Tilbury’s homes, from the dock streets to Chadwell
Tilbury was built for its docks: a town laid out on marshland from the 1880s, with streets named after Calcutta, Montreal and Melbourne and later estates spreading north towards Chadwell St Mary. We clean its rented homes at the end of a tenancy for a fixed price by size, from £176 for a studio, with the oven and carpets added only when your inventory needs them.
Last updated October 2026.
The East and West India Dock Company opened Tilbury Docks on 17 April 1886, on marsh at the southern end of Chadwell St Mary parish. The workers who dug them were put in temporary huts or walked in from the villages, and the permanent housing that came after, including tenement blocks, was poorly built.
The town stayed in a poor state until government money arrived in 1918. In the early 1930s the district council laid out the Civic Square, with a clock tower war memorial finished in 1934 and the library and council offices behind it.
That history is still on the street map. Many roads in the older part of town carry the names of ports and cities of the old Empire: Calcutta Road, Quebec Road, Ottawa Road, Toronto Road, Sydney Road, Hobart Road.
North of the town the land rises off the old marsh towards Chadwell St Mary, West Tilbury and East Tilbury, and the RM18 postcode takes in housing from every decade since the docks opened. For the cleaner that can mean an old terrace with a steep staircase and sash runners, or a newer flat with a balcony door track and a communal stair that tenants have walked mud up for years.
On the edge of the RM18 postcode, East Tilbury has the Bata estate, the flat-roofed modernist village the Bata shoe company built for its workers from the 1930s. It is one of seven conservation areas in Thurrock, and we clean there too.
Who rents in Tilbury now
The town has about 14,000 people: 14,185 in the built-up area at the 2021 census, split between two council wards, Tilbury Riverside and Thurrock Park, and Tilbury St Chads. Across Thurrock, 18.3% of households rented privately in 2021, up from 14.1% in 2011, a rise bigger than the regional and national ones. Social renting was 17.7%.
The port is still the biggest thing in town. Owned by Forth Ports, it is one of Britain’s three major container ports, the main UK port for paper imports, and home to the London Cruise Terminal. Until containers arrived most of the town worked in the docks, and the jobs lost then were never made up. The c2c line into London Fenchurch Street gives tenants a direct commute as well.
Rents are well under London’s but not low for Essex. The ONS put Thurrock’s average at £1,380 a month in August 2026, against £1,289 across the East of England. A one-bed averaged £941, a two-bed £1,214, a three-bed £1,474 and four bedrooms or more £2,195, with three-bed rents up 5.1% in a year.
Tilbury end of tenancy prices
The price is set by size and assumes an empty home in normal end-of-tenancy condition.
| Property | Price |
|---|---|
| Studio or bedsit | £176 |
| One-bed flat | £227 |
| Two-bed flat or terraced house | £263 |
| Three-bed house | £359 |
| Four-bed house | £445 |
| Over four bedrooms | Quoted from the room count |
| A room in a shared house, or a part job | £30 per cleaner per hour |
Ovens are never included. With the clean, a single or single wide oven is £31, and a double or a 90cm range cooker £62, and our oven cleaning page covers the oven on its own. Carpets booked with the clean cost £29 a bedroom, £36 a living room, £47 a through lounge, £35 a flight of stairs, £20 a hallway and £8 a landing; a terrace with a carpeted staircase and landing adds both. For carpets alone, see carpet cleaning.
Not moving yet? A deep clean is from £206 (two cleaners, three hours minimum, kit included), and domestic cleaning is £23 an hour weekly or £24 fortnightly, from £69 a visit.
The clean, room by room
End of tenancy cleaning
from £176
For a studio, fixed by property size, agreed before we start.
Get your price0333 555 2076 · 8am to 7pm
Every clean follows our 57-point checklist. The cleaners start in the kitchen, because that is where a clerk looks first.
- Kitchen: inside and outside every cupboard and drawer, worktops, tiles and grout, the hob, the extractor hood and filter degreased, the sink and taps, the fridge and freezer (defrosted the night before, please), the washing machine drawer and seal, and the floor under anything that pulls out.
- Bathroom: scale and soap marks off the taps, shower and screen, the bath, basin and toilet including under the rim, tiles and grout scrubbed, the fan cover wiped.
- Bedrooms and living rooms: skirting, doors and frames, radiators, switches and sockets, sills, the inside of the windows, built-in wardrobes inside and out, then the floors.
- Stairs, halls and balconies: banisters and spindles, the meter cupboard, the front door, and the balcony floor and door track in flats.
The cleaners are vetted (we interview every one in person), insured and trained on that list. We have been doing this since 2014 across London and the areas around it, more than 300 letting agents use us, and tenants have won back £1.2m in deposits after our cleans. We are rated 4.7 on Google.
The cleaners start in the kitchen, because that is where a clerk looks first.
Selective licensing and your deposit
Thurrock now licenses most private lets. Selective licensing covers 16 of the borough’s 20 wards, including both Tilbury wards, and became enforceable from January 2026; a High Court judge refused permission for a judicial review that tried to stop it. Any privately rented home in those wards that is not an HMO, whether let to one person, a couple or a family, needs a licence.
Since 7 September 2025 an additional licence has also been needed in every ward for shared houses with three or four people from two or more households, and the national mandatory licence covers five or more. The council’s selective licensing page has the ward list and a map.
The licence is the landlord’s job, and it does not change how your deposit is handled. Your landlord or agent must put the deposit into one of three government-backed schemes (the Deposit Protection Service, mydeposits or the Tenancy Deposit Scheme) within 30 days of receiving it.
At the end, they must return it within 10 days of you both agreeing the amount. If you cannot agree, the money stays in the scheme while the dispute service decides, and it decides by setting the check-out report against the check-in inventory. A home cleaned back to the inventory leaves nothing to argue about.
The Tenant Fees Act 2019 stops a landlord from making a professional clean a condition of the tenancy. What you do owe is a home as clean as it was when you moved in, allowing for fair wear and tear.
Booking, and getting here
Get your price from the calculator at the top of the page, or call 0333 555 2076 between 8am and 7pm, seven days a week. Tell us the bedrooms, the floor, the date the keys go back and whether you want the oven or carpets done. The home should be empty, with the power and hot water on.
Tilbury Town station opened in 1885 as Tilbury Dock and took its present name in 1934. It is on the c2c line, publicly run since July 2025, with two trains an hour to London Fenchurch Street via Ockendon off-peak. The ferry across to Gravesend stopped running in 2024. If we have to pay for parking at your address, that cost goes on the quote at what we pay.
If the agent or clerk flags anything within 48 hours of the clean, our cleaners return and redo it for free. We work right along the Thames here: Grays, the next stop up the line, is under the same Thurrock licensing, and so is Stanford-le-Hope to the east. Other towns are on our Essex end of tenancy cleaning page.
Tilbury check-out questions
My landlord in Tilbury St Chads has no selective licence. Does that affect my check-out?
No. Licensing is between the landlord and Thurrock Council, and your clean is still judged against the check-in inventory. You can report an unlicensed let to the council separately.
I rent a room near the docks in a shared house. Do I pay for the whole house?
No. Book your own room and a fair share of the kitchen and bathroom by the hour, at £30 per cleaner. The last tenant out can book the whole house at the fixed price.
Is a two-bed terrace on Calcutta Road priced like a two-bed flat?
Yes, both are £263. The terrace has stairs and usually a back garden door, and the cleaners allow the time for them.
How quickly should I get my deposit back after the clean?
Within 10 days of you and the landlord agreeing the amount. If you disagree, the deposit scheme holds the money until its dispute service decides.
Do you clean the Bata houses in East Tilbury?
Yes. They are priced by bedrooms like any other home in RM18, so a two-bed is £263 and a three-bed £359.