The Journal
What we have learned cleaning houses on the North Shore of Massachusetts and the New Hampshire seacoast. Prices, checklists, and the things nobody tells you before you hire someone.
3 min
Move In Cleaning: What to Do Before the Furniture Arrives
There is a window between closing and the moving truck where the house is empty and every surface is reachable at once. It never comes back.
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4 min
Plant-Based Cleaning Products: What They Do and What They Do Not
Green cleaning marketing is close to meaningless, and some of it is not legal. Here is what the words actually mean, and what we use and why.
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4 min
Closing Up a Seasonal Home on the North Shore
A house that sits empty through a New England winter fails in predictable ways. Most of them are prevented in the two hours before you lock the doo...
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4 min
A Spring Cleaning Checklist for a New England House
Spring cleaning in New England is really heating season cleanup. Six months of forced air or radiators leaves a specific mess, and this is the orde...
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3 min
How to Prepare Your House for a Cleaner
You do not need to clean before the cleaner comes. You do need to do about ten minutes of a specific kind of tidying, and they are not the same thing.
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3 min
Deep Clean vs Recurring Clean: What Is the Difference?
They are not the same job at different intensities. One maintains a state and the other changes it, and booking the wrong one is the most common mi...
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4 min
Salt Air, Sand, and Marsh Mud: Cleaning a Coastal New England Home
A house a mile from the water is a different cleaning problem than a house ten miles inland. Salt film, fine sand, and marsh mud each behave differ...
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4 min
Twelve Questions to Ask Before You Hire a House Cleaner
You are giving someone a key to your house. These are the twelve questions worth asking first, including the two that most people never think to ask.
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3 min
How Often Should You Deep Clean a House?
The honest answer is that it depends on whether anything is cleaning the house in between. Here is the schedule that works, and the jobs nobody doe...
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4 min
The Airbnb Turnover Checklist for North Shore and Seacoast Hosts
Same day turns are won or lost in the first fifteen minutes. Here is the order a turnover should happen in, and the five things guests mention in r...
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4 min
The Move Out Cleaning Checklist Massachusetts Renters Actually Need
Massachusetts security deposit law is stricter than most landlords behave as though it is. Here is the room by room list, and what a landlord can a...
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4 min
How Much Does House Cleaning Cost in Massachusetts?
Most cleaning companies will not give you a number until someone has walked your house. Here is the whole card, and the four things that actually m...
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