We clean from the ceiling down

Drywall dust settles on every surface

Construction dust is different from the dust in a lived-in house. Sanding drywall throws off a powder so fine it hangs in the air for hours. Then it settles on every flat surface, including the tops of door frames and the inside of closed cabinets. It works its way into window tracks and the grooves of new trim. A quick wipe only moves it around. It has to be lifted off, one surface at a time.

You can spot a rushed cleanup a day later. Dust that was pushed around instead of picked up dries into a pale film on dark cabinets and painted doors. It shows most when the afternoon sun comes in low. Floors do the same thing. A floor mopped before the dust was vacuumed up stays cloudy, because the mop keeps spreading the same powder. A second mopping does not fix it.

That is why a post construction clean covers far more ground than a regular visit. We open every cabinet and drawer and go along every sill and track before the floors are touched. The list below is what comes with the job. If your painter or builder still has touch-ups left, wait until they finish. That way the dust only gets cleaned up once, and you are not paying for the same room twice.

• Dust taken off from the ceiling down
• Cabinets and drawers wiped inside and out
• Window tracks and door grooves vacuumed out
• Paint specks and stickers lifted off glass
• Floors vacuumed first, then washed last

Dry dust comes off before any water

Drywall dust is fine mineral powder from the board and from the mud used to finish the seams. Add water and it turns to paste. That is why the order of the work matters so much. Every surface gets dry dusted or vacuumed before a damp cloth touches it. If water goes on first, the dust smears into a thin gray streak that dries hard. Then it has to be scrubbed off instead of picked up.

The work starts at the ceiling and ends at the floor. Fans, light fixtures and the tops of door frames come first, because whatever gets knocked loose up high lands on what sits below. Next come the walls and windows, including the tracks, then cabinets inside and out, then baseboards. Floors are last, vacuumed slowly along the edges and only then washed. Any other order means cleaning the same surface twice.

Walls collect dust even after they are painted, because trim gets cut and touch-ups get sanded after the rollers are put away. A dry pass with a soft brush takes that dust off without marking the new paint. Flat and matte paint need the most care. A wet cloth rubbed on them can leave a shiny patch that shows from across the room. So we keep water off those walls wherever we can.

Reno's dry air keeps the dust moving

Reno sits in high desert, and the air here stays dry most of the year. Dry air keeps the finest powder floating longer, so it drifts into rooms that were never part of the job. It also builds static, and static makes dust cling to blinds, window screens, new electronics and the flat faces of cabinets. That is why we vacuum it off wherever we can instead of chasing it around with a cloth.

Afternoon wind is the other problem. On a windy day, every open garage door and slider pulls grit from outside straight back into a house we just cleaned. On new builds in Spanish Springs and Cold Springs, the yards are often still bare dirt, and that dirt comes in on every shoe. We keep doors shut while we work, and the entryways and door tracks get cleaned at the very end.

Heating and cooling can spread it further. Forced air is common in Reno houses, and a return vent near a remodel pulls drywall dust into the ducts and the filter. The first cold night the furnace kicks on, some of that dust blows back out through the registers. We wipe the register covers and return grilles as part of the clean. If the filter looks loaded, we will tell you so you can change it.

Older and newer houses clean up differently

Most tract homes around Sparks and Spanish Springs are wood frame with stucco outside and textured drywall inside, usually knockdown or orange peel. That texture is full of tiny low spots, and fine dust settles into every one of them. A flat wipe skims the high points and leaves the rest behind. Textured walls and ceilings need a brush pass that reaches down into the texture, and that takes longer than most people expect.

Older ranch houses closer to central Reno bring their own problems. A remodel in an older home often means opening walls. That shakes loose decades of dust from inside the cavity, on top of the new drywall dust. Older wood windows have deeper tracks and more gaps, and dust packs into them. Hardwood floors that were covered during the work still need the dust vacuumed out of the seams before anything damp touches them.

In Sun Valley and Lemmon Valley, many homes are manufactured, and the older ones often have vinyl covered wall panels instead of drywall. Those panels show every streak, so they get a dry pass first and then a light wipe with a cloth wrung nearly dry. The seams and the strips that cover them catch dust along their whole length. Newer manufactured homes are closer to site built houses inside, so we check what the walls are before we start.

Paint specks come off without scratching

The last part of the job is the small stuff that makes a house look finished. That means paint specks on glass, builder stickers on windows and appliances, tape left on trim, and protective film on a new fridge. Each one takes a different approach. Dried latex on plain glass lifts with water and a blade held flat. Some newer glass scratches easily, so we check the pane before a blade touches it.

Floors take the most care. Luxury vinyl plank shows up in a lot of Reno remodels. A scraper can cut through its top layer and leave a mark that never comes out. Paint on vinyl gets softened and lifted instead. Sticky residue from tape and labels comes off with patience and the right remover, never by scrubbing hard. If a spot will not come off safely, we show it to you instead of risking the floor.

This is detail work. It goes better when the person in charge is in the room. House Cleaning is owned by women. Justin Friedman wrote a Google review. He said: "Good communication and the owner of the company was on-site working with her crew." Sandra Capalongan wrote a review too. She said: "They never miss the baseboards , even behind furniture, or the sliding glass door grooves." After a remodel, those grooves and baseboards are exactly where the dust hides.