We follow the same checklist every visit

We dust first and do floors last

A recurring visit runs in the same order in every house, because the order keeps one step from undoing another. We dust high spots first, like ceiling fans and door frames, so whatever falls lands on a floor we have not cleaned yet. Kitchens and bathrooms come next, since they take the longest. Floors are always last. Mop a floor before the fan gets dusted and you will see gray fuzz on it by dinner.

We start the kitchen at the stovetop. Grease settles around the burners and the knobs, and crumbs work their way under the edges. The microwave gets wiped inside too, since food splatter bakes on a little harder every time it runs. Counters come after that, then the sink, because everything else in the room drains into it. A kitchen is finished when you can run a hand over the counter and the stovetop and feel nothing sticky on either one.

Bathrooms get the same top-down order. Mirrors and the sink come first, then the tub and shower. The toilet gets its own cloth so nothing carries from one surface to another. The spot most people miss at home is the shower floor along the bottom row of grout. Soap film settles there, and it turns gray within a few weeks when nobody scrubs it. Before we leave, we walk back through the house with the checklist and look at every room again.

• Stovetop and microwave cleaned every visit
• Toilets and tubs scrubbed in every bathroom
• Window sills and ceiling fans dusted
• Hard floors mopped, carpets vacuumed
• Spots you request added to the checklist

Regular visits stop grime from building up

Each recurring visit is lighter work than a first clean, which is the reason to keep the visits on a calendar. When we come back on a steady schedule, most of what we remove is a few days of dust and fresh spills. Nothing has had time to harden. Let the gap stretch out and the same visit turns into scraping and soaking, which takes longer and wears on counters and tile.

Different kinds of dirt build up at different speeds. Soap film in a shower starts to show within a week or two. Cooking grease drifts up and sticks to the cabinet doors beside the stove, where it catches dust and turns gummy. Pet hair collects in corners and under beds. On a regular visit, none of it takes much effort to remove. Left for a couple of months, the film on the cabinets needs a degreaser and a lot more scrubbing. Shower glass can stay cloudy for good.

The right gap between visits depends on who lives in the house. A home with two dogs and kids coming in from the yard gets dirty faster than a condo with one adult who travels for work. We look at that during the assessment and tell you what we see. If one room is always the worst when we arrive, we will say so, and the schedule or the checklist can change to match.

Red clay and pollen end up indoors

Around Morrisville the ground is red Piedmont clay, and it does not stay outside. It comes in on shoes and paws, then dries into a fine orange dust. That dust settles into carpet and into light grout lines, where it stains if it gets wet before it is picked up. So we vacuum or sweep the dry dust first and mop second. Entry rugs get vacuumed in both directions, which pulls the grit up out of the pile.

Every spring, pine pollen turns cars and porches across Wake County yellow for a few weeks. It gets inside through window screens and around doors, then lands on every flat surface in the house. A dry duster only pushes it into the air, and it settles again an hour later. During pollen season we dust with damp cloths so the pollen stays on the cloth. Window sills and sliding door tracks get extra time, because that is where it piles up.

Much of the housing around Morrisville and Cary is newer wood-frame construction, mostly two-story houses and townhomes. Downstairs is usually one open room with luxury vinyl plank or hardwood running from the kitchen to the couch. Upstairs is carpet. Carpeted stairs catch everything that comes off feet on the way up. So we vacuum each step and the strip of carpet along the wall. On wood and plank floors we use a damp mop, never a soaking one. Water left in the seams can make boards swell.

Humid summers put mildew in bathrooms

North Carolina summers are hot and humid, and the air inside can stay damp even with the air conditioning running. Bathrooms get it worst. A shower that never fully dries between uses grows black mildew in the caulk line and the corners of the grout. On a recurring visit we scrub those corners every time, before the spots can sink into the caulk. Once mildew gets down into caulk, cleaning will lighten it, but the caulk usually has to be replaced.

From late spring into fall, most air conditioners here run much of the day and move dust the whole time. Vent covers turn gray. Ceiling fans that spin all summer build a thick line of dust along the front edge of each blade. Sooner or later it drops onto the bed or the couch underneath. We wipe fan blades and vent covers as part of the checklist, so the dust does not get thick enough to fall.

What you can do between visits is small, but it helps. Run the bathroom exhaust fan for a while after every shower, and leave the shower door or curtain open so the walls can dry. Hang towels spread out on a bar, not bunched on a hook. Those habits keep mildew from getting a start. Then our time on your next visit goes to the whole bathroom instead of one stubborn corner.

You pick the day and how often

A cleaning schedule only helps if the visits come when you expect them. Our hours are Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, and we pick a day and a frequency with you. When something comes up, like a trip or a sick kid, we work with you to move the visit. Clare Goodwin wrote in a Google review: "Martha is always very flexible with our schedule."

The checklist is what keeps the tenth visit as good as the first. It names every room and what gets done in it, plus any extra spot you have asked us to add. After a visit we ask how it went, and anything that was missed goes on the list for next time. Camden Bryant wrote in a Google review that the crew "really went through their checklist."

Skipping one visit is not a disaster, but the house shows it. The next clean runs longer, and the shower and the stovetop need more scrubbing than the checklist plans for. Skip two in a row and we are close to starting over. Reviewers bring up attention to detail more than anything else. That kind of detail only happens when each visit starts from a house that was cleaned recently. To set up a schedule, call (919) 685-2671.