Is this correct?

[Saltire]

and if so is it a new thing?
If we do our own cleaning for march out - and there is one thing ( window reveals was used as an example) which doesn't fit their (DE) own "standards" then we fail march out and get charged to have entire mQ cleaned again!

I wouldn't be surprised. They are thieving b***ds.

I know they are. We got charged for something once and was told by the DE rep "well that's why you get disturbance allowance" . I didn't think it was line their pockets

sadly I think it is now the case, friends of our moved a couple of weeks ago and had one brown spot probably half a foot round on their lawn (don't know what caused it) and were told they had to pay for the whole lawn to be re turfed at 200 pounds, when they objected they were told thats what your disturbance allowance pays for :(

Ex neighbours of ours were charged £300+ becasue they hadn't painted their MQ when they moved out, and when the new people moved in, it still hadn't been painted. So they were charged for workthat wasn't done.

and. I always thought that what I'm writing next was an urban myth, today I met new neighbours and they had an internal door and a length of carpet int their gagrage,a dn said that DE had charged them (to replace, not clean)for a new door and for the smallest bedroom carpet so they took the door off and lifted the carpet,a nd DE told them they couldn't do it as it was vandalism!

I had a friend who cut the iron burn out of a bedroom carpet when they moved out as they knew they were going to get charged for it and the carpet wouldn't be replaced they said that way they knew it would have to be replaced, DE was not happy but the guy did concede their point.

No saltire that isn't right. We always clean our own quarter and I think once (in Germany) DH (I wasn't there at the time) was told the cooker needed a bit more work around the eye level grill so he just got a cloth and scrubbed it a bit - done.

If they are charging your friend for one small patch of turf, they are being scammed and should report the DE person who has told them that.

Say if your loo wasn't quite clean enough, then all you would need to do is clean it so it passes. They cannot simply tell you it's not clean enough and make you pay to have whole quarter done.

For carpets, you only pay a percentage of the price depending on how old they are.They aren't allowed to charge for a whole carpet if it's 7 years old, when they need changing at 10 years for example.

Going back to your op, if say the windows failed, then you would need to make sure the windows are recleaned and then they recheck it. They cannot fail the whole whole house for one or two things......unless the whole house is minging and it all needs redoing.

They also cannot make you have Ideal cleaning to redo anything.

Even if the cooker failed, you could hire an oven cleaning company to do the whole thing for only 45/50 quid.

Whoever told you the info is incorrect however, I have heard lots of dodgy DE tales and we ourselves were almost duped at one quarter when they charged for a mark on a carpet and we handed over a cheque to DE guy for a new one......only to find out they were going to be changed once we'd moved out!!! we got the cheque back thankfully but I reckon they're all onto a scam thing in one way or another.

Saltire - about the lifting the carpet thing - I know of someone who actually pays a carpet company to lift her hall carpet in each quarter and lay wooden flooring and then gets the carpet relaid on leaving the quarter. They have dogs and she says it looks so much nicer.

DE have never said they can't do it.

You can do almost anything to a quarter as long as you put it right when you move out. IME a lot of people have an axe to grind with regard to DE (understandably so), but it does make some people talk a load of shite when recounting their experiences with DE...

I have net several people who laminate their whole ground floor. DE don't give a damn as long as it is all gone when they move out.

and also, other peoples' standards of cleanliness may not actually be that clean so when hearing stories from others, it may be that the quarter just wasn't acceptable and DE told them to reclean the whole thing; but they told you that it was just because of one thing etc.

I think it depends on who does the march out. On our last quarter I forgot to hand over one of the keys, nothing was said at the time as they didnt notice. Instead of ringing me to ask to post the key up we got a bill for changing all the locks!
Some march outs are pathetic. I found a condom under the bed in this quarter, the curtains where stained from smoke as was the bed. Thankfully we didnt have the army furniture long before our own furniture arrived.

vintage friends here have been told that if you fail march out ideal will only clean a whole house not a single item so they would be charged for a whole house unless they cleaned it there and then (sometimes not possible if you are catching a ferry etc) and that is why the strongly advise you to just pay ideal in the first place as then you won't waste time cleaning a quarter that is going to fail. Can't wait for 2 years when they do my march out I am the queen of arguing over the standards with them and they won't get away with that from me. The patch of grass thing has had a complaint put in about it as they took a photo for their pax insurance to claim on and pax were not happy but so far no money back!!

I see pimms. Hmm - well, I've made sure my cleaning standards are higher than Ideal so we get a guaranteed pass - although from what I've heard, it doesn't take much to be better than Ideal!

see what you mean about if going to catch ferry etc. I bet the odds are higher for a fail if it's aproxy handover as they know you've gone and then find something to fail people on - naughty!

well going from the state of our newly refurbished ideal cleaned quarter their standards are appalling we wandered around for the first 2 days before our stuff arrived thinking what is all this grit on the carpets then realised they had shake n vac ed and not got it all up (really great when I am allergic to the stuff). Opened my windows to find cob webs, dust and dirt and the outside shed was full of leaves (I mean like a foot and a half tall pile of leaves not something the wind just blew in). Not sure how much come back we will have on march out as we proxy marched in but then I will employ my 4 little slaves to clean and paint and we will be above standard

I think someone needs to do a full on investigation into DE and their strange dealings on march ins/outs - someone is on the make.

Vintage when we marched out of boredom the guy was cross as we cleaned our self and their approved cleaner was his wife and her friend. As we hadn't used them he failed us, we told him tough as we were only moving up the road to Ah Bored Field then we would re clean, this happened 3 times before the COs wife had a go at him for harassing a young subbies wife who was pregnant then we suddenly passed. There was no way I was paying his wife to clean my house when it was filthy when we moved in. From then on we always took the camcorder with us as I wanted proof of the state of the house at move in so I could re play this on march out. It has always and probably will always be a corrupt system. In the US you paid an extra $15 a month on your rent then when posted you left the quarter to day to day standard they then got the cleaner in and you were done with it as the $15 paid for your cleaning (you had no opt out) and they were so fussy on their standards it was unbelievable

That's a great idea pimms and one I sort of suggested in the AFF survey.

We are including a gardener in our rental price for the US base so as to ensure we get it back in the minimalistic condition it's in now.