Melrose Victorians need a careful crew

Victorian woodwork in Melrose holds dust

Melrose grew up around the commuter rail line, and much of the city's housing is still Victorian, well over a century old. You see it on the streets around Ell Pond and up through the Highlands. Inside, these houses carry a lot of woodwork: tall baseboards, wide window casings, stair railings with turned spindles, built-in cabinets in the dining room. Every one of those edges is a flat spot where dust settles, and an old house has far more of them than a new one.

Dust on old trim does not stay loose for long. In the kitchen it mixes with cooking grease and turns into a sticky film on cabinet tops and door frames. Everywhere else it packs into the grooves of the molding, where a quick swipe with a cloth only smears it around. Many of these houses also heat with radiators. The tops gather a gray layer over the winter, and the rising heat lifts it back into the room.

So on an older Melrose house we work from the top down. Ceiling fans and blinds come first. Door frames and trim come next, dusted by hand so the grooves in the molding actually get cleaned. The floors go last, so nothing falls onto a surface we already finished. Old finish on a banister or a built-in gets wiped clean with a soft cloth, never scrubbed hard, because a century of wear leaves it thin in places.

• Ceiling fans and mini blinds dusted
• Door frames and trim dusted by hand
• Every wall hanging dusted in place
• Hardwood floors and carpets vacuumed
• Inside of the oven and microwave cleaned

Melrose winters end up on your floors

Winter in Melrose means snow, and that brings salt and sand to the roads and sidewalks all season. All of it comes inside on boots. Plenty of older houses here have no real mudroom, so the front hall catches everything. That is usually a narrow space with a hardwood floor and the stairs right beside it. Anyone who walks home from the Wyoming Hill or Cedar Park platform knows how much slush comes through the door.

Sand and salt do two different kinds of damage. Sand is grit, and every step grinds it into the finish on a wood floor like fine sandpaper. Salt dries into a white haze that dulls the floor and travels from room to room on socks. Leave it for a whole season and the front hall looks worn by spring, and some of that wear will not come out with any cleaning.

That is why the entry and the floors get vacuumed on every winter visit, before the grit has weeks to grind in. Spring brings a different mess. Melrose has heavy tree cover, and when the oaks drop their pollen, a yellow film lands on the sills and the glass. Old houses have a lot of windows, so this is a good time of year for our interior and exterior window cleaning.

Renovating in Melrose means plaster dust

Renovating an old Melrose house usually means opening walls, whether for a new kitchen or to join the front parlor to the dining room. These houses were built with plaster over wood lath. When that plaster comes down, it breaks into a powder much finer than normal house dust. It slips past plastic sheeting and settles in rooms nobody worked in. Then it keeps drifting down for days after the contractor packs up.

A regular cleaning will not catch all of it. If you only wipe the obvious surfaces, a fresh layer shows up on the same tables by the next morning. Post construction clean up means going over every ledge and door frame more than once, then vacuuming the floors after the air has had time to settle. One customer described it this way: "Called for a one-time clean after renovations and they handled all the dust and leftover mess without complaining."

The same goes for a house changing hands. When a Melrose sale closes, the rooms sit empty for a short stretch. That is the best chance to reach every corner, including the floor where the beds stood. Our move-in and move-out cleaning goes through each empty room and can cover the inside of the oven and the microwave. The next owner gets a house they can unpack in right away.

Getting a price in Melrose

Call (617) 803-6705 or request an online estimate, and tell us about the house and what you want done. A big Victorian with a finished attic is a different job from a small ranch. A one-time deep clean is also priced differently from a visit every other week. You get a free quote before any work starts, so you know the cost up front. We are open around the clock Monday to Friday, and for part of the day on Saturday and Sunday.