Cleaning Filthy rented flat where to start!?

queen_of_string

Please keep making all legitimate complaints. Poor landlords give us good ones a bad name. It takes little effort to be a considerate landlord and behave decently towards a tenant. We all know how precious a good tenant is.

S1976

I so feel for you, and I have been there to, thankfully for me it was over 10 years ago.

Only cleaning tips I can think that may get rid of the smell in the carpet is sprinkle with baking soda, leave for a few hours and hoover, followed by a fine spray bottle containing water and tea tree oil - about 10-20 drops of the oil and spray all over the carpet - tea tree oil is both anti-bacterial and anti-viral, let it dry. And then simply get your gloves on with a bristle floor brush and the hard soap you can buy to rub on your clothes to remove stains and gently scrub it (fairy hard soap should be in the washing section of the supermarket) Be careful not to over wet it though you need very little soap and water on the brush.

Hope it gets a little better for you

Paulie'sGirl

I once had a really scuzzy flat in Gateshead - you have my deepest sympathy

I would second the advice to hire a carpet cleaner, you can hire one for the weekend for about £15, and it doesn't take long, so usually I split the hire with my mum (one day for me, one day for her - happy clean carpets ). They usually do sale or return on the bottles of shampoo too. NB, you can use a carpet cleaner on the sofa if its fabric, takes about a day for them to dry out again. I think its worth it, others may disagree.

I would pour bleach down all the drains and leave for 20 mins or so.

I used Tesco's Dettol equivalent (pound shops do a good version) on every hard surface after a wash down with soapy water (this was pre-stardrops, now I'd use stardrops then dettol because I hate the idea of other people's germs)

I also had baked on grease on the tiled splash back, in the end only solvent I borrowed from work (I worked in labs at the time) and elbow grease shifted it. If you have this, try cheap nail varnish remover or spirits you'd use for paint brush cleaning.

Hope some of this helps!

PGxx