We clean older homes across Lynn

Lynn's older houses collect dust up high

Lynn grew up as a shoe city, and a lot of its housing was built for the people who worked in those factories. You still see it in West Lynn and around downtown, where triple-deckers and two-family houses stand close together with stacked porches out front. Near the ocean, the Diamond District has big Victorian houses with many rooms and plenty of wood trim. There are newer homes in the city too, but a large share of the housing here is old.

Old houses hold dust in places a quick weekly wipe never reaches. Wide wood trim and tall door frames collect it along their top edges. Cast iron radiators trap it between their sections. When the heat comes on in the fall, that dust warms up and the room smells of it. In a triple-decker, the shared stairs get walked on by everyone in the building, so dirt shows there first.

So in an older Lynn house we clean from the top of the room down. Ceiling fans, mini blinds, wall hangings and the tops of door frames get dusted first. The floors get vacuumed last, after everything that fell has landed. Working in that order means the dust you paid to have removed does not settle back onto a clean floor an hour later. The same order works in a Diamond District Victorian and in a second floor unit in West Lynn.

• Tops of door frames and wall hangings dusted
• Ceiling fans and mini blinds cleaned
• Floors vacuumed after the dusting is done
• Inside of the oven and microwave cleaned
• Beds made and linens changed

Salt and sand get into Lynn homes

Lynn sits right on the water. Lynn Shore Drive runs along Nahant Bay to Kings Beach, and the wind off the bay carries salt with it. That salt lands on window glass as a dull film. Wiping it with a dry cloth only smears it around. Houses along the shore get the most of it. On a windy day it also reaches streets well back from the beach, where it settles on sills and in patio door tracks.

Winter brings the other problem. Nor'easters come in off the ocean, and after each storm the streets and sidewalks get salted and sanded. That grit comes into the house on boots and piles up by the front door and on the stairs. On a hardwood floor, every step drags it across the finish and leaves fine scratches. A mat catches some of it, and the rest stays in the house until somebody vacuums it up.

So the work in Lynn changes a little with the season. Through the winter, the entry and the stairs need a full vacuum on every visit. If you have recurring cleaning, ask us to put that on the list. We wash windows inside and out, along with patio door glass, so the salt film comes off instead of getting smeared around. That matters most on the side of a house that faces the bay. A seasonal clean in spring takes care of the sand and salt that winter left behind.

We clean Lynn units between tenants

A lot of Lynn housing is split into units, in two-family houses and triple-deckers, and many of those units are rented. Tenants come and go. When one moves out, the empty rooms show every mark. You see the grease on the wall behind the stove and the dust along the tops of the kitchen cabinets. A move-out clean reaches all of it while nothing is in the way, so the next tenant carries boxes into a unit that is actually clean.

Renovation leaves a mess of its own. When a kitchen or bathroom in an older Lynn house gets redone, the fine dust from cutting and sanding drifts through the house. It gets into rooms with the doors shut and settles inside cabinets. A quick sweep will not get it all. We do post construction clean up. Patricia Weibel wrote: "Called for a one-time clean after renovations and they handled all the dust and leftover mess without complaining. Communication was easy and the price was fair."

Now and then a Lynn house sits empty for months, after a foreclosure or a long vacancy between owners. Those houses need more than a regular clean. We do foreclosure cleaning and trash out, so the trash left behind comes out before any cleaning starts. After that, the house gets a full move-in clean, including the inside of the oven and the microwave. Whoever gets the keys starts with a clean kitchen.

Getting a price in Lynn

Call us at (617) 803-6705, or request an online estimate from this page. Tell us the size of your Lynn home and whether you want a one-time clean or regular visits. If it is a move-out or a clean after renovation work, mention that too. You get a free quote before anything is booked. We are open 24 hours Monday to Friday. On Saturday we are open 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and on Sunday from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM.