Balham is SW12, fifteen minutes on foot up Balham High Road from Tooting Bec station, and it is where a good third of our week goes. The station has Southern trains as well as the Northern line, which is one reason the flats round Bedford Hill turn over so often. More tenancies ending means more check-out cleans, and that is most of what we get called for here.
The purpose-built blocks
Balham has something Tooting Bec largely does not: big interwar mansion blocks, Du Cane Court being the obvious one, with hundreds of flats behind one entrance. Those jobs work differently. There is a lift, so no carrying a carpet machine up two flights, but there are porters, loading restrictions and sometimes a booking system for the service lift, and turning up unannounced with a van full of kit wastes an hour. Tell us the block when you book and we will ring ahead. The flats themselves tend to be well built, solid parquet or original wood under the carpet, and generous room sizes that put a two bed comfortably over what the same room count would be in a conversion.
Around Hildreth Street
The streets by the Hildreth Street market end are Victorian terraces, most of them split into upper and lower flats in the same way as ours. Same job, same prices. A one bedroom check-out clean is £207, two bedrooms £243, and a studio in one of the smaller conversions is £156. Nothing changes because of the postcode.
What Balham books
Move-out work first. Agents on the High Road hold a lot of stock and they want the flat cleaned between tenants, so end of tenancy work is the bulk of it. Then carpets, mostly hallways and stairs in the conversions, and carpet cleaning here runs from £36 a bedroom to £61 for a through lounge. A steady handful of weekly and fortnightly houses too, on the residential side away from the High Road, where an hourly cleaner costs £22 weekly.
Ovens between tenants
Landlords in SW12 book the cooker separately more often than owners do, usually in the gap between one tenant leaving and the next arriving. An oven clean is £77 for a single and £110 for a double, and in the mansion block flats it is worth checking whether the appliance is the original built-in unit, because some of those are old enough that the door glass no longer comes apart and the result is honest rather than spectacular.
Getting there and getting parked
We come up Balham High Road or cut across the top of the common, and the drive is short enough that we can usually fit an urgent Balham job into a day that started in Tooting Bec. Parking is the only awkward part, as it is everywhere in SW12. Controlled bays near the station and the market fill by mid-morning. If the flat has a permit or a visitor session going spare, say so when you book, because it saves us a walk with the kit.
The same van covers the streets over Trinity Road, and the whole service area is listed on our Tooting Bec page.
Questions we get asked
Do you cover Du Cane Court?
Yes, regularly. Let us know the flat number and floor when you book, since the porters need notice for the service lift and access to the underground area is not always straightforward with a van.
Is the price different in Balham to Tooting Bec?
No. A studio move-out is £156, one bed £207, two bed £243, three bed £339 and four bed £425, wherever the property is in our area. There is no travel charge inside SW12.
How quickly can you get to a job in SW12?
Same day is often possible for a small job if you ring before about 11am, because we are usually working somewhere within a mile of you already. A full house move-out clean wants a day or two of notice.
Can you clean the parquet in the older flats?
Yes, though it gets a damp mop and a wood-safe product rather than the carpet machine. Old parquet with the finish worn off will not come back to a shine from cleaning alone, and we will say so rather than let you expect it.
Rather talk? Ring 020 8077 2691, seven days.