Pettits Lane, Pettits Lane North and Pettits Boulevard are lined mostly with bay-fronted semis from between the wars, each with its own driveway. London Carpet Cleaning has worked in Pettits, RM1, since 2009, often on deep wool stair and bedroom carpet. Prices start at £36 a room, and you can allow 6 to 7 hours for the carpet to dry.
The Marshalls estate, built over after 1924
Pettits sits in the Marshalls and Rise Park ward, north of Romford town centre. The ward takes its name from Marshalls, an old estate whose house stood on the east side of North Street until it was pulled down in 1959. Its land, some 120 acres between North Street and Pettits Lane, came on the market in 1924, the last big open area near the town centre, and it was built over in the years that followed. That is why the stock here is overwhelmingly the interwar semi-detached family house, and Marshalls Drive still carries the old estate’s name.
Pettits Lane, Pettits Lane North and Pettits Boulevard run through it, mostly bay-fronted three- and four-bedroom semis with their own driveways, the kind that have stayed in the same family or been bought to raise children in. Marshalls Park survives as the green a cleaner passes on the way in, and Raphael Park, the 20 acres and lake that Sir Herbert Raphael gave the town in 1902, is a short walk east. Romford station is about three quarters of a mile south on the Elizabeth line, with the 175 bus linking Rise Park to the high street, so most households here keep a car on the drive.
Lounge spills and grey stair lanes
The common booking on these streets is the full-house carpet clean before a family gathering, and food and drink marks near the settee are the usual culprit, a takeaway curry splash or spilled tea on a busy lounge. Stairs and landings come up grey down the centre where everyone treads the same line, and we clean the edges by the skirting properly, the whole width of the tread. Cream leather suites are popular in Pettits front rooms, and we condition the headrests where the grime sits. Two of us work most jobs, covering the cleaned rooms so nobody walks back through.
Because these are older houses, you still find deep wool and wool-blend carpet on stairs and in main bedrooms, the sort that holds dirt but cleans up beautifully. The one mark to warn you about is felt-tip or biro, the sort a grandchild leaves. It will usually fade a long way but may not clear completely, and we tell you that up front so there is no surprise at the end.
Pettits in the census: owner-occupied semis
| Homes that are | Share |
|---|---|
| Owned (outright or with a mortgage) | 89.8% |
| Rented privately | 7.8% |
| Three bedrooms | 57.8% |
| Two bedrooms | 13.2% |
| Terraced houses | 11.9% |
| Built 1919 to 1944 | 49.7% |
The census groups Pettits with the Rise Park estate to the north, under the Rise Park name. Nearly nine in ten households (89.8%) own their home and only 7.8% rent privately, so these are settled homes and not short-let flats. Half the homes (49.7%) were built between 1919 and 1944, the Marshalls years; most of the rest are the post-war Rise Park estate.
Three bedrooms is the standard size at 57.8%, and terraces are a small minority (11.9%), so nearly every job here has a full flight of stairs and a through-lounge or two front rooms. A Pettits Lane semi with three bedrooms, a through-lounge and the stairs comes to £210. Only 1.2% of homes have no central heating, so wool on the stairs cleaned in the morning is dry by the evening.
Figures: ONS Census 2021 (Havering 008) and VOA council tax stock, March 2024.
Paid bays on the town side, drives on the rest
Most Pettits semis have their own driveway, and the side roads off Pettits Lane North are free to park on, so we pull up close and run our hoses straight in. Nearer town it changes. Havering Drive and Oaklands Avenue have pay-by-phone bays from 8.30am to 6.30pm, Monday to Saturday, with a three-hour limit, and Park End Road and Park Drive have the same towards North Street.
If you live on one of those roads, the drive is the best spot for the van, so move your own car off it the night before if you can. A three-room job fits inside the bay limit, but a whole house can run past it. The Marshalls Park car park on Park End Road is open to the public only at weekends. Before we arrive, clear the hall and the stairs, and take ornaments off the lounge tables; we move the suite.
How much does carpet cleaning cost in Pettits?
Pettits pays the same fixed list as the rest of Havering and every London borough we cover, with no call-out fee and the total agreed before we come.
- Carpet cleaning, per bedroom, from £36
- Living room carpet from £43
- Through-lounge from £61
- Stairs, one flight, from £41
- Two-seater sofa from £57
- Rug up to 3m² from £35
Get a free quote, or call us on 020 8077 8090.
Carpet, leather and rug care in Pettits
Our hot-water steam carpet cleaning lifts the ground-in traffic lanes on Pettits staircases and landings, and it is what gets a lounge ready for visitors. For the cream leather and fabric three-seaters so common here, our upholstery cleaning covers suites, dining chairs and headrests, conditioning leather so it feels soft again. Loose rugs get specialist rug cleaning in your lounge or hall, vacuumed, pre-treated and rinsed during the visit. We cover the rest of Havering too, and neighbouring Rise Park and Heath Park on the same RM1 round.
Pettits customers ask
Which roads and postcodes do you cover in Pettits?
We cover the whole of Pettits in RM1, including Pettits Lane, Pettits Lane North, Pettits Boulevard, Pettits Close and Havering Drive, and we carry on into the RM2 streets nearby such as Heath Drive. Marshalls Drive, McIntosh Road and the roads around Marshalls Park are all on the round.
Is parking a problem for the van in Pettits?
Rarely. Most Pettits semis have their own driveway, and the side roads off Pettits Lane North are free to park on, so we park close and run our hoses straight in. Nearer town, Havering Drive and Oaklands Avenue have pay-by-phone bays, so there a drive makes life easier. Access on these streets almost never slows a job.
Can you clean carpets before we move into a Pettits house?
Yes, and an empty house is the ideal time. With the rooms clear we reach every corner, and we often deal with a faint smell left by previous owners’ pets in the bedrooms and on the landing. Carpets take up to 6 to 7 hours to dry, so move the furniture in once they are dry, that evening or the next day.
How soon will the stairs be dry in a Pettits 1930s semi?
Most carpets are dry within 6 to 7 hours of us finishing. Our machines extract the bulk of the moisture, so you are not left with a soaked floor. Heavier stair carpet or a thick wool bedroom pile near a cold outside wall, both common in these older family houses, can take a little longer, and opening a window helps it along.
Can you lift old tea and coffee stains from a cream carpet?
Usually a long way. Tea and coffee leave tannin, which turns brown as it ages, so we use a tannin spotter first and then a hot rinse. A fresh spill comes out completely; one that has sat for months may leave a faint beige ring on a cream carpet. For a new spill, dab with cold water, never hot, and resist the urge to rub.
We are selling the house. Is it worth cleaning the carpets before the photos?
Often, yes, and with 89.8% of homes here owner-occupied, we do a fair few before a sale. Book the clean two or three days before the photographer, so the carpets are dry and the furniture is back in place. A fresh pile shows clean, even lines in the pictures. We cannot hide a worn traffic lane, but we can take the grey out of it.
Every clean comes with our re-clean guarantee: if a treated area does not come up as it should, we return and put it right. We are fully insured and DBS-checked, we quote a fixed price before we start, and we have cleaned carpets and upholstery across Pettits and the rest of Havering since 2009.
