We clean from the ceiling down

Construction dust keeps settling for days

Sanding drywall makes a powder finer than flour. It doesn't stay put. It floats through the whole apartment, slips under doors and lands on shelves nobody touched. Most people sweep once the contractor leaves and call it done. Then a white film shows up on the kitchen counter the next morning. You wipe it. It's back the morning after that, and that's the sign the dust isn't gone yet.

That film is falling out of the air and off high spots. Door tops and crown molding hold a layer you can't see from the floor. So do light fixtures and the tops of kitchen cabinets. Every time a door swings or the heat kicks on, some of it drops. Until those high spots are clean, your counters won't stay clean. Wipe all you want.

Our job is getting all of it out. We clean the ceilings and walls first. Then the vents, and the inside of every cabinet and closet. The floors come last. We also scrape off the paint specks and peel away the tape residue the trades leave behind. Done right, you can run a dark cloth across a shelf a week later. It comes back clean.

• Ceiling fixtures and door tops wiped down
• Vents and radiators cleaned out
• Inside every cabinet and drawer
• Paint specks and tape residue removed
• Floors vacuumed first, then washed

The order of the work matters

We start at the ceiling and work down. Dust falls, so that's the only order that works. Light fixtures and fans get wiped first, then the crown molding and the tops of doors. Walls come next. We wipe them instead of dusting them, because a dry duster just throws the powder back into the air. Clean a counter too early and you'll clean it twice.

Inside surfaces come after the walls. We pull the sawdust out of cabinets and drawers, then wipe them down. Closet shelves get the same care. Window tracks are a big one. Grit packs in there and makes the window hard to slide. In the bathroom, we look close at the tile for grout haze and caulk smears. A quick wipe leaves both behind.

Floors are always last. We vacuum before we mop. Here's why: a wet mop on fine dust turns it into paste. That paste dries as streaks and sinks into the gaps between hardwood boards. It's the most common reason a floor looks cloudy after a cleaning. And once the floors are done, nobody should walk back across them in dusty shoes. So we finish at the front door.

Older Bronx buildings hold dust in more places

Walk through Kingsbridge, Kingsbridge Heights, Fordham or Bedford Park and you'll see block after block of prewar brick apartment buildings. Most have plaster walls. Opening plaster is messier than cutting drywall. The dust is heavier and grittier. It works into the gaps along old baseboards and into wood floors that have shifted over the years. Old painted trim is rarely smooth, so it grabs dust too.

Radiators are their own problem. Dust collects in the fins and in the space behind a cast iron radiator. Nobody sees it until the heat comes on in the fall. Then the whole apartment smells like something's burning. We clean inside and behind the radiators and their covers. That way the first cold night doesn't bake your renovation dust into the air you breathe.

Riverdale and Fieldston have more stand alone houses. Many are stone or brick, with a lot of old woodwork inside. Paneling and carved trim have grooves where fine dust sits. A damp cloth pushed over a carved edge packs the powder into the grain. It doesn't lift it out. So we brush those spots and vacuum them first. The wipe comes after.

New York weather changes how dust behaves

In winter, the windows stay shut and steam heat dries out the air. Dry air keeps fine dust floating longer. Any fan moves it from room to room. So a renovation that wraps up in January needs extra work on the vents and returns. Skip them and they'll keep blowing dust out after everything else is clean. You'll be wiping the same shelf for weeks.

Summer brings the opposite problem. Humid air makes dust stick to glass and fresh paint. Wipe it dry and it smears. Window air conditioners suck in whatever's floating in the room and blow it right back out. We take the front grilles off and clean them. On glass, we work so the film lifts off instead of spreading into streaks across the pane.

Then there's slush season. Workers track salt and wet grit in from the street. It dries into white marks on the floor near the door and down the hall. Leave salt sitting on a finished floor and it dulls the coating over time. We wash those spots with plain water first. That dissolves the salt. Then they get cleaned with the rest of the floor.