Cleaning & Caretaking
Our Estate Services Team take care of cleaning and caretaking at all the buildings and estates we manage across the City of Southend.
This is the biggest team in South Essex Homes and they work hard to keep estates clean, tidy, and in good condition.
Cleaning and caretaking staff make sure that shared areas are safe from fire hazards and are cleaned to national standards. When we visit an estate, we check how it looks using the HouseMark PhotoBook. This PhotoBook shows photos of what different areas should look like. We compare the estate to these photos and give each area a grade. This grade helps us decide what work our Cleaning and Caretaking team needs to do next.
You can download the Photobook to see the standards we use here: Estate Services Photobook 2020.pdf [pdf] 10MB
How often we visit your property will be based on the type of building it is, previous data, regular inspections, and feedback from residents.
Some areas will be cleaned as needed rather than being repeatedly cleaned for the sake of cleaning. This modern system allows us to be cost effective and use the team resources to better focus on fire safety, and carrying out deeper cleans when required.
Caretaking staff work seven days a week; weekend shifts are generally dedicated to high rise blocks to rotate refuse bins, clean lifts, and carry out fire safety checks. The Caretakers will also be available during these shifts to complete any urgent tasks that may arise.
We also have a dedicated team removing illegally dumped bulk refuse.
If you would like to find out more about our grounds maintenance service, please click here: Grounds Maintenance | South Essex Homes
Reporting Issues
If you feel we are not meeting the standards you expect from us or if you wish to report issues with the cleaning and caretaking service, please get in touch.
You can call our Customer Contact Centre on 0800 833 160, email the team on EstateServices@seh.southend.gov.uk or complete our online form below.
Form to Report an Estate Services issue