Prices

This page carries every figure Monster Cleaning Dalston charges, with nothing saved up for the phone call. Your postcode plays no part in any of them, which is why a room of carpet costs the same in a conversion off Sandringham Road as it does in a flat over the station at Dalston Square. Where a job looks out of the ordinary, that gets raised while you are still deciding rather than once a van is parked on your street.

End of tenancy, by bedroom count

Take the band off the bedroom count on your own agreement. It is agreed before anything goes in the diary and no clock runs against it, which means a slow afternoon is our problem rather than yours. A loft room let as a bedroom moves the band up a step and bathrooms never move it at all. The cooker is added at £31, so a two bedroom flat with its oven is £274, and floors are counted on their own, which the end of tenancy page explains. Whatever a clerk queries inside 48 hours gets redone for nothing.

The one job with no printed band

Dalston produces more of these than anywhere else on the fleet, so it gets its own heading. A large share of the flats here are let room by room, which means the tenancy ending is one bedroom while the household carries on around it. The bands above price a whole property handed back empty, so they simply do not apply. That job is scoped on the call against the £67 one off minimum: your room, plus whichever share of the kitchen and bathroom your agreement makes you responsible for. Room count in the scope is the only variable, so a flat running two kitchens and two bathrooms takes longer to price than a one bedroom flat. Hand the whole flat back at once and the printed bands apply unchanged.

Carpets and rugs

Walkable in socks after two hours, dry through by the end of the day. Front and back rooms opened into a single space bill once, as a through lounge. Carpeted halls are £22 and a separate carpeted landing £9, since both want the small tool and slow detail passes instead of long sweeps. Rugs are cleaned where they lie, and one lying on top of fitted carpet is lifted out and billed as its own item rather than vanishing into the room rate. The rinse pass is softened and neutralised for nothing extra, since hard water left in a pale pile dries as a chalky bloom. Drying and stain care are both covered on the carpet page.

Stairs, and the sum that surprises people

A flight is £41 and each landing £9 on top. The flight costs that because every riser, nosing and spindle is worked by hand instead of swept in long passes. Try the sum on a two bedroom conversion that has taken the loft: bedrooms £72, hall £22, through lounge £61, two flights £82, two landings £18. That is £255 booked as a carpet job on its own. Put the carpets on the same visit as the £243 move-out band and the cheaper move-out scale applies instead, £29 a bedroom, £35 a flight and £8 a landing. Hardly anybody books the lot in one go. Through the winter the common booking is a hall, one flight and its landing, £72 on the list and clear of the £67 minimum, once a few weeks of pavement have been walked in. Four storey terraces in N16 run to three flights and three landings, and the stairs alone reach £150. Communal stairs in a converted house belong to the freeholder rather than to your tenancy.

Ovens and appliances

One appliance, one number. A single oven with a grill box above it is still a single. A double is counted once. Removable parts go in to soak while the fixed parts are done by hand at the cooker, and the cavity is wiped dry at the finish, so there is nothing to burn off and the appliance is ready for dinner that evening. The £143 AGA has to be completely cold when we arrive, so switch it off the night before and give a day’s notice. Ranges and AGAs turn up far more in the whole houses over towards De Beauvoir Town and up in N16 than in a flat conversion. The £28 extractor works hardest in the open plan warehouse kitchens behind the high street, where a recirculating hood puts grease straight back into the room. Catalytic liners are cleaned by hand, as the oven page explains.

Housework, hour by hour

A standing slot is never shorter than three hours. Ironing at £12 an hour goes on top of the cleaning time, so the kitchen keeps its full share. Around here it is the bathroom rather than the bedroom count that decides how long a visit needs, and that comes down to the water. What each length of visit gets through is on the regular cleaning page.

Team deep cleans

Every row is £26 a cleaner hour with £30 of kit added a single time, over a floor of two people for three hours. Smallest is £186 and largest is £498. Put your own vacuum and products out and the £30 goes. Finish early and the bill follows the hours actually worked. A pair across six hours and a trio across four are both £342, which makes that decision one about how long the flat is occupied rather than about money. In a narrow conversion two often beat three, because the hall is the only route between rooms and the third person spends the morning waiting in it. Where the hours go is described on the deep clean page.

Sofas, chairs, mattresses and curtains

Billed per item, never against a clock. Curtains are worked while still hanging so they cannot ride up off the sill, and virtually every long drop on this round comes off a tall first floor window in the De Beauvoir villas or one of the larger N16 terraces. Above a two seater there is no set rate. Covering, arm shape and whether the back cushions lift out are what separate an hour from an afternoon, so describe yours and a figure follows. Leather never meets a machine at all: a cleaner first, a conditioner second, both by hand.

How the £67 floor works

Almost every booking clears it. A lone small item such as a £36 bedroom carpet or a £23 hob bills at £67 on its own, so pairing two items in one morning brings each back to its list price. Hourly housework sits outside the rule.

Already inside the figure

Distance, whether that is up to N16 or out to the marsh end of E5. Descaling, which on this water is most of what cleaning a bathroom means. The minutes spent carrying kit up a Georgian staircase or standing about waiting for a goods lift. The hour and the day, since one rate runs 8am to 7pm across all seven of them with weekends included. And a return visit inside 48 hours where a clerk has picked fault with something we cleaned. Parking is the single exception, and it goes on the bill at exactly what it cost with nothing added.

One list from E8 to E5

It holds wherever the van goes: Hackney Central, De Beauvoir Town, Stoke Newington, Haggerston, Hoxton and Clapton. The areas page covers what each place tends to book and the contact page has the opening hours. A person answers 020 8077 6967 from 8am to 7pm, daily.

Questions we get asked

How do I pay?

By card, including Visa, Mastercard and Amex, or by bank transfer. Households on the weekly round mostly set up a monthly transfer, and landlords and agents are invoiced.

Can the figure change once you have seen the place?

Only where the flat turns out materially unlike the one described, and that would be raised before a cloth left the van. Ordinary wear never moves a band. The two lines genuinely outside it are the floors and the oven.

How is a single room in a share priced?

On the call, against the £67 one off minimum, because the bedroom bands price a whole property being handed back. It is scoped on your room plus whichever share of the kitchen and bathroom your agreement covers.

What is the smallest job you take?

Any size at all. The £67 floor on one off work does mean a lone £36 bedroom carpet or a lone £23 hob still bills at £67, so two small items in the same morning are better value, since the floor is met once between them. Hourly housework sits outside that floor and books in three hour visits or longer.