We keep Paradise Valley homes guest-ready

Stone floors and big windows need care

Paradise Valley sits between Phoenix and Scottsdale, with Camelback Mountain along its southern edge and Mummy Mountain near the middle of town. Lots here run large, often an acre or more, and the houses on them are big. Older mid-century ranch homes sit next to newer custom builds. Many properties also have a casita or guest house out back. A single visit here can mean a lot of rooms, so we plan the order of the work before we start.

Many of these homes have travertine or marble floors, and both kinds of stone react badly to acid. A vinegar mix or a strong bathroom spray can leave dull patches in the surface, and mopping will not bring the shine back. Saltillo tile is common here too, especially in older Southwest-style houses. Its sealer wears thin where people walk, and then dirt soaks into the clay. We check what the floor is made of before we choose what goes in the bucket.

Newer houses here often open to the patio through tall sliding doors and big windows facing the mountains. When afternoon sun comes through that glass, every fingerprint shows, along with every nose print from the dog. Casitas are the rooms people forget. A guest house can sit closed for months. Then a visitor is coming this weekend, and the room smells stale. We clean the casita with the same care as the main house, fans and baseboards included.

• Stone floors mopped with a stone-safe cleaner
• Casitas cleaned along with the main house
• Ceiling fans and high ledges dusted first
• Sliding door tracks vacuumed out
• Shower glass and faucets scrubbed for water spots

Monsoon dust settles into every room

Summer in the Valley brings the monsoon, and the monsoon brings dust storms. A brown wall of dust can roll through Paradise Valley in the late afternoon and pass within an hour. What it leaves behind is a fine gray layer in places you thought were sealed. Door tracks and window sills fill up first. Houses with long sliding doors to the patio catch the most, because those doors open and close all day.

Dust shows up the rest of the year too. The air here stays dry. Fine grit from the open desert drifts in and settles on every flat surface within a few days. Ceiling fans run from spring into fall in most homes, and the dust builds into a gray fuzz along each blade. Switch a fan like that to high and it throws the fuzz across the bed and the floor below it.

That is why we clean a room from the top down. Fans and high ledges come first, and floors come last, so nothing drops onto a surface we already finished. The tracks on sliding doors get vacuumed out rather than wiped, since a damp cloth turns that dust into mud. After a big storm, a house may need more time than a regular visit. If it does, we will tell you before we start.

Hard water leaves white spots on glass

Water across the Phoenix area is hard, which means it carries a lot of dissolved minerals. When a drop dries, the water leaves and the minerals stay. On a shower door that shows up as a cloudy film, and around a faucet it builds into a white crust. Big homes here often have several showers, so there is plenty of glass to keep clear. Skip it for a few months and the film gets thick enough that a regular bathroom spray barely touches it.

The usual fix for mineral scale is an acid, which is exactly what marble and travertine cannot take. That matters in a Paradise Valley bathroom, where the shower glass often sits right above a stone floor or a marble vanity. Spray a scale remover carelessly and the drips leave dull marks on the stone. So we keep the scale remover on the glass and the chrome, and we wipe up drips before they reach the stone.

Kitchens collect the same minerals. They cloud the sink and ring the base of the faucet. They also leave spots on a dark stone counter wherever a glass sat wet. Wiping them down on every regular visit keeps the buildup thin, and thin buildup comes off without hard scrubbing. If a house has gone a long while between cleans, a deep clean is the better place to start, because that layer takes longer to lift.

Getting a price in Paradise Valley

Call Bri Luxe Cleaning at (480) 788-0119, or send us a message here with your address and a few details about the house. Tell us if there is a casita or guest house, and whether you want a standard clean or a deep one. If you are moving in or out, give us the date. You get a free quote before any work starts, so you know the price up front. We are open every day of the week, into the late evening.