We clean homes in Kingsbridge Heights

Older apartment buildings hold years of dust

Kingsbridge Heights is mostly older apartment buildings on steep streets, with brick walk-ups and elevator buildings that went up before the war. Many units still have their original plaster walls, wood floors and tall radiators. That kind of building is solid, but it holds dirt in ways a newer apartment does not. Dust settles in the gaps between floorboards, on top of door frames, and behind radiator covers that nobody has lifted in years.

Radiators are the biggest one. When the heat comes on in the fall, the dust baked onto the fins starts to smell, and it blows back into the room all winter. Old plaster also takes stains differently than drywall does. Scrub it too hard and you lift the paint right off. So a deep clean here goes slower on the walls and spends more time behind and under things.

Kitchens and bathrooms in these buildings often have old tile with wide grout lines, and that grout darkens with grease and soap over time. We work it clean instead of just pouring bleach on it. Wood floors get dust mopped first and then damp cleaned, because soaking old boards makes them swell. If you ask for eco friendly cleaning, we use gentler products on the whole job.

• Radiators and radiator covers dusted inside and out
• Door frames, moldings and window tops wiped down
• Tile grout scrubbed in kitchens and bathrooms
• Wood floors dust mopped, then damp cleaned
• Eco friendly products used on request

We clean apartments before you move in

Plenty of people move in and out of Kingsbridge Heights, since the subway runs close by and the buildings are full of rentals. An apartment that looked clean at the showing is rarely clean up close. The last tenant took the furniture, and whatever was under it stayed behind. So did the grease on top of the kitchen cabinets and the dust along the baseboards.

A move in cleaning is the best chance you will get to clean an empty apartment. We go inside the kitchen cabinets and drawers, the oven, the refrigerator and the medicine cabinet. We wipe the closet shelves and the tops of the doors. Bathrooms get the tub and the base of the toilet scrubbed, because that is where the last person's grime sits the longest.

Walk-up buildings add one more thing to plan for. There is no elevator, so we carry our equipment up the stairs, and we need to know the floor before we arrive. We also need to know whether a super holds the keys or lets us in. Tell us all of that when you call. Many buildings here also want a heads up before any cleaning crew shows up.

Renovation dust spreads through old buildings

Many apartments in Kingsbridge Heights are getting updated, with new kitchens, new floors and opened up walls. Cutting into old plaster makes a fine white dust that is nothing like normal household dust. It floats, it gets into every drawer and vent, and it settles again a day after you wipe it. Shops and offices along Kingsbridge Road go through the same thing after a build out.

Post renovation cleaning takes more than one pass. We vacuum the dust first instead of wiping it, because a wet rag turns plaster dust into a paste. Then we clean from the top down, starting with light fixtures and cabinet tops and ending with the floors. Skip that order and the floor you just cleaned gets covered again. Vents get cleaned too, or the dust blows back out when the heat turns on.

We clean offices and commercial spaces in the neighborhood too. A small office on a busy Bronx street picks up a lot of grit from the sidewalk, and the entryway takes the worst of it. Winter makes it harder, when salt and slush get tracked in on every pair of shoes. We keep the entry and the floors clean so the rest of the space stays clean longer.

Getting a price in Kingsbridge Heights

Call (516) 537-2367 or send us your details using the form on this page. Tell us the address, the size of the space and the cleaning you need, whether that is a deep clean, a move in or work after a renovation. We will give you a free quote before any work starts, so you know the price up front.