After builders cleaning in Mayfair, W1J

Mayfair was almost completely built up by 1780, on three eighteenth century street grids that match its three largest estates. Many of the first town houses and their mews have since been rebuilt as the leases expired: stuccoed Italianate from the mid nineteenth century, Queen Anne from the 1870s, Arts and Crafts and Renaissance after that, neo-Georgian after the First World War. The council first designated the conservation area in 1969 and has extended it since. The listed houses run from 25 Brook Street, Grade I, to Grade II* fronts on Upper Brook Street and Charles Street.

The adopted Mayfair Neighbourhood Plan notes that the old stables and coach houses in the mews are now homes and businesses. A mews house is narrow and steep, often two or three floors on one tight stair, and refurbishment dust packs into the treads and the spindles. Behind the grand fronts, 94.7% of households in the ward live in flats, and more than half rent privately, so many jobs are a flat between tenancies: a 2-bed after redecoration is often 2 cleaners for 3 hours, £212 all in.

The conservation area has grown more commercial, with specialist shops, galleries and tailors, while large developments have been kept to the edges. A fit-out needs a different clean from a home: the crew takes stickers off the shopfront glass from inside, and the paint flecks that will come off, wipes every display shelf, track light and air vent, and leaves hard floors vacuumed and mopped. Commercial premises are £30 per cleaner per hour plus £32 for equipment and detergents; a small gallery or office is usually 2 cleaners for 3 hours, £212 all in. See cleaning a fit-out before opening.

Stone and timber floors that have been walked on by the trades for months can have a deep clean at £6 a square metre or a clean and polish at £8; hard floor cleaning explains which suits which floor.