[Robert Watson]

Don't get excited guys, not one of those stories.
I was talking to an Australian girl who was saying that, down under
it is compulsory for landlords to have the carpets cleaned before a let.

I've been thinking about this for some time, it`s ridiculous that people let
flats and think it`s okay for people to live with the previous tenants dirt,
I don`t care if it "looks" clean or not.

Imagine the extra work that would come on to the market. I don`t know about other areas
but Edinburgh seems to be the, buy to let capital of the world.

If the powers that be adopted this policy, then I would be RICH, RICH, RICH, I`m telling you 
Rab

[Mike Osbourne]

NCCA should be greasing MP's palms, er sorry lobbying MP's to put forward a motion that it should be compulsary.

This is how big business gets things done with the odd Knighthood thrown in.

[lands]

I thought most let agreements did make tennants have tem cleaned before they leave. I've down thousands of em. Nice easy jobs too. No Furn.

[maxcarpets]

Im with Pete. I'm sure its in contract now that it has to be clean.

Cheers!

Justin

[Robert Watson]

I do work for three letting agents, one is a pretty big one.
The amount of work I get from them is disappointing compared to the amount of property they look after. (Yes I'm the only person they use)
I'm trying to educate them but it ain't easy.
Don't know about nice and easy Pete. Some of these student flats  You need a sweeping brush before you vac.
Not all of course
Rab. 

[lands]

Know what you mean Rab but you can only do what you can do for the price they will pay.  I just mean that not dealing with the logistics of furniture means you can cover much bigger areas at a time.

I would do student flats all day long with no furniture cos I know I could do 3 2 bed flats at 120 a pop. Nice days work if you can get it every day. Just a shame the ninjas a bit heavy for the flights of stairs you often have to carry up in blocks. You wanna see the size of me shoulders

[Robert Watson]

I would do them all day long also, you can nearly always exceed expectations.
What I'm saying is, if it was compulsory, it would make a decent impact on the market.
Night All.
Rab.

[colin thomas]

i 'do'  for 7 letting agents and there are 4 of them that insist on carpet cleaning on vacating, nice steady work, i can be quiet on a monday but by the end of the week, usually pretty loaded because they always leave it to the last minute to book me, the other 3 wait until there are things crawling in the carpets before they have them cleaned, i think these agents are the pits, if i owned a second property i wouldn't want them to look after mine!!!

colin

[The Great One]

Hi

With the new tennant Depoit Scheme (TDS) things may be changing on this front, but not for the better.

Now, no work can be carried out whatsoever from the tennants deposit unless both parties agree, if not it goes to dispute, so can take longer.

The landlord can get the work done and pay for it, then try to get the cash back from the tennant.

We may find either that, work like carpets won't get done, taken out of contracts or disputes may rage on.

Now put yourself in the landlords shoes, what would you honestly do, pay out of your own pocket (your business pocket) and hope you get the cash back, or not bother to do it and get it re let?

I know this, last year I was stacked out until end of October, now have not done a LA property clean for a couple of weeks.

Regards

Martin

[Bertie Boo]

I've been thinking about this for some time, it`s ridiculous that people let
flats and think it`s okay for people to live with the previous tenants dirt,
I don`t care if it "looks" clean or not.

In all honesty though, do you think that when there are properties for let with faulty wiring, faulty gas appliances, etc etc etc that they will make it 'compulsory' to have the carpets cleaned before a new tennant arrives? A dirty floor is not in the same leauge as a gas boiler that leaks carbon monoxide, and yet you hear about deaths from that in rented properties all the time (well not all the time but far too often)....and they can't stop that from happening....so i think it will be a very long time before carpet cleaning ranks anywhere on a list of must-do's....

Stephen

[turneylogan]

We do loads of end-of-tenancy cleans. Depends on rental agreement but most request professional carpet cleaning otherwise cost is deducted from outgoing tenant's deposit. I like these job because they are usually unfurnished (but not always). The main problem we find is our competitors and landlords. Some of our competitors will charge a third of our costs by just running a machine quickly over the carpet leaving stripey marks so that the tenant can say that the carpet has been professionally cleaned. Having said that, I have been called to do some of these jobs properly. The other problem we find is landlords who we never get to meet in order to qualify results of badly stained carpets. However, its good business for us. The people you have to satisfy are the independent inventory firms who do the checkout. You get to know their standards. To get into this business we dressed ourselves up and visited all the local letting agents and left them with a charter of what we did and a price menu. Some letting agents have their favourite cleaners. Some of the bigger firms will own you by giving you so much business....until they find someone who will do the same standard of work for less cost. As a by-product we get referrals from letting agents and sometimes the outgoing tenant gets us to do the new property.

[colin thomas]

betterclean, you read my mind and pinched my words!!!

cbt   

[lands]

With my old firm we had  deal with Agents in the London Bridge area. We got called in once as their normal cleaner (a general firm) said carpet was beyond cleaning. They called us and asked what we could do. We did job (2 bed flat over looking thames) and it came up spotless (lot of hand scrubbing though) we charged £280 and ot took 2 of us 2 hours. After that it was happy days. We'd get called for 3 bed flat and charge £350 and they loved it. Said we were best firm in London (we were'nt of course, I think that mantle belongs to Pilgrim Payne)

Surprised they have never been mentioned on here before.