Six jobs live on this site. Each one has a printed number behind it, and you are given that number while you are still on the phone. Nobody drives out to look at your flat before quoting, and nothing here is an opening figure designed to grow once a van is on your street.
Six jobs, and the unit each one counts in
| Job | Unit | Lowest figure | Highest figure |
|---|---|---|---|
| End of tenancy | Bedrooms on the agreement | £156 | £425 |
| Carpets and rugs | Rooms, flights and single rugs | £35 | £61 |
| Ovens and appliances | The appliance itself | £23 | £143 |
| Regular housework | Cleaner hours | £23 an hour | £24 an hour |
| One off deep clean | Team hours on site | £186 | £498 |
| Sofas, mattresses, curtains | Each piece | £13 | £57 |
Move-outs are banded, and here is what the band buys
£156 at a studio, £207 at one bedroom, £243 at two, £339 at three, £425 at four. What you are buying is the whole flat taken to the condition the check-in inventory records. Cupboards emptied and gone over inside, outside and along the tops. The fridge and freezer once they have been off overnight and thawed. Washing machine drawer, filter and door seal. Bathrooms taken right down through the scale. After that comes the tier clerks actually hunt through: skirtings and frames, switch plates, the insides of wardrobes, window runners, the inner faces of the glass, and floors right at the finish. Loft rooms let as bedrooms push the band up a step. Bathrooms never do, no matter how many the flat has.
The Dalston variation nobody else needs a paragraph for
Flats here are frequently let one room at a time, so the tenancy that ends is a bedroom rather than a property. The bands above assume the keys to the whole place are going back, so they do not describe that job at all. What happens instead is scoping. Your room, plus whatever share of the kitchen and the bathroom your agreement puts on you, quoted on the call against the £67 one off minimum. The count of rooms in the scope is the only thing that moves the figure, so a flat running two kitchens and two bathrooms simply has more rooms in it to price than a one bedroom flat does. When the whole flat is handed back at once, the printed bands apply without alteration.
Floors, room by room and flight by flight
£36 a bedroom, £43 a living room, £61 for a front and back room opened into one, £41 a flight plus £9 per landing, and single rugs at £35 or £51 either side of 3 sq m. Hot water extraction puts heated solution into the pile under pressure and takes it back out on the same stroke, so the soil leaves the building instead of settling lower in the tuft. On a Dalston job the kit often has to go up a staircase or two, which is why the floor you are on matters at the booking. The rinse is softened and neutralised for nothing extra, since hard Thames Water dries into a pale pile as a chalky bloom.
Cookers, one appliance at a time
£77 a single oven, £110 a double, £143 a 90cm range or a two oven AGA, £23 a hob, £28 an extractor. A single oven built into a wider cavity is £114. Everything that lifts out comes off and goes in to soak: shelves, trays, runners, pan supports, fan cover. Anything bolted down is gelled, scraped and hand finished on the spot. The cavity, the seals and the inner faces of the door glass all come under that, on any model whose hinges allow the panes apart. The cavity gets a final wipe so nothing is left to burn off, and the cooker will do your dinner that night. AGAs need to be cold on arrival, so switch one off the evening before. Catalytic liners are hand work and are never soaked or scrubbed, because a scrubbed liner stops working.
Hours on the clock, and ironing on top
£23 an hour per cleaner weekly, £24 fortnightly, which makes three hours £69 or £72. There is no contract to sign. Three hours is the shortest slot anybody is sent out for. Ironing at £12 an hour sits on top of the cleaning hours, so the bathroom, where a Dalston visit usually needs the time, keeps its share.
Working out a team deep clean
The rate is £26 per cleaner per hour on site with a single £30 charge for machines and detergents, over a floor of two people for three hours. That gives £186, £238 and £290 for a pair over three, four and five hours, and £264, £342 and £498 for three people over three, four and six. The last of those is the largest booking taken and it will reset a whole house in a day. Put your own vacuum and products out and the £30 goes. Note that two people for six hours and three for four both land on £342, so pick on how long you want the flat full rather than on price. In a narrow conversion the smaller team frequently finishes sooner, because the hall is the only route between rooms.
Soft furnishings, item by item
£13 a dining chair, £33 an armchair, £35 a mattress, £57 a two seater sofa. Curtains bill on the drop, £35 short and £42 long, and stay on the pole throughout so there is no way for them to shrink up off the sill. The tall first floor windows in the N1 villas and the larger N16 terraces are where nearly all the long drops come from. All of it is done with a small hand tool rather than the full wand and kept deliberately light, so most of what goes in comes back out. Anything larger than a two seater has no printed rate, because the fabric and the shape of the arms decide whether it is an hour or most of an afternoon. Describe yours and a number follows. Leather gets no machine: a cleaner and then a conditioner, both by hand.
Four ways into a Dalston building
| The way in | Where you find it | What it costs the job |
|---|---|---|
| Narrow staircase, half-turn, no lift | Georgian houses on Dalston Lane, around Albion Square | Kit goes up in pieces, so a longer slot |
| Goods lift, often locked at weekends | Warehouse conversions behind the high street | Book midweek, or plan on the stairs |
| Door entry and a working lift | Rebuilt Holly Street blocks, the Kingsland Estate | Quick once inside, so leave a number that answers |
| Concierge and a visitor list | Dalston Square and the newer blocks over the station | Arrange the name, and the bay, in advance |
What shapes the slot
Zone C hours, which run Monday to Saturday from 8.30am to 6.30pm on Kingsland High Street, Dalston Lane and Ridley Road, the borough’s camera-enforced traffic filters and school streets, and the six-day Ridley Road market all feed into when your slot falls. The fourth item is the water, and that one never appears as a line on an invoice, because descaling is simply what cleaning a bathroom means in Hackney.
One list from E8 to E5
Nothing moves between Hackney Central, De Beauvoir Town, Stoke Newington, Haggerston, Hoxton and Clapton. What each of them tends to book sits on the areas page, and every figure including the £67 floor is set out on the prices page. Cleaners are out 8am to 7pm on all seven days at one rate, weekends included, and 020 8077 6967 reaches a person for the whole of that.
Questions we get asked
I am moving out at the end of the month. Which job is that?
The banded move-out clean, set by the bedrooms on your agreement, £156 through to £425. It is judged against an inventory rather than a clock. Floors are counted on top from £29 a room at the move-out rate, and the oven at £31.
Only my room is changing hands. How does that work?
It gets scoped instead of banded. Your room plus whatever share of the kitchen and bathroom your agreement puts on you, quoted while you are on the phone against the £67 one off minimum. The bands apply only when the whole flat goes back.
Will you do two jobs in the same visit?
Usually, and it often works out cheaper. The racks soak while the carpets are being extracted, so the two overlap instead of queueing.
Is a Sunday or an evening dearer?
Not by a penny. A single rate runs from 8am to 7pm on all seven days, which puts a Sunday evening on the same money as a Wednesday morning. No loading goes on for the day, the hour or how far out you live.
Do you clean sofas, mattresses and curtains?
Each has its own figure: £13 a dining chair, £33 an armchair, £35 a mattress, £57 a two seater sofa. Curtains stay on the pole and bill at £35 or £42 by the drop. Larger sofas get quoted once you have described the covering and the arms.