After builders cleaning in Southall, UB1

Council tax figures for this part of UB1 put 32.6% of homes in the years 1900 to 1918 and 33.6% in 1919 to 1939. In Southall Broadway ward 34.0% of households live in terraced houses and 29.7% in semis, with 27.7% in flats. Typical work on houses of this age is a kitchen extension across the back, a loft with a shower room or a garage turned into a bedroom.

The dust from that work spreads further than people expect. The ground floor gets the plaster and the cutting dust, the loft dust comes down the stairs, and the garage conversion leaves grit in the hall. The crew splits the house between cleaners, starts each floor from the ceiling, and finishes with the hard floors once the dust has stopped settling. Kitchen cupboards are cleaned inside and out once they are empty; the hob and appliances are wiped outside, and the inside of an oven is an extra.

Affinity Water's 2025 report for its Southall zone recorded 280 mg/l of hardness, well into the hard band. A new shower that the plumber has run a few times already shows white spots on the glass and the taps. The crew lifts limescale where it will come off with the right product for the fitting, and says on the day if a mark will not shift. Each bathroom beyond the first in a flat, or the second in a house of three bedrooms or more, adds about an hour and a half of cleaner time; grout haze and silicone smears explains what that time goes on.

A 3-bed terrace after a kitchen extension usually takes 2 cleaners for 5 hours: £332 all in. A 4-bed semi with an extension and a loft is 3 cleaners for 4 hours, £392, and a 5-bed after a full renovation is heavy work at £752. Every figure here works out at £30 a cleaner-hour with £32 on top for kit. The full price list shows add-ons such as carpet cleaning for rooms that were carpeted during the works.

East along the Uxbridge Road the crews cover Hanwell, and south past Norwood Green they work in Heston. For skip licences and the Greenford Road tip, see Ealing.