Hackney Central reads off the same list as Dalston: a two bedroom move-out is £243, or £274 once the oven goes on top. The local zone here runs until 11pm, well past our own zone C, so evening slots fit neatly.
Ten minutes east, and a completely different high street
Hackney Central is a short run along Dalston Lane, and it is the civic end of the borough rather than the market end. The town hall, the Hackney Empire and the Narrow Way running through the middle of it, with flats above nearly every shopfront on both sides. One stop separates Dalston Kingsland from Hackney Central on the Mildmay line, which is why this is the corner of the round reachable at the shortest notice and why a cleaner without a van is here inside a quarter of an hour.
Flats over shops, and the staircase between them
The streets off the Narrow Way are commercial at ground level with two or three flats above, reached through one door squeezed between two shopfronts and up a staircase that turns twice. Those are quick check-outs because the flats are small, and they get booked either side of the middle of the day, clear of the Saturday shopping crowd. Everything goes up in loads, so the £77 single oven that takes two hours in a ground floor kitchen wants a longer slot on a second floor flat with no lift.
Keys, agents and the same-day handback
Half our check-outs here run on a key collected from a letting agent up the road and dropped back the same afternoon. Tell us which office. We also need the name the key is held under, because a desk will not release it otherwise. Where the agent shuts at five, the clean gets booked in the morning so the key goes back the same day and nobody spends a Saturday chasing anybody. It is a small piece of admin that decides whether a deposit conversation starts on the Monday or the following Friday.
What gets booked here
Move-outs, by a distance. The tenancies over the shops turn over fast and the agents want a flat finished the morning after the keys come back, so the banded move-out price is what most callers ring about. Ovens come second, then carpets, then a steady handful of weekly houses on the streets running north towards Clapton. Scale is the item marked down most often on the check-out reports we see back from this area, which is the water rather than the tenants, and the descaling time is already inside the band.
Every figure, unchanged by the postcode
Studio £156, one bedroom £207, two bedrooms £243, three £339 and four £425, with any oven added as a line of its own. Carpets by the room: £36 a bedroom, £43 a living room, £61 a through lounge, £41 a flight, and rugs £35 or £51 either side of 3 sq m. A single oven is £77, a double £110, a 90cm range £143 and a two oven AGA also £143, with hobs at £23 and extractors at £28. Weekly housework is £23 per cleaner per hour, fortnightly £24, ironing £12 an hour on top. Team deep cleans run £186 to £498.
Ring even if you are further out than the town hall. The van comes back through Dalston at the end of the day and there is usually room left in the run. What the rest of the round books is on the areas page, every figure is on the prices page, and 020 8077 6967 is answered from 8am to 7pm daily.
Questions we get asked
Do you charge more to come to Hackney Central?
No. It is the same list as Dalston with nothing for travel. A two bedroom move-out is £243 in both, and a bedroom carpet is £36 in both.
How late can you work in Hackney Central?
Cleaners are out until 7pm every day at the ordinary rate, so an after-work slot is easy to arrange here.
Can you clean a flat above a shop on the Narrow Way?
Regularly. The staircases turn twice, so those jobs get booked away from the busy middle of the day and the kit goes up in loads. It lengthens the slot rather than the price.
Can you work around a letting agent’s key?
Yes, and most check-outs here do. Give us the office and the name the key is held under, since the desk will not hand it over otherwise. If the agent shuts at five we book the morning so the key goes back the same day.
Prefer the phone? 020 8077 6967, 8am to 7pm.