We clean Winston-Salem houses with care

Older Winston-Salem houses need gentle cleaning

A lot of Winston-Salem was built long before central air. Ardmore is full of bungalows, many built between the world wars, and the West End has large older houses on hilly, curving streets near downtown. Many of those houses still have their hardwood floors, tall baseboards, deep window sills and wood trim around every door. Every one of those flat surfaces holds dust. Older windows let in more of it than new ones do.

Skip that dust for a few months and you can see it. Grit settles into the gaps between old floorboards, and every trip across the room grinds it into the finish. Dust packs into the grooves of old trim and turns gray and sticky in a humid summer. Strong cleaners bring their own trouble, because they can dull an old finish or leave a film that grabs dirt faster. We clean with safe, green products instead, and those are easier on kids and pets too.

So in an older house we spend our time on the parts that hold dust. We dust ceiling fans and light fixtures first, so nothing falls on a floor we already cleaned. Baseboards, door trim, window sills and stair rails get wiped by hand. The floors get vacuumed before anything damp touches the wood, so the grit comes up instead of getting pushed around. If a room has a surface you want handled a certain way, tell us when you ask for your estimate.

• Ceiling fans and light fixtures dusted first
• Baseboards, door trim and sills wiped by hand
• Hardwood floors vacuumed before they are mopped
• Kitchens and bathrooms cleaned with green products
• Door handles and light switches wiped down

Pine pollen coats Winston-Salem every spring

Anyone who has spent a spring in Winston-Salem knows the yellow dust. For a few weeks the pine pollen coats every car and porch in the city, and it does not stay outside. It comes in on shoes and on the dog. Pollen also drifts through window screens on the first warm days, when everyone wants the windows open. Then it settles on window sills and on the floor just inside the door, where it shows up on dark wood right away.

Summer brings a different problem. Winston-Salem summers are hot and sticky, and the damp air is hardest on bathrooms. A shower that never fully dries out grows mildew in the grout and along the bottom of the curtain. In the kitchen, cooking grease and dust meet in the humid air and leave a sticky film on top of the cabinets and the fridge. Leave either room for a season and it takes a lot more scrubbing to get clean.

The rest of the year the trouble is red clay. Piedmont clay turns to orange mud after a rain, and it gets tracked across the entry and up the stairs. Once it dries it can stain light grout and pale carpet, and it gets harder to lift the longer it sits. So a regular cleaning in Winston-Salem puts extra time into the entry and the kitchen floor. That is where the weather here ends up inside the house, whatever the season.

We clean Winston-Salem homes for a move

People move in and out of Winston-Salem all year long. Students and faculty come and go at Wake Forest University, and the big hospitals bring in new staff. Families trade a first apartment for a house with a yard. Each move leaves an old place that needs cleaning before the next person gets the keys. The new place is easier to clean before the boxes come in, and we do both.

An empty house shows dirt that a furnished one hides. Move the couch and there is a gray line of dust where it sat, plus whatever rolled under it. The spots under the beds and behind the dresser have not seen a vacuum in a long time. Empty cabinets and closet shelves show every crumb and cobweb, and you notice handprints and scuffs on walls that were hidden behind furniture.

Move cleaning is one of the services we offer, next to deep and standard cleaning. We work from the top of each room down. Shelves and cabinets come first, then counters and bathrooms, and the floors go last so nothing lands on them. If you rent, this is the cleaning your landlord checks before handing back a deposit. If you are selling, it is the house buyers see on the final walkthrough.

Getting a price in Winston-Salem

Call (336) 310-9620, or send your Winston-Salem address and a short description of the house through this page. We offer online estimates, and you get the price in writing before anything is booked. It helps to know the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and whether you want a standard, deep or move cleaning. Our hours run Monday through Saturday, and we are closed on Sunday.