Burnt Oak is HA8, a mile or so south of Edgware down the A5, and the road it sits on is Watling Street, the Roman route the High Street still follows. Most of the housing belongs to the Watling Estate, built as council housing in the late 1920s and early 1930s while the Northern line was pushing north. That history sets most of what lands in the diary here. The bands are the ones used everywhere on the round, £156 at a studio and £243 at two bedrooms.
Estate houses are a different shape of job
The Watling houses are smaller than the bay-fronted semis further north and they were built to a handful of plans. Kitchens are narrow, usually at the back with a single run of units. Bathrooms are compact enough that two cleaners get in each other’s way, so we tend to send one person for longer here rather than a pair. A good many of the houses have been split into flats or let room by room over the years, and that is why this is the corner of our patch carrying the most tenancy work in it.
Move out cleans are the bulk of what we do here
More of our fixed price handover cleans come out of Burnt Oak than anywhere else we cover. Studio £156, one bedroom £207, two bedrooms £243, three £339, four £425, agreed before the booking and not adjusted afterwards. Where a house has been split, the hard part is nearly always the shared kitchen. Four tenants cooking in one room for a year leaves grease in places a single household never manages, particularly along the top edge of the wall units and behind the cooker. We price that on the phone rather than pretending it takes the same time as a family kitchen.
Parking, and why we ask which end of the street you are
Fewer houses down here have a front drive than you find north of the town centre, so the van generally goes on the road. It tightens up nearer the tube and along the A5 itself, and Barnet’s permit-controlled streets start closer to the stations than most people expect. Tell us the street name when you book. We sort our own permit where one is needed and it never appears on your bill. The A5 is also the road every bit of through traffic uses, so a mid morning arrival beats an eight o’clock one on the main road side.
What else gets booked
Carpets, mostly because an inventory has asked for them. £36 covers a bedroom, £43 the living room, £41 each flight, and a two storey Watling house normally has the one flight rather than two. A single oven at £77 goes on with most tenancy jobs, and a hob alongside it is £23. Behind that sits a steady book of housework on weekly and fortnightly slots, £22 an hour on the weekly rate and £24 on the fortnightly, mostly families who have been in the same house for years and are going nowhere.
Scale is what costs tenants their deposit here
Burnt Oak draws the same Affinity Water supply as the rest of HA8, roughly 250 to 350 ppm, so bathroom scale is the standing complaint. In a rented flat where nobody has descaled a shower screen in two years it is the single item most likely to lose somebody part of a deposit, and it is also the item that takes us longest to put right. Acid gel and twenty minutes of dwell, not a scouring pad. Scoured chrome never comes back.
Getting here
Burnt Oak is ten minutes from the Edgware end of our round, so short notice works better here than at the far edges of the patch. Same week is normal and same day is sometimes possible if you ring first thing. If you are on the boundary and not sure whether you count as Burnt Oak or Queensbury, it makes no difference to the price, and nothing is added for crossing towards the NW9 edge either. Ring 020 8077 1591 with the road name. The prices page has every figure written down.
Questions we get asked
Do you charge more in Burnt Oak than in Edgware?
No. The studio band is £156 here just as it is anywhere in HA8, bedroom carpets open at £36 and weekly housework runs at £22 an hour per cleaner. Travel is never billed separately on this round.
Will you take one room in a shared house?
Yes, though the £67 floor on one off work bites, so a room plus its carpet generally lands on that figure. Where several tenants leave together, booking the whole property as one handover clean works out cheaper.
How quickly can you get to Burnt Oak?
Same week is normal and same day is sometimes possible if you ring first thing, since it is about ten minutes from the Edgware end of the round. Spring is the exception, when the diary tightens for a fortnight.
Is parking a problem on the Watling Estate?
Not usually on the residential streets, though fewer houses here have a drive than further north so the van goes on the road. Nearer the tube and the A5 it gets tighter and Barnet’s permit streets start there. Give us the road name.
What does a shared kitchen add to a move out clean?
It depends on the state of it. Four tenants cooking in one room for a year leaves grease along the wall unit tops and behind the cooker that a family kitchen never sees. We quote that honestly on the phone rather than on the day.
Rather talk? Ring 020 8077 1591, seven days.