An inventory clerk in West Malling runs a finger along the top of a ceiling beam before they look at much else, because in a timber-framed cottage off the High Street that grey beam-dust is where deposits quietly go.
So end-of-tenancy cleaning here has to suit two very different jobs: the period houses around the conservation core, and the sealed new-builds out at Kings Hill on the old airfield. We are Monster Cleaning Ltd, we work all of ME19, and we clean to a 57-point agent-approved checklist, a fixed price by bedroom count, with a 48-hour re-clean guarantee. Ring 0333 555 2076 for a price.
Last updated June 2026. We cover the whole of ME19: West Malling, Kings Hill, and the villages at Offham, Leybourne, Ryarsh and Addington. This page sits inside the county directory at End of Tenancy Cleaning Kent.
Two towns in one postcode, and why the clean splits
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
Most areas we cover are one kind of place. West Malling is two, sharing a postcode and almost nothing else.
The old market town
To the north and west sits the old market town, and behind those Georgian fronts a lot of the buildings are genuinely medieval:
- a mainly Georgian High Street
- listed coaching inns like the Swan
- half-timbered jetted houses up King Street
- the Wealden cottages on St Leonard’s Street
- St Leonard’s Tower, a Norman keep Bishop Gundulf put up before 1108
- the grounds of St Mary’s Abbey
Kings Hill
South of the town is Kings Hill, a development begun in 1989 on the old RAF West Malling airfield, now thousands of houses and flats, a business park, and the Asda and Waitrose at Liberty Square. One station, West Malling, serves both.
That split is the whole job here.
- A two-bed flat on Kings Hill
- A clean with no surprises: sealed surfaces, modern bathroom, an oven and an en-suite to focus on.
- A timber-framed cottage of the same bedroom count off Swan Street
- It can take twice as long, because of the beams, the uneven lime plaster, the period bathroom and very often an open hearth or a wood-burner.
We price and time the two differently, and we tell you which one you have before anything is booked.
A Kings Hill flat is a clean with no surprises. A cottage off the High Street of the same size can take twice as long.
That is the Kings Hill pattern: a modern house, two busy professional tenants, an oven and a scale problem in the bathroom, and a clerk who opens both first. The conservation core throws up the opposite job, which is the rest of this page.
How the check-out report decides who keeps the deposit
Start with the document, because it runs everything.
- When you moved in, a clerk walked the property and wrote a check-in report describing every surface, usually with photographs.
- At the end of the tenancy a clerk walks it again and compares, line by line.
- Anything materially worse than the check-in entry, beyond fair wear and tear, can be charged against your deposit.
Your money is held in one of the three approved schemes, and a landlord can only take from it for genuine, evidenced damage or cleaning that falls below the check-in standard.
None of that helps if the property is honestly under standard. It helps enormously if it is clean and the clerk has nothing to photograph.
In West Malling the deductions cluster in three predictable places, and they are mostly a function of the housing stock, not tenant neglect.
- First, the hard water, which sets scale on every tap and screen over a tenancy.
- Second, the period detail in the older houses: the dust that settles on picture rails, dado rails, deep skirting, beam tops and the tops of panelled doors, plus the soot bloom above an open fire or wood-burner.
- Third, the oven and the kitchen extraction, which bite hardest in the bigger family kitchens where a couple of years of real cooking has baked carbon onto the glass and the hood filter.
A second thing genuinely affects the work in the old town, and it is worth stating plainly. A great deal of the core is listed or sits in the conservation area, and what you may do to original fabric is constrained.
You do not take an abrasive or a steam lance to any of these:
- old lime plaster
- hand-made brick around a hearth
- a stone flag
- unpainted period oak
Get that wrong and a cleaning question becomes a damage question, which is far worse for a deposit.
We clean those surfaces by the method the material wants, gently and dry where that is right, and we will tell you when something is age and patina rather than dirt.
A clerk who knows the local stock will not mark down a four-hundred-year-old beam for looking its age. A general cleaner who only works modern flats tends to get exactly that judgement wrong.
What the 1 May 2026 change did to West Malling move-outs
The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 came into force on 1 May 2026.
- Section 21
- No-fault eviction is gone.
- Existing tenancies
- Every existing assured shorthold tenancy in England has converted to a periodic tenancy.
- Notice
- A tenant can give two months’ notice at any point rather than waiting for a fixed term to end.
The full text of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 is on the statute book if you want the detail.
Here is the part people get wrong. The cleaning side of a move-out did not change at all:
- the check-in benchmark still applies
- the deposit rules still apply
- the maths is what it was the week before
What changed is timing. West Malling and Kings Hill already churn, full of London commuters on shortish lets, and a rolling two months’ notice instead of a fixed end date makes move-outs more frequent and harder to predict.
The practical takeaway is dull and it pays for itself: book the clean earlier than you used to, because the slot you want goes if you wait.
What 258 ppm water does to an ME19 bathroom
West Malling sits in South East Water‘s supply area, and the ME19 hardness runs around 258 parts per million, which is firmly hard.
That is the chalk-aquifer water most of this part of Kent draws, and over a tenancy it leaves a dull mineral film on:
- chrome taps
- the shower screen
- the tile grout
- the kettle
Tenants who never noticed it day to day are startled by how grey the bathroom looks under a clerk’s torch. The bathroom is the room clerks here mark down most often, and it is the room we give the most time.
We take the scale off the taps, the shower head, the screen, the tiles and the grout lines with a proper descaler, not a quick wipe that leaves the etching behind.
In the period houses the chrome and the fittings are sometimes old, so the brute-force approach a newer flat would shrug off is the wrong one, and we adjust. The kettle and the shower head get done too, because both hold scale a clerk will spot.
That is the quiet advantage of the hard-water angle. Scale is predictable, it always builds, and a clerk always checks it. If you deal with it properly the bathroom stops being where the deposit leaks.
The 57 things we work through, room by room
The same 57-point checklist runs on every property, period cottage or Kings Hill flat. It is the list the local letting agents sign off against, so it is built around what a clerk in this area actually photographs. The full list comes with the job.
Kitchen
The oven, an add-on from £31, is scrubbed, not wiped:
- the door glass cleaned and the film between the panels cleared where the model allows
- the runners and the racks soaked
- the interior, fan and seals done
Then the rest of the kitchen:
- Hob, splashback and the extractor hood with its filter degreased.
- The freestanding cooker and the fridge-freezer pulled out where they move, and the floor and wall behind them cleaned.
- Sink and taps descaled.
- Cupboards and drawers wiped inside and out, fronts included.
- Bin area cleaned.
- Hard floor washed, the edge and the strip behind the door done by hand.
Bathrooms
This is the hard-water room and it takes the most time.
- Scale off the taps, the shower head, the screen, the tiles and the grout.
- Toilet done properly, the hinges and the base included.
- Bath and basin brought back to a real finish.
- Mirror and any glass shelf left streak-free.
- Extractor vent cover wiped.
- Floor washed into the corners and behind the pedestal.
Bedrooms and living rooms
- Carpets vacuumed throughout, edges and under anything that moves included.
- In the period houses, the picture-rail, dado and beam dust dealt with by hand, top down.
- Skirting, sockets and switch plates wiped.
- Doors cleaned, the top edge and the frame too.
- Windows cleaned inside, the sills and reveals included, with slow, careful work on the older box-framed and timber casements.
- Fireplace surrounds and hearths cleaned, and the soot shadow on the wall above an open fire or burner addressed.
Throughout
- Light fittings, the tops of doors, picture rails, dado rails and any exposed beams dusted.
- Bannisters and the stair carpet done.
- Internal glass and mirrors polished.
- Cobwebs out of the ceiling corners.
- Hard floors washed throughout.
The property is left so a clerk can run a white cloth along a beam and find nothing on it.
The property is left so a clerk can run a white cloth along a beam and find nothing on it.
What it costs, and the maths nobody runs in time
These are our rates for West Malling and Kings Hill, the same list for both. The figure is the figure: we confirm it before we book, and nothing is added on the day.
| Property | Typical duration | Estimated cost |
|---|---|---|
| Studio (Kings Hill flat) | 3-4 hours, 1 cleaner | £176 |
| 1 bedroom | 4-5 hours, 1-2 cleaners | £227 |
| 2 bedroom (Kings Hill flat or town cottage) | 5-7 hours, 2 cleaners | £263 |
| 3 bedroom (period house or Kings Hill townhouse) | 6-8 hours, 2 cleaners | £359 |
| 4 bedroom (larger period house) | 8-10 hours, 2-3 cleaners | £445 |
If you would rather pay by time, for a part-occupied house or a clean on top of a clearance, it is £30 per cleaner per hour.
Add-ons are priced separately, because not every tenancy needs them.
- Carpet shampoo
- £29 a bedroom, £36 for a living room, or £94 for two bedrooms and a living room done in one go. In the older houses with a carpeted lounge, this is the add-on we recommend most, because a ground-in lounge carpet is one of the commonest deductions.
- Oven, added to the end-of-tenancy price
- £31, or £62 for a double or a 90cm range.
- Oven, as a standalone job
- £97 for a single, £130 for a double and £163 for a 90cm range, which is worth knowing because the bigger period kitchens here often run a range cooker.
Now the maths, run the way the deposit makes you. A typical West Malling tenancy deposit is several thousand pounds, capped by law at five weeks’ rent where the annual rent is under £50,000, or six weeks at or above that.
A two-bed clean at £263 against a deposit of two or three thousand is not really a decision, and a £40 saving on the clean is a poor trade against a £300 cleaning deduction.
Why we are not the cheapest quote in your inbox is the same answer everywhere we work. The 48-hour re-clean guarantee is real and it costs us money to honour, so we resource the first clean properly rather than rushing it and arguing later.
The record behind it:
- a 57-point agent-approved checklist
- £1.2m in deposits recovered for tenants who would otherwise have lost part of it
- 300+ letting agents across the South East referring tenants to us, including the Kings Hill office of Wards on Liberty Square
The guarantee is the point: a failed check-out is not a small thing when deposits run to thousands.
What your clerk actually opens first
It helps to know what you are being judged against. In rough order of how often it costs West Malling tenants money:
- Oven interior, door glass and the extractor filter. The first thing opened, and it sets the tone for the whole inspection.
- Limescale on the bathroom taps, the shower screen, the head and the tile grout. The ME19 water makes this worse than tenants expect.
- Picture-rail, dado, beam and door-top dust in the period houses. The single most-missed item in the conservation streets.
- Fireplace and wood-burner surrounds, and the soot shadow on the wall above them.
- Carpet edges and the tracks under furniture, plus any ground-in marks in the lounge.
- Window sills, reveals and the inside glass, especially the older timber and box-framed windows.
- Inside cupboards, drawers and the airing cupboard, which clerks in older houses always open.
- Skirting, sockets and switch plates, and the cobwebs in high corners and on the stairs.
A clerk who finds the first two clean tends to relax. A clerk who finds them dirty checks the other six twice as hard.
That is the whole psychology of a check-out, and it is why the oven and the bathroom are never where we cut time.
One genuine local point on the council, because tenants ask.
- Mandatory HMO licence
- Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council runs only the standard mandatory HMO licence, the one for larger shared houses of five or more people from more than one household.
- Additional or selective licensing
- The council has not brought in any additional or selective scheme covering ordinary family lets in West Malling.
- Licensed HMOs
- Only around two dozen in the whole borough.
For most tenants here that means your deposit return is governed by your tenancy agreement and the inventory, not by any extra council inspection, so the check-out report is the document that decides it.
You can confirm the current position on the council’s housing pages.
End of tenancy, deep clean, regular clean: which one you want
People mix these up and book the wrong one. The distinction is simple once it is laid out.
- Check-in inventory report
- The document a clerk writes on day one, describing every surface with photos. It is the benchmark your check-out is judged against, which is why we clean to it and not to a vague idea of clean.
- End-of-tenancy clean
- The hand-back clean, measured against that inventory and aimed at the deposit, with the property empty and the 48-hour re-clean on it. This is the one priced above and the one you want if a clerk and a deposit are involved.
- Deep clean
- A reset for a property you are keeping and living in, with no clerk and no benchmark to hit. From £206, which covers two cleaners for at least three hours and the kit.
- Regular clean
- Ongoing upkeep, weekly or fortnightly, to keep a home ticking over. Priced from £23 an hour on a weekly visit.
Booking it, and working back from the clerk
Timing here ties to the railway, and it is worth planning around. West Malling station is on the Maidstone East line, with Southeastern services into London Victoria taking around an hour, which is why so many tenants are London commuters and why check-outs are so often a weekday morning before work.
The clerk usually walks the property early, sometimes before nine, and a clean done the day before is fresher than one squeezed in around a removals van on the same morning.
The M20 at junction four sits two miles off at Kings Hill, so our crews reach both halves of ME19 without the parking grief of central London, and we can hold an early slot the day before your check-out reliably. Tell us the clerk’s appointment time and we work back from it.
- Call 0333 555 2076 or email office@monstercleaning.com with the address, the bedroom count and your check-out date.
- We tell you straight whether yours is a conservation-core property or a Kings Hill one, give you a fixed price and a realistic time on site.
- We clean to the 57-point checklist, ideally the day before or the morning of your check-out so the property is fresh for the clerk.
- If the clerk or agent queries any cleaning item, tell us within 48 hours and we come back within 48 hours and put it right at no extra cost.
Monster Cleaning Ltd has cleaned end-of-tenancy properties since 2014. We are not a national call centre that subcontracts the job. When you ring, you get told the truth about what your property needs and what it costs.
Questions we get asked
How much is end-of-tenancy cleaning in West Malling?
A studio is £176, a one-bed £227, a two-bed £263, a three-bed £359 and a four-bed £445. A part property or an unusual layout is £30 per cleaner per hour. We quote a fixed price before we book and we do not add to it on the day.
Do the period houses off the High Street cost more than Kings Hill flats?
The headline price is by bedroom count, the same list for both. But a timber-framed cottage off Swan Street takes longer than a Kings Hill flat of the same size, because of the beams, the period bathroom and the hearth, so for time-based jobs it works out higher. We tell you which type yours is, and what to expect, before you commit.
Is the West Malling water really that hard?
Yes. South East Water supplies ME19 from chalk aquifers and the hardness runs around 258 parts per million, which is firmly in the hard band. It is why scale builds on taps, shower screens and kettles over a tenancy, and why the bathroom is the room clerks here most often mark down.
Does Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council require a licence that affects my deposit?
For an ordinary family let, no. The council runs only the standard mandatory HMO licence for larger shared houses, and has not introduced any additional or selective licensing scheme in West Malling. Your deposit return is decided by your tenancy agreement and the inventory, so the check-out report is the document that matters.
Can you clean original beams and lime plaster without damaging them?
Yes, and we adjust the method to the material. We do not take abrasives or a steam lance to old lime plaster, hand-made brick, a stone hearth or unpainted period oak. We clean those by hand, gently and dry where that is right, and we will tell you plainly when something is age and patina rather than dirt, so a clerk is not asked to mark down fabric that was already like that at check-in.
What is the 48-hour re-clean guarantee?
If the inventory clerk or the agent queries any cleaning item we were responsible for, tell us within 48 hours of the clean and we return and put it right at no extra charge. It is the same crew and it is treated as priority work.
Can you clean the day of the check-out?
Usually yes. The day before or the morning of the check-out is ideal, so the property is fresh when the clerk walks it. Give us the check-out time when you book and we plan the slot around it, working back from the clerk’s appointment.
Do you move furniture and white goods?
We move freestanding furniture and freestanding appliances such as the cooker and the fridge-freezer where it is safe to, and we clean behind and under them. Built-in units we clean in place. We do not unplumb integrated machines.
Is carpet cleaning included?
Vacuuming is included. A wet shampoo or extraction is a separate add-on: £29 a bedroom, £36 a living room, or £94 for two bedrooms and a living room. In the older houses with carpeted lounges we usually recommend it, because a ground-in lounge carpet is a common deduction.
Do you clean ovens and range cookers properly?
Yes. The oven is an add-on to the end-of-tenancy price, from £31, and it is cleaned properly by hand, glass and runners included. Many of the bigger period kitchens here have a 90cm range; as a standalone job a single oven is £97, a double £130 and a 90cm range £163.
Do you cover Kings Hill and the villages around West Malling?
Yes, all of ME19: Kings Hill, plus Offham, Leybourne, Ryarsh and Addington. The Kings Hill houses and flats are modern and sealed, so they clean quickly; the village cottages are much like the West Malling conservation stock, so the approach and the pricing match the old town.
Do you guarantee I get my full deposit back?
No honest cleaner can promise that, because the deposit also depends on damage, decoration and unpaid rent, which are not cleaning. What we guarantee is the cleaning standard and the 48-hour re-clean.
Other Monster Cleaning services in West Malling
Staying put rather than moving out? We also offer carpet cleaning in West Malling, oven cleaning in West Malling and domestic cleaning in West Malling.