We clean homes near Singing Beach

Old wooden village houses hold more dust

Manchester-by-the-Sea is an old harbor town, and a lot of its houses show their age. In the village, many homes are wooden houses well over a hundred years old, set close together on narrow streets near the harbor. Along the shore and back in the woods sit large shingled houses, many first built as summer places, with newer homes mixed in. Each kind of house needs something different from a cleaning crew, so the work gets planned around the house you actually have.

An older house holds dust in places a newer one does not have. Wide pine floorboards often have small gaps between them, and grit settles into those gaps where a quick vacuum pass misses it. Tall door frames and deep window sills collect a gray layer that only comes off by hand. Old painted trim and plaster walls scuff more easily than new drywall, so we dust and wipe carefully instead of scrubbing hard. It takes longer, and it is the right way to clean a house like this.

The big shingled houses near the water are a different job. They tend to have a lot of rooms and a lot of glass facing the ocean. Some of those rooms go weeks without anyone in them. Dust settles there anyway, and it builds up on ceiling fans and picture frames. A recurring visit keeps a house that size under control, so the rooms you rarely open are already clean when guests show up.

• Floors and carpets vacuumed slowly to lift out sand
• Door frames and window sills dusted by hand
• Mini blinds and ceiling fans wiped down
• Interior and exterior windows cleaned on request
• Beds made and linens changed

Salt air and beach sand add work

Living this close to the ocean puts salt in the air all year. It lands on the outside of the windows as a cloudy film. After a windy stretch, the glass on the water side of a house can look gray. The rooms inside can be spotless and still look dim. Interior and exterior window cleaning is one of the services we offer, and on a house facing the ocean it often makes the biggest visible difference.

Then there is the sand. Singing Beach is close to the village, and every trip down there brings some of it home in shoes and beach towels. Sand works into carpet and collects along the edges of floors and inside the back door. Left there, it scratches wood floors every time someone walks across them. We vacuum carpets and floors slowly enough to pull it out. Entryways and mudrooms get extra time, because that is where most of it comes in.

Winter adds a different mess. Storms off the ocean bring wet snow, and boots carry slush and road salt in from the driveway all season. That salt dries into a white haze on the floor by the door, and if it sits it dulls the finish. In spring the trees around town drop pollen, and a yellow dust coats sills and patio doors. Patio doors and door windows are both on our cleaning list, so that film gets wiped off before it builds up.

Houses left closed need a deep clean

Some houses in Manchester-by-the-Sea sit closed for part of the year. When the owners come back, there is dust on every flat surface and dead flies along the window sills. The air smells shut in. Seasonal cleaning is on our service list, and a house coming out of a closed season is a good use for it. We dust and vacuum every room. The oven and microwave get cleaned inside, and the beds get fresh linens so they are ready on the first night.

Older houses here often get renovated, and renovation leaves the hardest dust there is to clean. Plaster and drywall dust is fine enough to drift through the whole house, and it settles again after the first wipe. Getting all of it usually takes more than one pass. Post construction clean up is one of our listed services. One Google reviewer booked us after a renovation and left this review. "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."

Moving day is the other time a house stands empty. With the furniture gone, every scuff on the floor and every dusty corner shows, and buyers notice it on the first walk through. Our move-in and move-out cleaning goes through the empty rooms and inside the oven, so the next owners walk into a clean house. When a property has been left in rough shape, trash out and foreclosure cleaning are on our list too.

Getting a price in Manchester-by-the-Sea

Call us at (617) 803-6705, or request an online estimate from this page. Tell us about the house and whether you want a one-time deep clean or recurring visits. We send the estimate in writing, so you know what the visit covers before you agree to it. We are open around the clock Monday to Friday. On weekends we are open from nine to five on Saturday and from nine to two on Sunday.