We clean inside the oven and cabinets

We work from the ceiling down

A deep clean moves in one direction, and that direction is down. We start with the ceiling fans, because a fan that has run all summer carries a gray layer of dust on top of every blade. Walls and door knobs come next, then the interior windows. After that we do the cabinets and the appliances. The floors are the last thing we touch. Do it in the other order and you mop a clean floor, then knock dust down onto it.

You can tell a deep clean from a regular one by the places nobody looks at every day. Run a finger across the top of a cabinet door and it comes back clean. The ceiling of the microwave has no old splatter left on it. The inside glass on the windows shows no haze when the afternoon sun comes through. Those spots take the most time. They are also the reason people book this service instead of a quick clean.

A skipped step does not stay hidden for long. A fan that only got a quick swipe underneath still has dust on top of its blades. The first time you switch it on, that dust goes across the room and settles on the clean floor. Walls show it too. Wash one patch of a hallway and the rest of the wall looks darker next to it, so we wash the whole wall.

• Ceiling fan blades wiped top and bottom
• Inside the oven and the microwave
• Kitchen cabinets cleaned inside and out
• Walls washed and door knobs wiped
• Furniture moved to clean the floor underneath

The kitchen takes the most time

The oven is the slowest job in a deep clean, so it is the first thing we start in the kitchen. Baked-on grease does not wipe off. It has to soften, so the oven gets its cleaner early and sits while we work on the rest of the room. When we come back to it, the door glass and the oven floor come clean without hard scraping. Rushing that step means scraping, and scraping leaves marks on the enamel for good.

Kitchen cabinets get cleaned twice, once outside and once inside. The fronts near the stove carry a thin film of cooking grease, and that film is sticky enough to hold dust and pet hair. A dry cloth just spreads it around. It needs a degreaser and a rinse, then a dry towel so the doors do not stay wet. Inside, we wipe the shelves and the door backs, where crumbs and spills sit for years without anyone seeing them.

The microwave gets steamed before it gets wiped. We run a bowl of water in it until the inside fogs up. The steam loosens the dried splatter on the ceiling and walls, so it wipes off in one pass. The turntable comes out and gets washed at the sink. Trash bins get cleaned too. In a humid kitchen a bin starts to smell long before it looks dirty. Skip it, and the room still smells off after everything else is clean.

Hampton Roads humidity makes grime stick

Summers in Norfolk are long and damp, and damp air makes dirt harder to get off. Dust that would sit loose on a shelf in a dry climate turns tacky here and holds on. In the bathroom, the caulk around the tub and the grout lines stay damp for hours after a shower, which is where mildew gets its start. A deep clean scrubs those lines on purpose instead of wiping past them to shine the faucet.

Windows get dirty fast in this part of Virginia. Every spring, pine pollen coats the sills and the tracks in a yellow dust, and damp air turns it into a paste in the corners. Near the water, salt air leaves a film on the glass that ordinary glass cleaner just smears. We clean out the tracks and sills before the glass. Do the glass first and the paste from the tracks ends up smeared back across it.

Most houses around here sit on a crawl space instead of a basement, because the water table is so close to the surface. Damp air from underneath works its way up, and a closed-up house can pick up a musty smell. The laundry room is often the worst spot. We clean out the lint that collects around the machines and mop the floor. Cleaning cannot fix a wet crawl space, but taking out the dust and lint removes a lot of what holds the smell.

Older Norfolk houses need gentler cleaning

A lot of Norfolk was built long before drywall. In older neighborhoods like Ghent and Colonial Place, many houses still have plaster walls and painted woodwork that has been recoated many times over. Old paint scratches and goes shiny if you scrub it with anything rough. We wash those walls and the trim with a soft cloth and a mild cleaner. The cloth gets wrung out well, so no drips run down the wall and dry into streaks.

Those same houses usually have wood floors, and standing water damages wood. A soaked mop pushes water into the seams between boards, and over a humid summer the edges start to lift. On wood we use a mop that is barely damp and dry the floor as we go. Tile and vinyl in kitchens and baths can take more water, so those get a regular wet mop. Rugs get vacuumed before any floor is mopped, since moving a rug shakes dust out of it.

The houses change as you move out from downtown Norfolk. Brick ranches and Cape Cods built after the war line a lot of streets in Norfolk and Portsmouth. Newer subdivisions in Chesapeake and Virginia Beach tend to have flat builder paint on the walls, and flat paint marks easily. On flat paint we test a hidden spot first and wipe instead of scrubbing. Scrub it hard and you get a shiny patch that looks worse than the smudge did.

Reviewers mention our deep cleans most often

Deep cleaning is what our Google reviewers bring up more than anything else. Those reviews often describe a house where nobody had been inside the cabinets or up on the fans in a long time. Chris R wrote: "Alina has been taking great care of our house for a year now. We first reached out to her last year for a deep cleaning that was long overdue, and she and her maids made the house spotless."

Pamela Abad noticed something that matters most on a deep clean. The review says: "After cleaning each room they take a photo and send them all to you." Most of a deep clean happens in places you may not open for weeks. Think of the inside of the oven or a high cabinet shelf. A photo of each room lets you check that work without pulling everything out.

If you have never had a cleaning service, a deep clean is a good first visit. It brings every room to the same level. "Greatly exceeded expectations, and great with my dog," wrote Marcus Douglas about a first house cleaning. "I wish I had called them sooner," wrote Stevi Rex after a deep clean. A house that starts from that level is much easier to keep clean afterward.