Buckhurst Hill is IG9, and strictly speaking it is Essex: Epping Forest District rather than a London borough, with a Central line station in the middle of it. We are there most weeks. Deep cleans from £186, ovens from £77, carpets from £36 a room.
Essex rules, London traffic
Being outside London changes the paperwork. Epping Forest District runs the parking here rather than Waltham Forest, so nothing about the Chingford visitor permit scheme applies to your street. The Central line is what actually shapes our day. Streets near the station fill with commuter cars by half past eight and empty again after six, which makes a mid-morning slot easier for both of us than one at nine.
What we get asked for most
More deep cleans here than anywhere. The houses are bigger, they get extended and redecorated often, and the job after the builders leave is a team one. A deep clean runs at £26 per cleaner per hour with a minimum of two people for three hours, plus £30 for kit, so £186 is where it starts; straight after the builders it is £30 per cleaner-hour. A four bedroom house from top to bottom is usually six hours with two of us on it, which comes to £342. That figure covers every skirting in the house.
Kitchens and ovens
Range cookers, mostly. Often with a canopy extractor above them, which adds £28 to the job. A 90cm range is £143 and takes the better part of a morning, with the burner caps, the racks and the fan cover soaked and scrubbed separately from the cavity. Singles are £77 and doubles £110 if that is what you have.
Carpets and the forest
Buckhurst Hill sits on the eastern edge of Epping Forest, and the same thing happens here as on the Chingford side. It ends up in the hall. A bedroom carpet is £36 and stairs are £41 a flight with £9 for each landing, and in a house with two flights it is worth doing them together while the machine is already set up and hot.
Lettings work
Less of it than in E17. The flats and the smaller houses near the station do turn over though, and a check-out clean is a fixed price on bedroom count: £156 for a studio, £207 for one bedroom, £243 for two. Agents this side of the forest tend to ask for carpets to be extracted as well, so allow for that on top.
Getting here from Chingford
Twenty minutes on a good run. Usually out through Woodford Green, sometimes round the other way if the forest roads are busy. Sewardstone is the far corner of the same round, on the other side of Chingford entirely. Prices are the same in Essex as they are in E4 and they are all on the front page.
Questions we get asked
Do you charge extra to come out to Buckhurst Hill?
No. It is twenty minutes from Chingford and we are in IG9 most weeks, so there is no travel charge and no minimum beyond the usual £67 on one off work.
How much is a deep clean for a four bedroom house?
About six hours with two cleaners, which at £26 per cleaner per hour plus the £30 kit charge comes to £342. The minimum booking is two cleaners for three hours at £186. We give you a firm figure on the phone once we know the number of rooms and the state of them.
Can you clean the extractor hood over a range?
Yes, for £28. The mesh filters and the visible metalwork come off and soak alongside the racks, and a sealed canopy gets its outside degreased by hand.