We clean from Riverdale to Fordham

Older buildings hold dust in more places

Many apartment buildings in Riverdale and Kingsbridge went up before the war. They have high ceilings, deep window sills, tall moldings and steam radiators, and every one of those is a place for dust to sit. Radiators are the worst. Dust packs in between the columns, and every time the heat comes on it lifts back into the room.

So in these buildings we clean from the top down. Moldings, door frame tops and sills get done before anything lower, and the floor is last. Do it the other way round and the dust you knock down lands on the floor you just finished.

Winter salt ends up on every floor

From the first snow, every lobby and hallway near Broadway and Fordham Road gets rock salt tracked in on boots. It dries into a white crust on tile and wood. If it sits, it dulls the finish and grinds into it every time someone walks across.

Salt does not come up with a dry mop. It takes a damp mop with plain water or a neutral floor cleaner, then a dry pass, or the white film comes right back. For offices and building entries, that means cleaning for salt all winter, because one big clean in spring does not undo months of it.

Busy streets put grime on shop floors

Fordham Road and the stretch of Broadway through Kingsbridge carry buses, trucks and foot traffic all day. The grime from that ends up inside any shop or office with a door on the street. You see it as a grey film on the front glass, dark tracks by the entrance and dust on every ledge near the door.

In a space like that, the entry needs the most attention, and it needs it more often than the back rooms. We look at where the dirt is coming in before we suggest how often to clean.