We clean offices on your schedule

We clean offices from the top down

An office clean runs in a set order, and the order matters more than most people think. We start high, with ceiling fans and the tops of cabinets and shelves. Dust falls when you move it. If the desks get wiped first and the fan gets dusted after, the desks are gray again before we leave the room. So the high stuff comes down first and the floors always go last.

Next come the surfaces people touch all day. That means desks and counters, door knobs, light switches and the handles on the break room cabinets. In the break room we clean the inside of the microwave, since that is where the smell in a shared kitchen usually starts. Trash gets emptied and the bins get wiped, because a fresh liner in a sticky can still smells by Wednesday. Restrooms go from the sink and mirror down to the floor.

Floors are the last thing we touch, and carpet and hard floors get different treatment. Rugs and carpet get vacuumed with the edges included, because grit collects along the walls and under desks where chairs roll. Hard floors get swept or vacuumed before they get mopped. Skip that step and the mop pushes sand around and leaves gray streaks that show up as soon as the floor dries. Done right, the floor looks even from the door to the back wall.

• Desks, counters and door knobs wiped down
• Break room microwave cleaned inside
• Restrooms cleaned from mirror to floor
• Trash emptied and bins wiped
• Carpet vacuumed and hard floors mopped

Humid Norfolk summers make dust stick

Norfolk sits on the water, and from late spring into fall the air stays heavy with moisture. That changes what dust does. In a dry climate it sits loose on a desk and wipes off with one pass. Here it picks up moisture and oil from hands and turns into a thin film that a dry cloth just smears around. So surfaces get a damp wipe and then a dry one, or the streaks show the next morning in the window light.

The damp shows up worst in restrooms and break rooms. A sink area that stays wet between cleans starts to grow a pink or black ring along the caulk and around the drain. Grout on a restroom floor darkens near the base of the toilet. Once mildew gets into caulk it is hard to get out, so the goal is to never let it start. That means we wipe the sink area dry before we leave the room, every visit.

Spring brings a different mess. When the pine trees drop pollen in Hampton Roads, a yellow dust coats every car in the lot and anything near an open door. It gets carried in on shoes and settles on window sills and dark desks. Rainy weeks do the same thing with mud and sand, and street flooding in parts of Norfolk puts more grit on shoes. The entry and the first few feet of floor take the worst of it, so that is where we spend the extra time.

We clean old and new buildings differently

Offices around Norfolk sit in a real mix of buildings. Some are converted houses in Ghent with original wood floors and plaster walls. Some are in older brick buildings downtown. A lot of them are suites in strip centers and office parks. Those sit on a concrete slab, with vinyl tile up front and carpet tile in the back rooms. Each of those floors reacts differently to water and grit, so we look at what is underfoot before the first mop comes out.

Old wood floors do not like water. A soaked mop pushes moisture into the seams between boards. In a humid city it has nowhere to go, so the board edges curl up and the finish turns cloudy. Wood gets a mop that is barely damp and a dry pass behind it. Vinyl tile on a slab can take more water, but the mop water has to stay clean. Dirty water leaves a dull film that looks like the floor was never done.

Office walls and glass pick up their own kind of dirt. Chairs roll back into the wall behind a desk and leave a line of scuffs at the same height. Hands leave prints on glass doors and interior windows. We wash those marks off rather than just dusting past them. On old plaster we go easy with the sponge. Scrubbing hard can lift the paint and leave a bright patch that looks worse than the scuff.

You pick how often we come

Some offices want us on a regular schedule. Others call when they need it, like before a client visit or after a busy stretch. Both work. A regular visit means the break room and restrooms never get bad, and each clean goes faster because less has built up. A one-time clean takes longer, since we work through everything that piled up since anyone last cleaned the place properly.

Our hours are Monday to Sunday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. For a lot of offices that means a Saturday or Sunday visit, when the phones are quiet and nobody is at their desk. You do not need to be there. Tell us how to get in and how to lock up, and we leave it the way you asked. One house cleaning customer wrote that when they had to leave early, "they locked everything up and let the dog in as well!"

You also get to see the work. Customers mention getting photos when the clean is done. One wrote, "After cleaning each room they take a photo and send them all to you." For an office manager who is not on site, that matters. You can check the break room and the restrooms from your phone, and if something looks off, you can show us exactly where. It also gives you a record of the space after each visit.