Professional cleaning in Merton costs £23 an hour for a cleaner who comes every week, and from £156 for the end of tenancy clean of a studio. Any meter or bay charge the cleaner meets near your home is added, capped at £40.

Merton stretches from Wimbledon, which started as a village on the hilltop and shifted downhill to its station after the railway came in 1838, to Morden, where farmland vanished under 1930s suburbs once the Underground got there. More Merton households lived in a terrace than in any other type of home at the 2021 census, 35.7 per cent of them. Valuation Office Agency figures for March 2025 put 26.5 per cent of Merton’s 87,810 homes before 1919 and 36.8 per cent between the wars.

A terrace of either age usually puts the bathroom upstairs and the kitchen at the back, with a narrow hall, the stairs and a landing in between. Those are the parts a weekly cleaner goes over every time, and the hall carpet is usually the first to show a worn path. Private renting is common too, 29.1 per cent of households, and seven of Merton’s wards have extra licensing rules, set out in the next section.

Additional and selective licensing in Merton

of homes are flats: 40%
of households rent privately: 29%
own their home: 56%

Census 2021

Seven wards carry extra licensing: Pollards Hill, Longthornton, Lavender Fields, Graveney, Figge’s Marsh, Cricket Green and Colliers Wood. There, a landlord letting to three or four tenants who are not one household needs an additional HMO licence on top of the usual rules. Four of the seven, Figge’s Marsh, Graveney, Longthornton and Pollards Hill, go further and want a selective licence even for an ordinary let to one household. In Merton’s other wards only the mandatory licence, for homes with five or more sharers, applies.

Planning has tightened alongside it. Before a family home becomes a small HMO, planning permission is now required in all of Merton: an Article 4 direction has covered the seven licensing wards from 17 November 2022, and a second one brought in the other 13 on 24 March 2026. Licensed or not, an end of tenancy clean is charged according to the size of the home: from £243 for a two-bedroom flat, from £339 for a three-bedroom house, plus £62 if the kitchen has a double oven or a 90cm range.

Visitor e-permits and parking for cleaners in Merton

Wimbledon Village, Wimbledon Park, Wimbledon Town Centre, West Barnes, South Wimbledon, Raynes Park, Morden, Merton Park, Mitcham, Graveney, Colliers Wood and Cannon Hill all have controlled parking zones. A resident inside one first applies for a visitor voucher qualifier, which is free, and then buys visitor e-permits online, booking each for a start time and the cleaner’s registration. Permits come as half days or full days. Eleven zones sell no full-day permit (W1, VSW1, S2, RPN, RPE, RP, P3, P2s, MTC1, M1 and CW), so check what a half day covers before booking a long clean there.

On bank holidays parking is free in every Merton zone apart from W3 and W4, which charge in the afternoon. If nobody arranges a permit and a paid bay is the only option, the amount on the cleaner’s ticket goes on the bill, never above £40. A permit-holders-only street with no permit for the cleaner is the one case to sort out on the call, since there is nowhere legal to stop outside the door.

Professional cleaning in Wimbledon

of homes are flats: 49%
of households rent privately: 34%
own their home: 59%

Census 2021 · SW19, SW20

Wimbledon’s history explains its homes. The town began up on the hill, where the Village is now, and moved down to the station after 1838. In the war years of the 1940s a lot of the biggest Victorian houses were split up into flats, and others made way for blocks. Today 47.7 per cent of homes are older than 1919. On the hill, Village ward is 29.6 per cent detached houses and two-thirds owner-occupied. Down in Hillside ward two households in three are in flats (66.2 per cent), and 42.1 per cent rent from a private landlord.

That split decides the job. A large detached house in the Village is cleaned by the hour like any family house cleaning booking, with one regular cleaner or a team for a one-off. In a Hillside flat cut from a Victorian villa, professional cleaning when a tenant leaves starts at £207 for one bedroom. Parking in the town centre runs late: W3 and W4 stay controlled to 11pm on weekdays and Saturdays, with a 2pm to 6pm window on Sundays and bank holidays, and H1 is controlled daily from 8.30am to 8pm.

Professional cleaning in Mitcham

of homes are flats: 38%
of households rent privately: 28%
own their home: 49%

Census 2021 · CR4, SW16, SW17

Mitcham grew as two villages, Upper and Lower, each built round its own green. Calico printing made it an 18th century working town, factories followed, and after 1945 it gained estates such as Eastfields and Pollards Hill, mid-rise but spread out at low density. Terraces are the commonest home across its six wards, 39.9 per cent of households, and 38.0 per cent of homes date from between the wars. The Cricket Green conservation area dates from 1968; its boundary was pushed out in 1990 to include Mitcham Garden Village and some of Mitcham Park, then again in 2007 and 2013.

All six wards fall inside the additional HMO scheme, and four of them need a selective licence for a single-household let, which puts Mitcham landlords under more rules than landlords anywhere else in the borough. Where an inter-war terrace has fitted carpet on the stairs and in the bedrooms, professional cleaning is £41 a flight and £36 a bedroom, and rugs can be added on the same visit; see carpet and rug cleaning. Zone hours vary street to street: MTC is controlled until 11pm Monday to Saturday, MT only from 11am to 3pm on weekdays, and in FG2 and LS nobody without a permit can park from 8.30am to 6.30pm on any day of the week.

Professional cleaning in Morden

of homes are flats: 25%
of households rent privately: 20%
own their home: 63%

Census 2021 · SM4

Morden is the most uniform part of Merton. Its Underground station opened in September 1926, the fields around it were quickly covered, and Merton’s character study describes it as South London’s one Metroland-style suburb. Of its homes, 71.0 per cent date from the 1930s and fewer than one in a hundred from before 1919. St Helier, put up by the London County Council during the 1930s for workers moving out of inner London, is the biggest council development south of the river.

Houses from one decade tend to share layouts, so hours that suit one Morden terrace usually suit the next: a two-bed terrace with one bathroom is about three hours a week for one cleaner, at £23 an hour on a weekly visit. The water depends on the street. Parts of SM4 5 around the town centre get Thames Water, from the Merton zone, averaging 262 mg/l through 2025; SES Water pipes water from Cheam to streets such as SM4 6LA and SM4 4TB at 205 mg/l. Zones M3 and M4 are permit holders only, so arrange a visitor e-permit before the first professional cleaning visit.

Professional cleaning in Raynes Park

of homes are flats: 35%
of households rent privately: 28%
own their home: 64%

Census 2021 · SW20, KT3

South of the railway, twelve terraced roads known locally as the Apostles were laid out from the Victorian period over what had been a cricket ground, and much of the rest dates from the 1930s, many of them Blay houses by the developer George Blay. Cottenham Park was the area’s only development before 1900. One home in four was built between 1900 and 1918, and 46.0 per cent between the wars. Further south lies Motspur Park, built between the wars as short terraces, four houses to a block, each house with a long garden.

Long gardens usually end in a patio or path that turns green and slippery over winter. Jet washing is £4 a square metre, with the one-off minimum of £67 for a small area; the patio cleaning page covers paths, decking and drives. West Barnes ward is 70.9 per cent owner-occupied and 47.8 per cent terraced, while Raynes Park ward is 44.1 per cent flats. For professional cleaning on a street in zone WB1, only permit holders can park from 7am to 7pm, Monday to Saturday.

Professional cleaning in Colliers Wood

of homes are flats: 61%
of households rent privately: 41%
own their home: 42%

Census 2021 · SW19, SW17

Of the six areas on this page, Colliers Wood rents most: 41.2 per cent of its households rented privately in 2021, and flats house 61.3 per cent of them. One of its buildings shows one way that happened. Colliers Wood Tower opened as offices in 1966, was converted from 2014 into a glass-clad block of 150 rented flats and was finished by October 2017 as Britannia Point. The older stock matters as much. Almost half the homes predate 1919, and 22.3 per cent of households live in houses that were converted into flats or are shared.

Colliers Wood is one of the seven additional licensing wards, so letting a house to three or four sharers who are not one household requires a licence. Furnished lets usually come with a sofa that has been through several tenants: a two-seat sofa is £57 and each extra seat £26, on the sofa and upholstery cleaning page. Professional cleaners driving in will find six zones here; CW2, CW4 and CW5 are permit holders only, and CW5 runs until 9pm Monday to Saturday.

Professional cleaning in South Wimbledon

of homes are flats: 57%
of households rent privately: 38%
own their home: 48%

Census 2021 · SW19

South Wimbledon was marked as New Wimbledon on the 1876 Ordnance Survey map, and its Northern line station opened in 1926 on the corner of Merton High Street and Morden Road. The housing is mostly old: 51.7 per cent of homes in Abbey ward predate 1919, and only 4.1 per cent come from between the wars, almost the reverse of Morden. Flats hold 56.6 per cent of households and private renting 38.4 per cent.

The High Path estate is one of three Clarion Housing Group estates that Merton backed for rebuilding, with Eastfields and Ravensbury in Mitcham: almost 1,200 homes replaced and around 1,400 added over fifteen years. A flat newly handed over there, or a Victorian flat after a refit, can need a heavy first clean before anyone unpacks. Deep cleaning is charged at £26 an hour for each cleaner, two cleaners and three hours at the least, with £30 added once for the kit. For professional cleaning near the station, zones S1, S2 and SW are controlled from 8.30am to 6.30pm every day but Sunday.

Questions about professional cleaning in Merton

Which Merton wards need a selective licence for a single-household let?

Four: Figge’s Marsh, Graveney, Longthornton and Pollards Hill, all in the Mitcham area. Lavender Fields, Cricket Green and Colliers Wood join those four in the additional HMO scheme, which covers homes let to three or four sharers who are not one household. Everywhere else in Merton, licensing applies only to larger HMOs with five or more sharers.

Can a cleaner stay all day on a Merton visitor e-permit?

In most zones, yes: residents can book a full-day e-permit for the cleaner’s registration. Eleven zones, among them CW in Colliers Wood, M1 in Morden and S2 in South Wimbledon, sell only half days, so a long clean there may need a second arrangement. Bank holidays are free in all zones except W3 and W4.

Is the water in Morden softer than in Wimbledon?

Slightly, in the streets SES Water supplies. Its Langley Park Morden zone came out at 205 mg/l (as calcium carbonate) on average in 2025, while Thames Water’s Merton zone, which covers The Broadway in Wimbledon and parts of Morden town centre, averaged 262 mg/l. SES and Thames Water both class those levels as hard, so limescale on taps and screens builds up in either supply.

Which clean do I book when moving into a Merton flat?

A deep clean, in most cases. The end of tenancy clean is for the outgoing tenant and is priced by size against the check-out list. Moving into a flat the last occupants left grubby is charged by the hour, starting at £186, which covers two cleaners for three hours and the kit.

Professional cleaning in Merton

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