We clean homes across Newburyport

Older Newburyport houses need careful cleaning

Much of Newburyport was built when the town was a busy shipping port. High Street is lined with tall Federal-style houses built for sea captains and merchants. The streets running down toward the river are full of older wood-frame homes. Inside, you find high ceilings, deep window sills, fireplaces and wide pine floorboards. They are lovely rooms to live in, and they hold dust in places a newer house does not have.

Wide pine floors are the first thing we look at. The boards have gaps between them, and grit settles into those gaps and gets ground in underfoot. A soaking mop pushes water into the seams. We vacuum the gaps first, then damp mop the boards. High ceilings and crown molding collect cobwebs that a household duster never reaches. Radiators hold a coat of dust that lifts back into the air each fall when the heat comes on.

We clean these rooms from the top down. That way, dust from ceiling fans and high shelves falls onto floors we have not done yet. Door frames and mini blinds get wiped by hand. In the kitchen we clean the inside of the microwave and the oven. Skip a few months and dust packs into the floor gaps, and every visit after that takes longer.

• Floor gaps vacuumed before any damp mop
• Ceiling fans and high trim dusted first
• Door frames and mini blinds wiped by hand
• Window sills and radiator tops dusted
• Beds made and linens changed

Plum Island sand ends up indoors

Newburyport sits where the Merrimack River meets the ocean, and Plum Island is a short drive from downtown. Summer means beach sand in shoes, beach bags, towels and the dog, and a lot of it ends up inside. Sand is hard on floors. On a wood floor it acts like sandpaper every time someone walks across it. Left in an entry or a mudroom for a few weeks, it dulls the finish in a path you can see.

Salt in the air leaves a dull film on window glass. The side of the house facing the water or the marsh gets the heaviest coat. Windows that look fine at noon show a gray haze once the low winter sun comes through them. We clean windows inside and out, and patio door glass too. On a house near the water, the outside of the glass is where you notice the change.

Nor'easters come in off the ocean, and the streets and sidewalks get salted all winter. That salt dries into a white crust on entry floors and rugs, and it eats at wood finishes if it sits. Downtown, people walk everywhere on brick sidewalks, so a condo front hall sees a lot of boots. We take the salt line off entry floors and vacuum the rugs. That keeps it from being tracked deeper into the house.

Newburyport renovations leave dust everywhere

Old houses in Newburyport always seem to have a project going, like a new kitchen or a gutted bathroom. Cutting into old plaster makes a fine gray dust, and it travels well past the room where the work happened. It settles on door frames and the tops of light fixtures, and a quick sweep just moves it around. Post construction cleanup means going over every surface more than once, from the ceiling down.

After a project like that, the first clean is the heavy one. Once the dust is gone, a regular visit keeps it from building up again in the floor gaps and the trim. Patricia Weibel called us for this kind of job and left this Google 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."

Move-in and move-out cleans are the other big one-time job we do here. An empty house shows everything, like the dust line where a bookcase stood or the grease on the stovetop. We clean inside the oven and the microwave, then vacuum and mop every floor on the way out. Plenty of the older buildings downtown are now condos or apartments. When one changes hands, the kitchen is the first room people check.

Getting a price in Newburyport

Call (617) 803-6705 or request an online estimate, and tell us about your Newburyport home. It helps to know the size of the place and whether you want a one-time deep clean or regular visits. Mention a move-out date or a renovation that just finished, since those jobs take longer. You get a free quote before any work is booked. Monday to Friday we are open 24 hours. Saturday hours are 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and Sunday hours are 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM.