We clean every room top to bottom

Every visit follows the same order

A recurring clean works from the top of each room down, and from the dry jobs to the wet ones. Ceiling fan blades and the tops of shelves get dusted first, because that dust is headed for the floor anyway. Counters and tables get wiped next, and the floors come last. We vacuum before we mop, so the hair and grit leave with the vacuum instead of turning into a muddy paste under the mop.

The kitchen and the bathrooms take the most time on every visit. That is where grease and soap scum build up. The kitchen sink gets scrubbed and the stovetop degreased, and handprints come off the fridge and microwave doors. Each toilet gets cleaned inside and out, including the base and the floor around it. That is where odor starts. Tubs and showers get scrubbed, and mirrors are polished dry so they do not streak.

When a step gets skipped or done out of order, you can see it. A counter wiped before the shelf above it was dusted has a fine film on it before the visit is over. A floor mopped over dog hair leaves a dark line along the baseboards. The same routine holds whatever you ask us to add. One customer wrote that Terry, the owner, "always listens to what is important to me."

• Dusting from ceiling fans down to baseboards
• Kitchen sink scrubbed and stovetop degreased
• Bathrooms scrubbed, mirrors polished dry
• Floors vacuumed first, then mopped
• Your own requests added to the routine

Florida humidity makes mildew grow fast

Pinellas Park sits between Tampa Bay and the Gulf, and the air stays humid for most of the year. A bathroom here rarely dries out all the way, even with the fan running. Mildew shows up as black dots in the grout and along the caulk at the bottom of the shower. Cleaned every week or two, it wipes right off. Left for a month or more, it grows into the caulk and stains it for good.

Spring brings its own mess. The live oaks drop a yellow-green pollen that coats the lanai and comes inside on shoes and dog paws. Sand gets tracked in through the sliding glass door all year, and it settles in the door track where a vacuum usually misses. That track is worth cleaning on every regular visit, because grit left there wears down the rollers and makes the door drag.

From late spring into fall the ceiling fans run nonstop, and the front edge of each blade picks up a fuzzy line of dust. In damp air that dust turns sticky, so a dry duster just smears it around. A damp microfiber cloth takes it off in one pass. The return grille for the air conditioner collects the same gray fuzz. It gets wiped too, because a clogged grille makes the unit work harder.

Pinellas Park floors need different cleaners

A lot of the houses around Pinellas Park and Largo are older concrete block ranch homes. Many of them have terrazzo floors, some still under carpet and some uncovered. Terrazzo is chips of marble set in cement and ground smooth. Vinegar is acidic, and so are most cleaners sold for soap scum. Acid eats into the marble chips and leaves dull, rough patches that no mop will fix. Terrazzo gets a pH neutral cleaner instead.

Pinellas Park also has a lot of manufactured home communities, and those homes need gentler cleaning. The floors often sit on pressed wood panels, and water that gets through a seam swells the board underneath until the floor feels soft. Those floors get a damp mop, never a wet one, and spills get dried on the spot. The wall panels usually have a vinyl face that wipes clean with a cloth but scratches under a scrub pad.

A lot of condos in Largo and Seminole, and many newer houses, have large ceramic or porcelain tile. The tile is easy to clean. The grout between the tiles is where the dirt shows, and light grout turns gray along the path from the back door to the kitchen. A mop pushing dirty water packs grime deeper into the grout. Fresh water, changed as soon as it clouds, keeps the grout close to its original color.

Dogs and kids usually mean weekly visits

Recurring visits run weekly or every other week, and the choice comes down to how fast your house gets dirty. A couple with no pets can often go two weeks and still find the place in good shape. A house with dogs and small kids usually cannot. One customer with two dogs and kids wrote that "my house needs that weekly clean and they make it feel brand new week after week."

Dog hair collects in the same spots in every house, in the corners behind doors and in a soft line along the baseboards. By the end of a week it rolls into clumps you can see from across the room. In the Florida heat, a lot of dogs shed a little all year instead of in two big bursts. Weekly visits pick it up while it is still a vacuum job, before it works into rugs and upholstery.

Every other week works well for a quieter house, as long as someone wipes the bathroom sink once in between. Sometimes a visit turns up something bigger, like a sofa covered in hair or curtains that have gone dingy. That can be added as a la carte work. Furniture and curtain cleaning are both on that list. If the whole house has fallen behind, it usually takes a deep clean first, and then the regular visits keep it there.