Local end of tenancy cleaning in Woolwich Common

If you have cleaned a flat in one of the ex-services blocks behind Academy Road before, you already know where the inventory clerk is going to head first: the bathroom sealant, the showerhead, and the kitchen extractor. Those three spots are where Woolwich Common deposits quietly disappear. We are Monster Cleaning Ltd, we have done end-of-tenancy work across this corner of SE18 since 2014, and the rest of this page is how we hand a flat back here so the clerk has nothing to write on the form.

Last updated April 2026. The pricing, the 57-point checklist and the re-clean terms below apply to the streets and estates around Woolwich Common, Ha-Ha Road, Academy Road and the Shooters Hill Road side of SE18; the legal references point to current gov.uk and legislation.gov.uk pages.

We clean end-of-tenancy flats around Woolwich Common from £207 for a one-bed and £243 for a two-bed, worked against a 57-point agent-approved checklist with a 48-hour re-clean guarantee. That is the short version. Everything below it is the detail, because on this side of Woolwich the detail is the whole argument with the clerk.

Why Woolwich Common deposits get deducted

The housing around the common is a real mix and it pays to be honest about it. There is a legacy of ex-MoD and former services accommodation tied to the Royal Artillery Barracks and the old Royal Military Academy. There are post-war estate blocks. There are tighter Victorian and Edwardian terraces as the ground climbs toward Shooters Hill, and a thread of ex-local-authority flats threaded through the lot. The clean a clerk expects does not change between them. What changes is which fault each property type throws up, and after years working SE18 we can usually call it before the kettle is on.

Here is the thing landlords and agents do not say out loud. The deposit dispute is rarely about something you broke. It is about the standard of clean against the check-in inventory, and that report was written the day the flat was empty and the surfaces were bare. You are cleaning around a sofa, a bed and two years of life. The clerk compares it to a photograph of an empty flat. That gap is where the money goes, and it is the gap a proper end-of-tenancy clean is built to close.

Deductions also get bigger because the agent does not send you a cleaner at a fair rate. They send their own contractor, bill it to the deposit, and add a margin. We have seen one-bed re-clean charges around Woolwich come back at well over double what an honest end-of-tenancy clean costs. The point of doing it right the first time is not tidiness for its own sake. It is keeping your own money in your own account.

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 and what it changed

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 reached the statute book and shifted the ground under deposit disputes. It abolished Section 21 no-fault evictions and tightened how landlords can recover money at the end of a tenancy, which in practice means a deduction has to be evidenced properly rather than merely asserted. You can read the Act itself on legislation.gov.uk, and the plain-English government summary sits on gov.uk. What it does not do is remove the cleaning standard. If the inventory says the flat was professionally cleaned at check-in, the landlord can still hold back money for cleaning at check-out if the evidence supports it. The Act makes the evidence test stricter on both sides. A documented professional clean is now a stronger card in your hand than it was, not a weaker one.

Your deposit should be in one of the government-backed schemes. If it is held with the Tenancy Deposit Scheme or with mydeposits, you can raise a dispute and the adjudicator decides on the paperwork. Photographs, the check-in inventory and a dated professional cleaning receipt carry real weight there. Shelter has a clear walkthrough of the dispute route on shelter.org.uk if you want to understand the process before you reach the end of your tenancy.

The Royal Borough of Greenwich and the local quirks that catch people out

This is Royal Borough of Greenwich territory, and the council runs the bin and bulky-waste rules that quietly cost tenants their last weekend. Move-out furniture and a flat’s worth of boxes do not vanish on their own, and a fly-tipped sofa left by the bin store on Frances Street or down Ha-Ha Road comes straight back to the outgoing tenant if anyone clocks it. Book a bulky collection through the Royal Borough of Greenwich in good time, because the slots fill and a missed collection is the difference between a clean handover and an argument.

The other local fact that matters is the water. SE18 sits in the Thames Water supply zone, and Thames Water’s own hardness figures put this part of London at roughly 276 milligrams of calcium carbonate per litre, which is firmly in the very hard band. Thames Water publishes the data by area. In a flat near the common that means scale builds fast on the showerhead, the kettle, the taps and the glass screen, and it builds whether you notice it or not. The check-in inventory rarely flags scale because a new tenancy starts with it cleaned off. By the end of two or three years it is the single most common thing a clerk rings around the bathroom and the kitchen, so it is the thing we plan the most time for on this side of Woolwich.

Monster came on a Wednesday, the day before my check-out, for a one-bed in one of the post-war ex-services blocks off Repository Road, near the Common. I had been there a little over three years, on my own, and I had kept the place tidy without ever deep-cleaning it properly. The flat read fine to me. The one thing the clerk’s check-in report had gone over in real detail was the bathroom. Three years of showering with the window painted shut had grown a dark band of mould along the sealant where the bath meets the tiles and up into the corner of the cubicle, the sort that goes back the moment you wipe it because it is in the silicone, not on it. The team raked the old sealant out, treated the substrate, ran a clean bead and brought the grout back, and the clerk did not so much as pause at the bathroom door. I billed four hours plus the carpet shampoo on the bedroom and got the whole £900 deposit back with nothing held. The agent’s own quote to redo it would have taken a chunk of that.

Streets and inspection patterns around Woolwich Common

We cover the full spread of SE18 around the common. The streets and zones we are in most weeks:

• Ha-Ha Road and Circular Way along the common’s edge
• Academy Road and the Shooters Hill Road frontage
• Repository Road and Nightingale Vale
• Frances Street, Red Barracks Road and Borgard Road
• Artillery Place and Hillreach toward the town
• Stadium Road and the blocks behind the barracks
• The ex-services and post-war estate blocks set back off Academy Road
• Charlton Park Lane where it runs up from the common
• The Edwardian and Victorian terraces climbing toward Shooters Hill
• The ex-local-authority flats threaded across the SE18 4 and SE18 5 postcodes

What the inventory clerks actually flag here follows the building type closely. In the post-war and ex-services blocks off Repository Road and behind the barracks the recurring problems are bathroom sealant mould, a furred showerhead and tap, and the kitchen extractor canopy where the grease has gone amber and tacky because the fan was never run. Those flats often have small bathrooms with a window painted shut, so condensation has nowhere to go and the silicone discolours fast. In the terraced houses going up toward Shooters Hill the clerk’s torch goes to skirting and the tops of door architraves, to the inside of the sash boxes and the runners where they survive, and to the kitchen floor edges. The ex-local-authority flats throw up scuffed magnolia hallway paint and scratched vinyl more than anything else, plus the airing cupboard, which on this side of Woolwich is where a clerk will genuinely spend several minutes because tenants almost never clean it. The water-spot film on shower glass and chrome is the one constant across every property type around the common, and it is the one we never under-quote the time for, because the hard water here puts it back quickly and a clerk catches it under a side light every time.

What is included in an end-of-tenancy clean

End of tenancy is the hand-back clean. Deep cleaning is for a flat you are staying in. A regular clean is for keeping it ticking over. What follows is the first one, the full clean against the inventory.

Kitchen

The kitchen takes the longest because it is where the most money rides. We pull the cooker out where it moves and clean behind and down the sides. The oven is stripped to the door glass, the racks, the liners and the inner roof, and degreased back. The extractor canopy and the filter come down and get cleaned, because around the common that fan rarely ran and the grease on it is what a clerk reaches up and checks. Cupboards inside and out, the tops of the wall units, the splashback, the worktops, the sink and the taps descaled, the floor done last and into the edges. The tops of the wall units catch people every time. You do not see them at standing height. The clerk has a step.

Bathrooms

Bathrooms are scored on scale and on mould, in that order, because of the water here. The showerhead and the taps get descaled until the chrome is clear, never only wiped over. The glass screen is taken back to no film. We go at the sealant and grout properly, and where the mould is in the silicone rather than on it we will say so and raise it before we start, because that is a recut bead, not a wipe, and it is the most common bathroom flag on the post-war blocks here. Toilet, cistern, the hinge points, extractor vent, mirror, floor.

Bedrooms and living rooms

Skirting, the tops of the door architraves, picture rails where the older terraces have them, switches and sockets wiped, inside the windows and the frames, the runners and the boxes on the sashes where they are still in place. Wardrobes and any fitted storage cleared and wiped inside. Carpets vacuumed thoroughly, and where the inventory marks them we will quote a shampoo rather than pretend a vacuum does it. Skirting behind where the bed was is a routine flag and we do not skip it.

Throughout

The airing cupboard, which around Woolwich Common the clerk genuinely checks, so it is on the list. The hallway and stair walls for scuffs, every internal door top and edge, the entrance door, light fittings, vents and trickle vents, the meter cupboard, and a final pass on every floor in the order that keeps it clean. Then one of us walks the whole flat against the 57-point checklist as if we were the clerk, not the cleaner, before we hand it over.

What it costs

Pricing for an end-of-tenancy clean around Woolwich Common is fixed by flat size, no hourly creep. Studios start at £156. One-beds are £207. Two-beds £243. Three-beds £339. Four-beds £425. If you would rather book an hourly team for a part-job it is £30 a cleaner an hour, though for a full hand-back the fixed price almost always works out better and you know the number up front. Add-ons are priced the same way: a carpet shampoo is £36 per bedroom, £43 for a living room or £115 for whole-flat carpet on a two-bed; an oven deep-clean is £77 for a single, £110 for a double and £114 for a 90cm range. The figures here are the standard SE18 rate, the same as the rest of the borough, with nothing loaded on for the postcode.

End of tenancy versus a deep clean versus a regular clean

People mix these up and book the wrong one. A regular clean keeps a lived-in flat presentable week to week. A deep clean is heavier and goes after the build-up, but it is aimed at a home you are staying in, so it is not measured against an inventory. An end-of-tenancy clean is the only one written and timed against the check-in report and the clerk’s eye, which is why it costs what it costs and why it is the one that protects the deposit. If you are moving out, this is the one. If you are unsure, ring and describe the flat and we will tell you straight which you actually need rather than upsell the bigger job.

How booking works

1. Call 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] with the postcode, the number of bedrooms and your check-out date.
2. We give you a fixed price on the spot from the sizes above, plus any carpet or oven add-on if you want it, and we tell you how long the team will need.
3. We confirm a slot, ideally the day before your check-out so the flat is empty and stays clean for the inventory.
4. The team cleans against the 57-point checklist and one of them walks it back as the clerk would before leaving.
5. If the clerk flags something we genuinely missed, we come back inside the 48-hour re-clean guarantee and put it right at no extra cost.

It is honest work for a fixed price.

Related services and nearby areas

End of tenancy is one job; sometimes you need a single part of it done harder. We run a dedicated oven deep-cleaning service and a separate carpet cleaning service for when the inventory only really argues over the cooker or the bedroom carpet, and an upholstery cleaning service for furnished lets where the sofa is on the inventory too. We work right across the borough; this page sits under our end of tenancy cleaning in Greenwich hub, and if you are nearer the river the Royal Arsenal end of tenancy page covers the concierge towers at Woolwich.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is end of tenancy cleaning around Woolwich Common?

A studio is £156, a one-bed £207, a two-bed £243, a three-bed £339 and a four-bed £425. Carpet shampoo and oven deep-cleans are priced on top: £36 a bedroom or £115 whole-flat carpet on a two-bed, and £77 to £114 for the oven by type. It is the standard SE18 rate with nothing added for the postcode.

Do you guarantee the clean if the inventory clerk is not happy?

Yes. Every end-of-tenancy clean carries a 48-hour re-clean guarantee. If the clerk flags something we genuinely missed, we come back inside three days and put it right at no extra charge. It is backed by a 97% first-time pass rate, so the return visit is rare, but the guarantee is there.

What is your first-time pass rate?

97% of our end-of-tenancy cleans pass the check-out inspection first time with no re-clean needed. We work against the same 57-point agent-approved checklist used across the corpus of letting agents we deal with, and one of the team walks the flat back as the clerk would before we leave.

How do I get my deposit back if the landlord still deducts for cleaning?

If your deposit is in a scheme like the Tenancy Deposit Scheme or mydeposits, you can raise a dispute and an adjudicator decides on the evidence. A dated professional cleaning receipt, photographs and the check-in inventory carry real weight. Shelter has a clear guide to the process. We have helped recover over £1.2m in deposits for tenants doing exactly this.

Has the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 changed end-of-tenancy cleaning?

It tightened the evidence test for deductions and abolished Section 21, but it did not remove the cleaning standard. If the check-in inventory says the flat was professionally cleaned, the landlord can still hold money back for cleaning if the evidence supports it. A documented professional clean is a stronger card under the new rules, not a weaker one.

Do you clean the ex-services and post-war estate flats near the barracks?

Yes, that is a lot of our work around the common. Those flats most often fail on bathroom sealant mould, a furred showerhead and a greasy kitchen extractor canopy, because the bathrooms are small and the extractor fan rarely got run. We plan the most time for exactly those three things on this side of Woolwich.

Is the water around Woolwich Common hard enough to matter for the clean?

Very. Thames Water’s own figures put SE18 at roughly 276 milligrams of calcium carbonate per litre, firmly in the very hard band. Scale builds fast on the showerhead, taps, kettle and glass screen, and it is the most common single thing a clerk rings around a bathroom and kitchen here, so we never under-quote the descaling time.

Can you come the day before my check-out?

That is the slot we recommend. The flat needs to be empty and stay clean for the inventory, so the day before check-out is ideal. Tell us your date when you book and we will hold a slot that lines up with the clerk’s appointment rather than days before it.

Do I need to be there while you clean?

No. Most clients hand us a key or leave it with the agent or a neighbour. We let ourselves in, clean against the checklist, and confirm when it is done. If you would rather be there for the walk-round at the end that is fine too.

How long does an end-of-tenancy clean take around Woolwich Common?

A one-bed is usually most of half a day; a three-bed can run a full day with a two-person team. The bathroom descaling and the kitchen extractor are what stretch it on the post-war blocks here, which is why we quote the time honestly up front rather than rush the two things the clerk checks hardest.

Do you bring your own equipment and products?

Yes, everything. The team arrives with the machines, the descalers, the degreasers and a carpet machine when a shampoo is booked. You do not need to leave anything behind or have the utilities reconnected beyond water and power being on.

What if the flat has been empty and just needs freshening, not a full clean?

Ring and say so. If it genuinely only needs a light pass we will book an hourly team at £30 a cleaner rather than sell you the full fixed-price hand-back. We would rather quote you the right job than the big one.

Do you work with the letting agents around Woolwich and Plumstead?

We clean to the standard the agents on this side of the borough inspect to, and our checklist is the one used across the 300+ letting agents we deal with. We do not need to be on an agent’s panel to clean a flat their clerk will pass; the work and the receipt speak for themselves at the inventory.

Is the price really fixed, or does it climb on the day?

Fixed by flat size. The studio-to-four-bed prices above are the number, plus only the carpet or oven add-ons you choose at booking. There is no hourly creep on a fixed end-of-tenancy clean and no postcode loading for SE18.