We clean homes all over Swampscott

Swampscott houses pick up sand and salt

Swampscott sits right on Massachusetts Bay, between Lynn and Marblehead. Plenty of houses here are a short walk from King's Beach or Phillips Beach, and that is a big reason people buy in town. It also means sand comes home all summer in shoes and beach bags. It settles into the grout of an entry floor and packs into the track of a sliding patio door. Left there, it grinds the track every time the door moves.

The salt is harder to see. Wind off the ocean carries a fine salt mist that dries on glass as a gray haze. It builds up fastest on the side of the house that faces the water. Houses along Humphrey Street get the most of it, but a strong onshore wind carries it well back from the beach. A dry cloth only smears that haze around. It has to come off with water and a squeegee, on the window glass and the patio door alike.

So in a Swampscott house we start where the sand comes in. Entry floors get vacuumed first and then washed. Carpets get vacuumed slowly, so the grit comes up out of the pile instead of sinking deeper. Patio door tracks are vacuumed out before anyone touches the glass. Window cleaning inside and out is on our list, and we can add it to a regular visit or do it as its own job. Seasonal cleans are on the list too, and the end of beach season is a sensible time for one.

• Entry floors vacuumed, then washed
• Sand vacuumed out of patio door tracks
• Window glass cleaned inside and out
• Carpets vacuumed slow enough to lift grit
• Mini blinds and ceiling fans dusted

Old Swampscott houses have more to dust

Long before it was a commuter town, Swampscott was a summer resort for Boston families. Many of the big wood houses from that time are still standing. You find them near the water and along the curving streets of the Olmsted district. Colonials and capes fill in the streets between them. The older houses are the ones that take the longest to clean, and the reason is mostly the woodwork.

Houses from that era were built with a lot of trim. Door frames and window casings are wide, and the baseboards run tall. Many rooms also have a picture rail up near the ceiling, and every ledge of it catches dust. So do the radiators in the houses that still have them. When trim goes a long time without a proper wipe, the dust mixes with kitchen grease and the damp sea air makes it stick. It turns into a gray film that takes real work to get off.

On a house like this we work from the top down, so dust from the high places lands on floors we have not done yet. Ceiling fans get dusted first, and the trim gets wiped by hand on the way down. Old wood floors are vacuumed along the seams. Then they get a damp mop, never a wet one, because standing water works into the gaps between the boards. If the trim has gone gray, it makes sense to start with a deep clean rather than a standard one.

Swampscott renovations leave fine plaster dust

Swampscott's old houses get worked on sooner or later, whether that means opening up a kitchen or taking down plaster to run new wiring. Plaster and sanding dust is much finer than ordinary house dust. It hangs in the air long after the work stops, then settles on every flat surface in the house, even in rooms nobody worked in. A normal dusting just pushes it around instead of taking it away.

Post construction clean up is on our list, and it is a different job from a regular visit. Fine dust keeps settling while you work, so surfaces get vacuumed and wiped more than once, from the door frames down to the floors. One Google review from Patricia Weibel starts like this. "Called for a one-time clean after renovations and they handled all the dust and leftover mess without complaining."

Houses here change hands too, and an old house that has just been emptied shows every mark the furniture used to cover. Our move-in and move-out cleaning gets inside the oven and the microwave, and it covers the floors that sat under beds and sofas for years. Book the move clean for the gap between the old owner leaving and your things arriving, when every room is open. If the last owner left things behind, trash out is on our list as well.

Getting a price in Swampscott

Call North Shore Maids at (617) 803-6705, or ask for an estimate online. Tell us about the house and whether you want regular visits or a one-time deep clean. If there is something particular, like sand in the patio door tracks or plaster dust from recent work, say so up front. You get a free quote before any work starts, so the price is settled before the crew arrives.