Most people keep a home tidy with a weekly clean, but a deep clean is a different job. It reaches the places a regular pass skips — behind the fridge, inside the oven, skirting boards, grout, windows and the tops of cupboards. For a typical London flat, a full deep clean every three to six months is a sensible target, with smaller jobs done more often.
A deep clean goes room by room rather than surface by surface. In the kitchen that means degreasing the oven and extractor, cleaning the fridge inside and out, and wiping every cupboard front and handle. In the bathroom it means descaling the shower, scrubbing grout and cleaning behind the toilet. Floors are moved-around furniture and steam-cleaned, and windows are washed inside and out.
In London, where many homes are older and compact, dust and damp build up quickly, especially in winter when windows stay shut. Many people hire a professional for the big seasonal clean and keep up the lighter work themselves in between.