What is included in an end-of-tenancy clean
An end-of-tenancy clean is not a tidy-up. It is a room-by-room reset back to the inventory condition, and the items on the list are the ones a check-out clerk photographs. Here is what a full clean covers, and what tends to be quoted on top.
A full end-of-tenancy clean returns every room to the condition recorded at check-in, allowing for fair wear and tear. That means the surfaces you see and the ones you do not: inside cupboards, behind and under appliances where they can be moved, skirtings, door tops, light switches and the frames around them. The point is not effort, it is that the clean matches the inventory the deposit is judged against.
Most of the work, and most of the disputes, sit in two rooms. The kitchen and the bathrooms are where grease and limescale build up over a tenancy, and where a wiped-down surface can still fail an inspection. The living spaces and bedrooms matter, but they are quicker, and they rarely decide a deposit on their own.
The kitchen
The kitchen is the single most inspected room, and the oven is the single most inspected item in it. A proper clean degreases the oven inside, the racks, the door glass between the panes where it can be reached, and the extraction. Then the surfaces around it: hob, splashback, worktops, and the cupboards inside and out, because grease settles on the doors as much as the counters.
Bathrooms
Bathrooms fail on limescale more than anything else, because a surface can look wiped and still be furred. A full clean descales the taps, the shower screen and head, the tiles and grout, and the toilet at the base and hinges as well as the bowl. Mirrors, extractor vents and the seals around the bath and basin are the details a clerk checks when the obvious surfaces look done.
Living rooms and bedrooms
These rooms are mostly dust and detail. Skirtings, picture rails, door tops and frames, light fittings and switches, radiators and their backs, window sills and interior glass. Built-in wardrobes are cleaned inside as well as out. Floors are vacuumed and washed to their type, and carpets are where the room can tip into extra work, because a carpet is usually cleaned separately.
What is usually quoted separately
Three things are commonly priced on top of a headline clean, and knowing which matters when you compare two quotes. Carpet cleaning is the big one, because it needs a machine and drying time rather than a mop. External windows are often excluded. And outdoor space, a patio, balcony or shared yard, is either named with a described standard or left out entirely, so nobody assumes it was in scope.
None of these are hidden if the quote says so. The problem is a low headline price that turns out to exclude the carpet the inventory clerk was always going to check. Ask what is included before you compare, not after.
Send us the property and the check-out date and we will price the clean against the report it is judged on, carpets and all, so there is nothing left to add on the day.
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