We clean homes across Hawthorne

Planes and freeways leave dust on sills

Hawthorne sits right next to LAX. Planes line up over the city on their way in to land, and two busy freeways pass close by. All that traffic puts a fine, dark dust in the air. It drifts in through window screens and the gaps around older frames, then settles wherever the air stops moving. In a Hawthorne house it shows up first on the window sills and in the tracks of sliding doors.

This dust is greasy and very fine, so a dry cloth tends to smear it around instead of lifting it. Left alone, it packs into door tracks until the slider starts to drag, and it turns white blinds a dull gray. It also rides the air through heating vents and ceiling fans, then lands back on the furniture a day after you dusted. That is why a quick wipe in this part of town never seems to last.

So we clean a Hawthorne house from the top down. Ceiling fans and vent covers come first, then blinds and sills. The floors come last, so nothing we knock loose lands on a surface we already finished. Door and window tracks get vacuumed out before anyone wipes them, because a wet cloth on loose grit just makes mud. On a deep clean, those tracks and the baseboards get the extra time they need.

• Ceiling fans and vent covers dusted first
• Sills wiped damp so the dust lifts off
• Sliding door tracks vacuumed, then wiped
• Blinds cleaned until the gray film is gone
• Bathroom ceilings checked for mildew spots

Postwar houses and apartments need different cleans

Many Hawthorne houses went up in the years after the war, when the city grew fast around the aircraft plants. Most are single story stucco homes with small kitchens and one or two bathrooms. Plenty still have their original tile on the bathroom walls and counters. That tile is tough, but the grout between the tiles is porous, and years of mopping and shower steam have turned a lot of it dark.

A big part of the city rents, and whole blocks are lined with two story apartment buildings set around a courtyard or a parking area. Apartment kitchens there tend to be tight, with the stove close to the cabinets. Cooking grease lands on the cabinet doors and on the wall behind the range. Carpet is still common in older units, and it holds whatever blows in through the windows, including that dark dust from the flight paths.

Which clean you need depends on the kind of home you live in. In an older house, a deep clean spends real time on tile and grout. It also works into the grooves of wood trim and old window frames, where dust collects. In an apartment, the kitchen usually needs the most work, from the cabinet fronts to the range hood. Once that build-up is gone, a standard clean keeps either kind of home in good shape.

Damp ocean mornings bring mildew into bathrooms

The marine layer rolls in over Hawthorne on many nights, because the city sits close to the beach. In late spring and early summer it can hang around until noon. That damp air is easy on people and hard on bathrooms. Walls and windows cool off overnight, and moisture condenses on them. In a small bathroom with a weak fan, or no fan at all, that water has nowhere to go.

Mildew usually shows up first as a pink or black line in the grout at the bottom of the shower. You may also see small dark dots on the ceiling above the tub. Older aluminum windows sweat on cool mornings too, and the water sits in the track until mildew spots form there. Caught early, it cleans off easily. Left for a season, it stains the grout and caulk, and scrubbing alone will not bring them back.

In Hawthorne we give bathroom ceilings and the top of the shower walls real attention. That is where the damp settles, and most people never look up there. Window tracks and sills get cleaned and then dried, so the water line does not come right back. When fall comes and the Santa Ana winds push dry dust in from inland, the work shifts toward dusting for a few weeks.

Getting a price in Hawthorne

Call (310) 736-5266 or send the estimate form on this page. Tell us whether it is a house or an apartment, and how many rooms it has. Let us know if you want a standard clean or a deep clean, and mention anything that needs extra time, like mildew in a bathroom. We offer online estimates, so you get a written price before any work starts. Our hours are Monday to Saturday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, and we are closed on Sunday.