Oven cleaning in St Thomas

West of the river, St Thomas has a housing mix that produces more oven cleaning per street than almost anywhere else in the city. Terraces close to Cowick Street, flats above the shops on the main run, and converted upper floors near the station all tend to be let rather than owner occupied, and they turn over on their own schedules rather than the academic calendar.

That means a steady flow of end of tenancy work through the whole year. The pattern is familiar: a small freestanding cooker or an under counter oven, a hob with two burners that get used and two that do not, an extractor filter that has never been out, and a check out inspection booked for the day after tomorrow.

It is worth saying plainly that this is the cheapest possible way to deal with an oven in a rented flat. The deduction for a professional clean, applied at check out, is reliably more than the clean itself.

A flat above a shop on Cowick Street is up a narrow staircase, sometimes two flights, from a door on a busy pavement. Everything for the job goes up those stairs and comes back down again, which is fine but is worth knowing when a slot is being cut fine.

Water is the other thing. Soaking needs hot water at the tap and somewhere to put a tray. In a compact flat that is usually the bath, which is a perfectly good answer as long as everyone knows in advance that it is the plan. Nobody enjoys discovering it at the point the racks come out.

The older housing here sits on low ground near the river and the ovens in it are often not new. A cooker that has served four or five tenancies has a particular look: the enamel is sound but pitted where something burnt on years ago, the door glass is permanently hazed, one shelf runner is missing and the grill pan handle has gone.

All of that comes up as clean as it is going to get, and none of it disappears. The useful thing on a rental cooker is knowing which marks are dirt and which are damage that predates the current tenant, because those are two different conversations at a check out and only one of them costs somebody their deposit.

A flat above a shop usually has a kitchen with a single window and an extractor that recirculates rather than venting outside. When the filter fills up, the fan is pushing air through a solid sheet of grease and the smell simply stays in the flat, working its way into the hallway and the soft furnishings.

The filters are the cheap end of that problem and they are quick to deal with. Metal mesh comes out, soaks and goes back like new. Where there is a carbon cartridge behind it, that is a part to replace rather than clean, and you get told which one you have and what fits it.

It is a small piece of work with an effect out of proportion to the time it takes, which is why it is worth adding to an oven clean rather than saving for another day.