We clean your home with green products

Every visit follows the same cleaning order

Recurring cleaning works because it happens before dirt has time to set. A kitchen wiped down on every visit never gets the sticky film that builds up on cabinet doors and stove knobs. A shower cleaned on schedule stays free of the hard ring of soap scum that takes real scrubbing to break. Each visit is lighter work than a deep clean, and it stays that way as long as the visits keep coming.

The order matters more than most people think. We start high and finish low, so dust knocked off a ceiling fan lands on a floor that still needs cleaning. Dusting comes before wiping, because dust from a light fixture will land on a counter you just wiped. Floors come last, and we work from the far side of each room toward the door. That way nobody steps on a floor that is already done.

Done right, a recurring visit is easy to spot. The kitchen counters are clear and dry, with no crumbs along the backsplash. The toilet is clean under the rim and around the base, where most bathroom odor comes from. Mirrors have no streaks when the afternoon light hits them, and the floors feel clean under bare feet. The house should smell clean, with no strong chemical smell left behind.

• Kitchen counters, sink and appliance fronts wiped
• Toilets, tubs, showers and sinks scrubbed
• Dusting done from high to low
• Carpets vacuumed and hard floors mopped
• Safe, green products used throughout the house

Pollen and summer humidity add cleaning work

Every spring the pine trees around Kernersville put down a coat of yellow pollen, and it does not stay outside. It comes in on shoes and pet fur, and it drifts through every door that opens. Within a day or so it sits on window sills and the tops of picture frames. A dry duster just throws it back into the air, where it lands again an hour later. In pollen season, dusting has to be done with a damp cloth that picks the pollen up and holds it.

Summer is the other hard stretch. The air in the Triad stays humid from late spring into fall. A bathroom without a strong exhaust fan never fully dries out between showers. That is when grey mildew spots and a pink film show up in the grout lines and along the caulk at the base of the tub. Caught on every visit, they wipe away with little effort. Left alone for a month or more, they sink in and stain the caulk for good.

The ground here adds its own mess. North Carolina red clay comes in on shoes and paws, and wet clay dries into a fine orange dust. On light carpet and on grout it leaves a stain that gets harder to lift each week it sits. On each visit we pay close attention to the entry doors and the path in from the garage. That is where the clay lands first. Cleaning those spots every time keeps the clay from being walked into the rest of the house.

Different floors need different cleaning methods

A lot of the older brick ranch homes around Kernersville still have their original oak floors. Too much water ruins the finish on those floors. A soaking wet mop pushes water into the seams between boards, and over time the board edges curl up and the finish turns cloudy. We clean wood with a mop that is barely damp, and we dry any spot that stays wet. Grit is the other problem. Sand and clay dragged under a mop scratch the finish, so the floor gets swept or vacuumed before it gets mopped.

Newer vinyl-sided two-story homes in the subdivisions around town often have luxury vinyl plank downstairs and carpet on the stairs and in the bedrooms. Vinyl plank handles water better than wood, but the wrong cleaner leaves a dull, sticky film that shows every footprint. Using a small amount of cleaner and a fresh mop head keeps it from looking hazy. Carpet on the stairs takes the most wear in the house. The edges of each step collect dust that a regular vacuum head cannot reach, so we get into those corners by hand.

Tile floors in kitchens and bathrooms are tough, but the grout between the tiles is not. Grout soaks up whatever is in the mop water, so a mop full of dirty water leaves the dirt behind in the lines. Over a few months the grout goes from light to dark grey, and a regular clean can no longer bring it back. Changing the mop water often keeps grout close to its first color between visits.

Kitchens and bathrooms get the most time

The kitchen is where a skipped step shows up fastest. Cooking puts a thin layer of grease in the air, and it settles on the range hood and the cabinet doors next to the stove. Wiped every visit, that grease comes off with a green degreaser and a soft cloth. Left for a couple of months, it catches dust and turns into a tacky brown coat. That coat takes far more work to remove, and scrubbing it can dull the cabinet finish.

Counters get cleared and wiped, then everything goes back where it was. The sink gets scrubbed and the faucet dried, because a faucet left wet dries with spots on it. The stovetop gets cleaned while spills are still fresh and easy to lift. Appliance fronts get wiped where hands touch them most, around the handles. Those handles are also where germs from raw food end up, so they get a disinfecting wipe every time.

Bathrooms follow a set order too. Cleaner goes on the shower and the toilet first so it has time to work, and we wipe the mirror while it sits. Then the shower, tub, sink and toilet get scrubbed, and the toilet always comes last. Each area gets its own cloth. Skip that step, and a cloth that touched the toilet base ends up on the counter where someone sets a toothbrush.

Long gaps between visits make cleaning harder

A skipped visit makes the next one much harder. The next visit has twice the buildup to handle in the kitchen and bathrooms. Those rooms then take time that would normally go to dusting and floors. Soap scum that sat for an extra couple of weeks needs scrubbing instead of a quick wipe. If you know a skip is coming, tell us, and we can plan the next visit around the rooms that will need the most work.

Homes with pets need visits closer together than homes without them. Dog and cat hair collects along the edges of rooms and under furniture. In a humid summer it mixes with dust and clings to carpet. A house with a shedding dog, cleaned once a month, has hair drifting across the hardwood within the first week. More frequent visits keep that hair from working deep into the carpet, where it is much harder to pull out.

The right gap depends on the house. A couple with no pets in a small ranch can go longer between visits than a family of five with two dogs. Visits are too far apart when the toilet has a ring before the next visit comes, or the shower needs hard scrubbing every time. If we see those signs, we will say so, and you can move the visits closer together.