We keep Palm Harbor homes clean

Palm Harbor has homes of every age

The streets around old downtown Palm Harbor, near Florida Avenue, still have older wood frame cottages. Those houses tend to have wood floors and a lot of painted trim. Dust settles into the gaps between old floorboards and along the tops of door frames, where a quick wipe never reaches. We clean those edges by hand. An older house looks tired fast when the edges get skipped, even if the middle of every room is clean.

Most of Palm Harbor is newer than that. The subdivisions between the old downtown and Lake Tarpon are mostly block and stucco houses, many with tile in the main rooms. Tile looks clean from standing height, but the grout lines darken first in the kitchen and at the back door. A mop spreads that dirt around instead of lifting it. On a deep clean we scrub the grout and wipe the baseboards beside it, since that is where a tile floor shows its age.

Near the golf courses and along Lake Tarpon, Palm Harbor has neighborhoods of villas and condos, a few of them gated. Some owners here spend part of the year away. A home that sits closed through a Florida summer comes back musty. Dust covers every flat surface, and a shower that never fully dried can grow mildew. A deep clean before the owner returns, then standard cleaning on a schedule, keeps the place ready to live in.

• Door frames and trim dusted by hand
• Grout scrubbed in kitchens and entryways
• Baseboards wiped in every room
• Showers cleared of mildew and soap film
• Closed-up homes cleaned before owners return

Florida weather gets into Palm Harbor homes

The air in Palm Harbor stays humid most of the year, and humid air changes how dust behaves. In a dry climate dust sits loose and wipes right off. Here it takes on moisture and sticks. A ceiling fan blade or the top of the refrigerator gets a gray film, and a dry cloth only smears it around. We use a damp cloth and go back over the surface until it is clean to the touch.

Summer brings a storm most afternoons, and the yards stay wet for hours after it passes. Wet grass and sandy soil come in on shoes and on dogs. Most of it lands inside the back door and along the slider to the lanai. Sand is hard on floors, because every step grinds it into the finish. Getting it out of the slider track and off the floor by the doors is part of every visit.

Late winter and spring bring heavy oak and pine pollen, and Palm Harbor has plenty of both trees. A fine yellow dust settles on window sills and on anything near a door that gets opened often. It rides in on clothes and pets too. If the sills and the floors near the doors get skipped during those weeks, that dust gets picked up and spread through the house. So in pollen season we pay extra attention to the ledges and floors closest to the outside.

Who we clean for in Palm Harbor

When a lease ends or a house sells in Palm Harbor, the rooms get cleaned while they are empty. Empty rooms show everything, like the line of dust where the couch sat and the grease on the wall behind the stove. A move-out clean goes after those spots and the floor where the furniture stood. One customer had Terry Ross, who owns Serenity Cleaning, deep clean the apartment she and her husband moved out of. Her review reads: "He made the apartment look like no one ever lived there."

If you own a rental in Palm Harbor, you need it cleaned between tenants without standing over the work. John Toston had us clean "one of my rental properties in Oldsmar," a short drive from Palm Harbor. David Jehlen sent us to a client's home. The client said, "Terry the cleaner did a fantastic job," and David passed that along. An owner who lives out of town needs exactly that kind of report.

For a Palm Harbor household, we come weekly or every other week to keep the house up all year. Chris Gwaltney has two dogs and kids. "They make it feel brand new week after week," Chris wrote. We also clean offices on a schedule, which suits the small offices along the busy roads through town. An office customer, Jerrold Slutzky, wrote: "He even cleaned our garbage cans!"

Getting a price in Palm Harbor

Call (727) 748-9665 between nine in the morning and five in the afternoon, Monday through Friday. You can also send your details through the request form on this page. Tell us where in Palm Harbor the home is and how many bedrooms and bathrooms it has. Say whether you want a one-time deep clean or visits on a schedule, and mention any pets. You get a free quote before any cleaning starts, so the price is settled first.