We clean homes all over Topsfield

Old Topsfield houses need a gentler clean

Topsfield has held on to a lot of its old houses. Around the town common and along the older roads, you find colonials and farmhouses that have stood for centuries. Many still have wide pine floorboards and original woodwork. Many were added onto over the years, so one house can hold rooms from several different eras. Cleaning a house like that is slower work than cleaning a new build, and it should be.

Old pine is soft, and many of these floors have gaps between the boards. Flood one with a wet mop and water runs into the cracks and lifts the finish. Grit left on the surface does its own damage, because every footstep grinds it into the wood. Old window frames often carry soft putty and many layers of paint, and a soaking spray works in behind them. A lot of the wear on an old house comes from cleaning that was too rough.

So in an older Topsfield house, the floors get vacuumed before anything wet touches them, and the mop that follows is damp, never soaking. Door frames and wall hangings are dusted by hand. Window glass gets cleaned without drenching the frame around it. If there is a room or a surface you would rather we leave alone, tell us when you book. We will note it for every visit.

• Floors vacuumed first, then damp mopped
• Door frames and wall hangings dusted by hand
• Ceiling fans and mini blinds dusted
• Inside of the oven and microwave cleaned
• Beds made and linens changed

Wooded Topsfield lots bring more dirt inside

Most of Topsfield sits under oak and pine, and the Ipswich River winds through town past wide wetlands. All of that ends up on the floors. Spring is mud season here, when lawn edges and gravel paths go soft and boots carry the mud straight into the kitchen. By late spring, pollen from the trees settles as a yellow film on windowsills and tables. In the fall, wet leaves ride in on every shoe.

Winter adds a different mess. Snow melts off boots in the entry, and the sand and salt from the roads ride in with it. Left to sit, that gritty water dulls a wood floor and leaves a white crust on tile. Houses closed up tight for the cold months also hold on to dust. It builds up on ceiling fans and along the tops of door frames, where nobody looks.

Our listing includes seasonal services, and on a recurring plan we adjust the work to the time of year. Through mud season and winter, the entry and the kitchen floor get extra attention. In pollen season we wipe down windowsills and dust the furniture closest to the windows. In the fall, the laundry room and the back entry get more time, because that is where wet coats and boots end up.

Renovations and moves need a deeper clean

Plenty of old Topsfield houses get renovated sooner or later. A kitchen gets opened up, or an addition goes on the back. Even a careful contractor leaves fine dust behind. In an old house it settles into the gaps between floorboards and on top of every window casing. A regular recurring clean is not set up to chase all of that out. It keeps drifting back down for weeks if nobody gets it all.

Our post construction clean up is for exactly this. We work from the top of each room down, starting with ceiling fans and finishing with the floors. That way nothing falls onto a surface that is already clean, and the dust does not get pushed from room to room. Patricia Weibel wrote in her review: "Called for a one-time clean after renovations and they handled all the dust and leftover mess without complaining."

Moving is the other time a house needs a full clean. When a Topsfield house changes hands, the rooms are empty and every scuff and dust line shows. Our move-in and move-out cleaning includes the inside of the oven and the microwave, and the floors get done after the furniture is gone. If the last owners left things behind, we also handle trash out. For a seller, that is one less job before the closing.

Getting a price in Topsfield

Call (617) 803-6705 or send the form on this page with your Topsfield address and the kind of clean you want. We offer online estimates, so you see the price in writing before you book a visit. We are open 24 hours Monday to Friday. Saturday hours are 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and Sunday hours are 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM.