of streets where flats turn over and re-let quickly. When an agent already has the next tenant lined up for a flat over the shops on Southwark Park Road, a borderline clean is not waved through. It is deducted, because someone is asking when they can move in.

One tenant near the market put it plainly to us in the spring.

I thought I had left it spotless. The clerk thought the en-suite looked like a before photo.

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 went live on 1 May 2026, and it changed how tenancies in England end: Section 21 no-fault evictions are gone, and assured shorthold tenancies have rolled onto periodic ones, so a tenant can give two months’ notice at any point. The cleaning bar did not move at all. What changed is timing. Hand the flat back at or above the check-in standard and a deduction has nothing to grip; the new rules just mean move-outs land at more scattered points in the month.

The Blue is three kinds of home, not one

The Blue is the local name for the Blue Anchor corner of Bermondsey, the market square at 4 Market Place on Southwark Park Road, with St James’s Church a short walk off and the railway viaduct curving over Blue Anchor Lane. The market has traded here under that name for well over two hundred years, named after the old Blue Anchor tavern that also gave Blue Anchor Lane its name, and it still runs Monday to Saturday, roughly nine until five. The flats around it are not one stock, and the cleaning problems differ by the kind of building more than people expect. We send different kit to each.

Three kinds, really.

The late-Victorian terraces

The terraced streets running back from the market, Alexis Street, Reverdy Road and the roads off Galleywall Road, are solid late-Victorian houses, many split into upper and lower flats over the decades. They still carry the original deep skirtings, the odd picture rail and the occasional cast fireplace. Dust gathers on the high mouldings and the tops of doors where a tenant never looks but a clerk always does. The kitchen is often a later addition with grease worked in behind a freestanding cooker, and the bathroom tends to be the room with the weakest extraction, so grout and the ceiling line above the screen need proper work rather than a wipe.

One renter who left a converted terrace flat near Reverdy Road last winter told us how it went.

“It was the top two rooms of an old terrace just off Reverdy Road, a one-bed conversion, the pair of us there a bit over three years. The flat looked fine to us, but the kitchen had a freestanding cooker we had honestly never pulled out, and the wall behind it was years of brown grease the check-in photos never showed. The bathroom was the other worry, an inside room with a fan that barely turned, so the grout had gone grey and the silicone round the bath had a black edge. Monster came the day before our check-out, two cleaners, pulled the cooker out and did the wall, took the oven back to bare metal, then stripped the bathroom grout and the sealant back. The clerk checked behind the cooker and tilted the screen to the light, which is exactly where I had braced for a deduction, and signed it off with no note. Full deposit, £1,650, back inside a fortnight.”
Aneta K., The Blue SE16, March 2026

The Bermondsey Spa blocks

The Bermondsey Spa regeneration put a large slice of newer flats across the streets behind St James’s Church and the gardens, and a good share of those are privately rented one and two-beds. On these the clerk is rarely worried about period detail, because there is none. The deductions come off the kitchen and bathroom sealant, the shower screen and the glass, the inside of the oven, and the white walls that mark the exact moment furniture moves. The hard water shows fastest of all in a bright new bathroom, where a scaled chrome mixer or a clouded screen is the first thing a clerk faces to the daylight.

The estate and ex-council flats

Between the market, Galleywall Road and the railway sit the older Southwark estates and ex-council blocks: solid brick maisonettes and walk-up flats, hard surfaces, communal stair access. The flat itself is usually straightforward. What catches tenants out is the part an estate flat hides: the storage cupboard, the airing cupboard, the kitchen extractor over a long-used hob, and scuff transfer on painted walls in a home that has been lived in hard. We win these on the dull, slow work, the cupboards and the skirting, not on anything clever.

Why the bathroom scales faster than you can wipe it

SE16 is on Thames Water, and the water here is hard. South London hardness sits around 296 parts per million as calcium carbonate, which is firmly in the very hard band, and on the ground that means scale. Kettles fur in months. A shower screen in a Spa flat clouds over, the chrome mixer in a terrace bathroom dulls and crusts at its base, and the toilet grows a hard waterline ring that a sponge slides straight over.

Clerks in this corner of Southwark know exactly where to look. They run a thumbnail down the tap, tilt the screen against the light, pull the shower head in close. Scale set into chrome is not a wipe-and-go job, so we lift it with a proper descaler and a blade on the glass. A cloth puts it back within the week. On a flat that sits empty for a few days between the clean and the check-out, a faint bloom can even return on its own, which is one of the few honest reasons a clean comes back to us, and exactly what the re-clean guarantee is for. You can read Thames Water’s own note on hard water in the region if you want the supply detail.

A cloth puts the scale back within the week, so we take it off properly or not at all.

The 57 things, room by room

Every booking around The Blue runs to a 57-point agent-approved checklist, built over a decade of local check-outs and tuned to what these clerks actually flag. One flat rate, the whole property, no hourly meter ticking while we work. Here is the shape of it.

The kitchen, where most deposits go

The oven is stripped, not wiped: the interior down to bare metal, racks and grill pan soaked and degreased, the door glass split where it comes apart so the brown film between the panels comes out, and the fan, element and seals all done. A greasy oven is the single most common deduction line on any check-out, on a Spa new-build and an Alexis Street terrace alike. The hob and any gas burners lift off and get cleaned underneath. The extractor hood is degreased inside and out and the filter soaked or swapped. We pull a freestanding cooker out where it moves, because the wall and floor behind it is exactly where the clerk looks in the older terrace kitchens. Every cupboard and drawer, emptied and wiped inside and out. Fridge and freezer defrosted and cleaned through, seals included, then switched off and propped open if the flat is sitting empty. Washing machine drawer, door rubber and filter. Sink, taps and drainer descaled, because the water never gives that a miss.

The bathroom, the other place it goes wrong

This is the room that decides a lot of deposits here, especially on flats with weak extraction. Scale comes off the screen, the glass, the taps and the shower head with a descaler and a blade, not a cloth. Grout and sealant are scrubbed back, and where mould has set into the silicone we say so honestly rather than paint over it. The toilet is cleaned and descaled around the base and the cistern, not just the bowl, where the hard water builds a rim. The extractor vent is wiped, the mirror and any glass shelf polished clear, the tiles done top to bottom, the floor last. Where grout is genuinely past saving we photograph it before we start, so a clerk cannot bill you for wear that was already there at check-in.

Bedrooms, living areas and the rest

Skirtings, picture rails where the terraces have them, the tops of doors and frames, light switches and sockets, and radiators including the backs. Inside fitted wardrobes and any built-in storage, emptied and wiped. Windows cleaned internally with the sills and frames; on the period flats the glazing bars hold dust a tenant never sees. Marks lifted off paintwork where they lift cleanly, because a scrub that goes through the paint helps nobody. Carpets vacuumed thoroughly along the edges and under where furniture stood; shampoo is an add-on, priced below. Then the hallway, the airing and storage cupboards, any communal-facing entrance door on an estate flat, cobwebs off the high corners, every internal door wiped, and all hard floors washed last, working back towards the door so nothing is walked over.

That is the hand-back clean, and it is worth being clear what it is not, because the three jobs get muddled and the wrong booking costs you.

End of tenancy clean

Built to pass the inventory and get a deposit back, against the letting-agent benchmark, with the flat empty and the 48-hour guarantee on it.

Deep clean

The reset you book when you are staying and want the home put right, with no formal standard to hit.

Regular domestic clean

Ongoing weekly or fortnightly upkeep, the same cleaner kept on the home, a different service entirely.

What it costs around the market, and the sum nobody runs in time

Flat rates by the size of the flat, the standard SE16 pricing, kit and products included, and no premium loaded on for the postcode.

If you would rather we worked to a set number of hours than a whole-property clean, that is £30 per cleaner per hour. Carpet shampoo runs to £115 for a whole two-bed done together, and a 90cm range oven is £114 as a standalone. Those figures assume a flat in normal lived-in shape. A long tenancy with heavy wear, a pet household, or a place that has not had a deep clean in years costs more, and we say so on the phone rather than after. No surprise lines on the invoice.

Now run the sum the deposit forces on you. Many tenants take the flat-rate clean with carpet added where there is carpet; on a lot of the Spa flats and the estate maisonettes it is hard floor throughout and there is nothing to shampoo, so the bill is the bedroom-count rate and that is that. Either way it is a fraction of what a clerk can deduct for a greasy oven and a scaled bathroom on the same flat. Most people only do that sum after they have tried, failed the check-out, and lost the first round.

Our 57-point agent-approved checklist is built around the exact run a Bermondsey clerk uses. We hold a 97% first-time pass rate on these cleans, we have helped recover over £1.2m in deposits for tenants, and we are on the approved or trusted lists of 300+ letting agents across London, a good number of them working Southwark. Around here that last point counts, because the clerk inspecting your flat has very probably seen our work before. Every booking carries the 48-hour re-clean guarantee: if the clerk or agent flags anything cleaning-related within 48 hours, we come back and put it right at no charge, provided nobody has moved in.

The licence a landlord around The Blue now needs

This is the part landlords here get wrong, and it raises the cleaning bar between tenancies, so it is worth knowing. The streets around the market fall in the South Bermondsey ward, which Southwark brought into its second selective licensing scheme on 1 November 2023. That designation runs for five years, to 31 October 2028, and selective licensing is the wide one, reaching ordinary single-family privately rented flats rather than just shared houses. Let a flat over the shops on Southwark Park Road or a conversion off Alexis Street and you very likely need a licence for it, with an application fee of £945 at the time of writing.

That sits on top of Southwark’s borough-wide additional HMO scheme, which has run since 1 March 2022 and is set to end on 28 February 2027, covering smaller houses in multiple occupation let room by room to three or more people from two or more households. Southwark publishes the detail on its own site, though its pages tend to block automated readers, so check the council’s licensing section directly for the live ward maps and any fee changes. A tenant worried about a disputed deduction can get free, independent guidance from Shelter’s tenancy deposit advice, and the scheme holding your money will adjudicate for free if it comes to that. None of it is a tenant duty, but a licensed flat is inspected, which is why the standard on these lets is not up for debate.

Booking it before a month-end check-out

Booking is quick, and there is a timing trap worth dodging. Almost every check-out lands on the last two or three days of the month, the slots go, and the periodic-tenancy notice rules have made the rush less predictable, not more. So book early for a month-end window. The steps are simple.

1. Ring 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] with the postcode, the bedroom count and your check-out date, plus any known problem areas. Price in about three minutes.
2. We give you a fixed price on the spot. No survey visit, no estimate that drifts upward later.
3. You book a slot, ideally the day before or the morning of your check-out, so the flat is handed over while it is still spotless. Allow more notice for the last few days of the month.
4. The flat should be empty when we arrive. Furniture out, personal things gone, rubbish cleared, so we can reach every surface the clerk will.
5. We clean to the full 57-point checklist, room by room, floors last, and leave it ready for the inspection.

You do not need to be there. Most tenants around the market leave a key, set up a key safe, or sort a concierge code on the Spa blocks, and meet the clerk separately. Power and water at the flat is all we need; we bring the machines, descalers, oven products and cloths ourselves.

Add-ons, the right job for the job, and nearby areas

End of tenancy is one job we do. If the agent only flagged the worst item, our oven deep-cleaning service handles the single most-photographed thing in a check-out on its own. For the terrace conversions where bedroom carpets carry years of wear, carpet cleaning can be added to the clean or booked alone, and a tired sofa a landlord keeps on the inventory is covered by upholstery cleaning. Original glass on a period terrace is a separate job too, folded in through window cleaning when the inventory asks for it.

We also work the streets around The Blue, which matters when your next flat is one over. The station-and-estate side of SE16 is covered on our South Bermondsey page, the historic riverside on Rotherhithe Village, and the dock-side new-builds on Surrey Docks. If you are on the edge of one of those rounds, say so when you call and we will tell you straight whether it is us or a neighbouring team. We would rather send the right crew than the nearest one.

Questions we get asked

How much is end of tenancy cleaning around The Blue in Bermondsey?

It is a flat rate by the size of the flat: £156 for a studio, £207 for a one-bed, £243 for a two-bed, £339 for a three-bed and £425 for a four-bed. No premium is loaded on for the SE16 postcode. Carpet shampoo and an itemised oven clean are extras, and we give you the full figure before the team sets off.

Do you guarantee the flat will pass the inventory check?

We hold a 97% first-time pass rate and back every clean with a 48-hour re-clean guarantee. If the clerk or agent flags a genuine cleaning miss within 48 hours, we come back and put it right at no charge, as long as nobody has moved in. We cannot promise a clerk’s opinion of a worn carpet, but the practical risk is covered.

Can you clean before a flat re-lets the same week?

Yes, and it happens a lot around the market. Flats here let quickly, so a new tenant often moves in within days of you leaving. Give us the check-out date as early as you can and book the earliest slot you can; the more time there is before the inspection, the more room the re-clean guarantee has to do its job.

Is there a landlord licence around The Blue that affects my tenancy?

Probably. The streets around the market sit in the South Bermondsey ward, which Southwark brought into its selective licensing scheme on 1 November 2023, running to 31 October 2028. That scheme covers ordinary privately rented homes, not only shared houses, and there is a separate borough-wide additional licence for smaller HMOs. It is the landlord’s duty, not yours, but a licensed flat is inspected, so the cleaning standard between tenancies is not negotiable.

How has the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 changed end of tenancy?

It went live on 1 May 2026. Section 21 no-fault evictions are gone and existing assured shorthold tenancies have rolled onto periodic ones, so you can give two months’ notice at any point. The clean itself did not change. Your deposit is still judged against the check-in inventory, so a flat returned to the day-one photographs is still the strongest place to be. The real effect here is timing: move-outs land at more scattered points in the month.

Why do flats near the market lose deposits on the bathroom so often?

A lot of them, both the older terraces split into flats and the newer Bermondsey Spa blocks, have bathrooms with weak extraction. Over a tenancy that breeds grout discolouration, mould in the silicone and scale on the glass that the check-in photos never showed. Clerks tilt the bathroom towards the daylight, especially in the bright new flats, so it is one of the most common deduction lines we see around SE16. We treat it as a priority room.

Is the hard water really a problem for the inspection?

It can be. Bermondsey is on Thames Water, and south London water is very hard, around 296 parts per million. Scale builds quickly on taps, shower screens and heads, and a scaled screen shows the moment a clerk faces it to the window. We take it off with a proper descaler and a blade on the glass rather than a wipe, because a smear of scale dries straight back on. It is not an add-on.

Do you move appliances to clean behind them?

We move what is safe to move: a freestanding cooker, a fridge, a washing machine where it pulls out, lighter furniture. The wall and floor behind a cooker is a known check point, especially in the older terrace kitchens around Alexis Street and Reverdy Road. We do not shift heavy fitted units or anything that risks marking the flat, and where we cannot reach behind something we tell you rather than leave a hidden gap.

What if my flat is a Bermondsey Spa new-build with no carpet?

Plenty of the Spa stock is exactly that: hard floors throughout, no picture rails, no fireplaces. The clean is then weighted to the kitchen, the bathroom sealant and glass, the white walls that mark where furniture stood, and the windows, with no carpet shampoo needed because there is no carpet. The flat-rate price by bedroom count still applies.

Do I need to be there while you clean?

No. Most tenants here leave a key, a code or a concierge arrangement on the newer blocks and are not in during the clean. Just make sure we can get in and that the flat is clear of your belongings, because we clean an empty flat to inventory standard, not around boxes and bags.

How far ahead should I book?

A few days is usually enough, but turnover around the market is quick and the last days of the month fill first, so book as soon as you have a check-out date. Booking ahead also leaves a margin for the 48-hour re-clean guarantee to work before the deposit decision is made.

Can you itemise the oven separately on the invoice?

Yes. The oven is included in the flat-rate clean, but if your agent or landlord wants it shown as its own line we can split it out: £77 for a single, £110 for a double and £114 for a 90cm range. It is the most common single deduction we see in a check-out here, so a clear record that it was done is often worth having.

Other Monster Cleaning services in The Blue

Staying put rather than moving out? We also offer carpet cleaning in The Blue, oven cleaning in The Blue and domestic cleaning in The Blue.