We clean homes all over Newbury

Beach sand gets into Plum Island houses

Plum Island sits between the ocean and the Great Marsh, so sand and salt air get into the houses all year. Sand comes in on shoes and beach towels, and it settles into rugs and the track of every sliding door. Salt air leaves a dull film on the glass that makes a sea view look foggy even on a clear day. The sand is hard to see from across the room. You feel it under bare feet first.

Sand does damage when it is left inside. It scratches the finish on wood floors every time someone walks across it. In a sliding door track it makes the door stick and wears down the rollers. On window glass, salt builds up in layers, and a quick wipe with a paper towel just smears it around. The longer it sits, the more work it takes to get the glass clear again.

So on a Plum Island house the floors get extra time. We vacuum the carpets and rugs, then go after the corners and the patio door track where sand collects. Interior and exterior window cleaning is on our list, which matters out here, because the salt lands on the outside of the glass. We also change linens and make beds, which helps when guests come and go all summer.

• Sand vacuumed out of rugs and carpets
• Grit cleared from patio door tracks
• Salt film washed off windows inside and out
• Beds made and linens changed
• Ceiling fans and mini blinds dusted

Old Newbury houses trap more dust

Newbury is one of the oldest towns in Massachusetts, and you can see it along High Road and around the greens. Many of the houses there are colonials and farmhouses with wide board floors and a lot of painted wood trim. They are lovely to live in. They also have far more ledges and gaps than a newer house, and each one of them holds dust.

Wide board floors have seams between the boards, and dust packs into them where a quick sweep never reaches. Older windows let in more air, so sills and casings pick up a gray film faster than you would expect. The tops of door frames and picture frames gather a layer nobody notices from the floor. Leave it for a season and the whole house starts to smell a little stale.

We clean these houses from the top down. Ceiling fans and door frames get dusted before the floors are vacuumed, so nothing drops onto a clean floor. When an old house is opened up for a renovation, plaster and sanding dust gets into every room. Post construction clean up is one of our services. One customer wrote: "Called for a one-time clean after renovations and they handled all the dust and leftover mess without complaining."

Byfield winters bring salt and mud inside

Byfield and the western part of Newbury sit away from the ocean, among farms and woods along the Parker River. The houses range from old farmhouses to newer family homes on bigger lots. Here the trouble starts with winter roads. Salt and sand come in on boots from December on, and they end up on the entry floor and down every hallway.

Road salt leaves a white crust on floors once the snow melts off. Left alone, it dulls the finish on hardwood and gets ground into rugs. Then spring brings mud season, and after that comes pollen, which settles on every flat surface in a house near fields and trees. A house that gets a big clean once a year never really catches up with all of it.

This is where a recurring cleaning service helps most. A regular visit takes the salt off the floors in winter and the pollen off the furniture in spring, before either one builds up. On each visit we dust the living areas and vacuum the floors. One customer wrote in a Google review: "I work from home and having them come every other week keeps the place manageable."

Getting a price in Newbury

Call (617) 803-6705 or request an online estimate on this site. Tell us where in Newbury the house is and what kind of cleaning you want. A sandy beach house on Plum Island is a different job from a regular visit to a family home in Byfield. So we price each house on its own. You get a free quote before any work starts, so you know what the visit covers.