The AllCleaner blog
How this work actually goes, from the people who do it. Leaks, carpets, stains, moves and renovations, written plainly and without padding.
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Water damageThe basement is dry all year, then a downpour or the March thaw puts water on the floor. Where it is getting in, what the City of Toronto tells homeowners to fix outside, and what to do about what is already wet inside.
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Cupped boards look ruined the morning after a leak. Often they are not. What decides whether a hardwood floor can be dried in place, and what the moisture meter has to say before anyone reaches for a sander.
Three things decide it, and you can check all three from the doorway. Where the water came from, how long the carpet has been wet, and what is underneath it.
Carpet shows up in listing photos and in the first breath a buyer takes at the door. How to decide between cleaning and replacing, where the clean belongs in the run-up to listing, and what else is worth doing on the same day.
Two ways of turning a carpet into a price, and the minimum charge that sits under both. How each one is worked out, where each one is fair, and four homes reasoned through both ways.
A carpet stain that ends up permanent is rarely the fault of the spill. It is usually set by scrubbing, hot water and the third product from under the sink. The rules that apply to everything, a table by stain, and the point where you should put the cloth down.
The insurer has suggested a company, and you already have one in mind, or none at all. What the Insurance Bureau of Canada says about using a contractor of your choice, and the questions worth asking whichever company you call.
A rental needs the same few jobs again and again, usually on short notice and always between two dates that do not move. What those jobs are, what the Landlord and Tenant Board says about the paperwork, and how to brief a cleaner so the unit is ready.
Moving out of a condo is two jobs at once. The lease says what the unit should look like, and the building says when you may use the elevator to get out of it. A checklist that puts both in the right order.
Water is coming through the ceiling and it is not yours. Who repairs what is set by the Condominium Act and by your corporation's own documents, and the first hour decides how much evidence you have when that conversation starts.
Most burst pipes in a Toronto winter announce themselves twice. Once when the tap goes dry, and again when the ice melts and the split starts to run. What to do at each stage, and whose problem the pipe is.
The question everyone asks on the first call, usually while standing in the water. The honest answer is a set of stages, each with its own clock, and only one of them is set by the calendar rather than by a meter.
The two days after a leak decide whether you are drying a house or cutting mould out of it. What Health Canada says, what to do with the time, and where the line sits between a cleaning job and a specialist one.
A hand-knotted rug is built differently from anything else on your floor. How that construction decides what you can safely do at home, and the signs that it needs a full specialist wash instead.
The fine grey film after a renovation will not come off the way household dust does. What you can do yourself with a vacuum and a bucket, what needs equipment, and the dust you should not touch at all.
Blood is the stain where the usual instinct, warm water and a good scrub, does the most harm. Why it behaves differently, how to treat it fresh or dried, and what to do when it has gone through to the pad.
Wax is the one stain you should let sit. Most of it comes out as dry flakes, the rest needs careful heat, and a coloured candle leaves a dye problem that is separate from the wax.
Red wine is tannin plus a strong natural dye, which is why it can look worse after you clean it than before. The first minutes, the dried stain, and the three things people reach for that make it permanent.
A mattress is a sponge with a fabric cover. Everything that goes in goes down, and very little comes back up by itself. What to do at two in the morning, what to do with an old yellow ring, and the honest limit of any clean.
What to do the day before, how to settle the furniture question, what to tell the crew about your stains, and how to look after the carpet while it dries so the result lasts.
The leak shows up on a ceiling in the middle of winter, often with no rain in sight. Where the water is really coming from, what to do inside while it drips, and why the stain is the smaller problem.
The empty days between getting the keys and the truck arriving are the only time a home is fully reachable. A checklist for using them well, top to bottom, with the carpets last.
Most move-out cleans are booked with a maid service, and for plenty of units that is the right call. The question is what happens to the carpet, and whether that means a second company on the same tight day.
The rental machine and the professional one work on the same idea. The difference is how much water each puts in, how much it takes back out, and how much of your Saturday it costs you.
A pipe lets go in a rented unit, and two people now have a problem with different edges. What the Landlord and Tenant Board says each side owes, which policy answers for which loss, and what both should do before anyone argues.
Water that came up through a floor drain is sewage, however clear it looks. What that changes about safety, about what can be kept, and about the claim.
A sump pump is quiet until the night it is not needed most. Why they stop, what to do in the first hours, and why the insurance answer lives in your endorsements, not in the main policy.
Most toilet overflows end with a mop and a bad mood. Some end in the ceiling of the room below. How to stop it, how to tell clean from contaminated, and where the line is between a clean-up and a restoration job.
The claim is decided on the record, and most of the record has to be made before the room is dry. A checklist in the order the work actually happens, from the first phone call to the proof of loss.
Two words that turn up on every water damage estimate and every claim form. One stops the damage getting worse, the other puts the house back, and they happen at different times for different reasons.
A yes, partly and no table for the things people hope a carpet clean will fix, with the Health Canada advice on pests and mould, and an honest line on where the machine stops being the answer.
The carpet looks clean and the room smells worse than it did yesterday. The kind of smell tells you most of what you need to know, and the fix is nearly always about water, not more product.
The answer is different for the lobby and the boardroom, and a single date in the calendar for the whole floor wastes money in one and ruins carpet in the other.
Wool forgives a lot of foot traffic and very little chemistry. The three things that damage it, a two minute test for the dyes, and what to do about the fringe.
Sometimes, and the tag under the seat cushion tells you which times. What the four letters mean, what a home machine does well, and where it leaves you with a water ring.
The sheets go in the wash every week or two. The thing underneath them goes years. A sensible rhythm, what you can do yourself, and what only extraction reaches.
The standard is lower than most leases imply and higher than leaving the oven as it is. What the Landlord and Tenant Board says, in its own words, and what that looks like in a kitchen.
It depends on where the water came from, and on what was added to the policy before it arrived. What the Insurance Bureau of Canada says, and why the photographs come before the fans.
The order matters more than the effort. What to do before you go down the stairs, who to tell, and why the kind of water decides what can be saved.
The white tide mark by the front door is not a stain in the usual sense. It is a mineral deposit, and it comes out the way minerals do, by being dissolved and carried away.
The surface is clean and the room still smells on a humid day. That is not a failure of effort. It is a question of how deep the urine went and what was used on it.
One method rinses the carpet and takes the dirty water away. The other tidies the surface and lets you walk on it sooner. Both have a place, and they are not the same place.
Why a clean after the trades costs more than a deep clean of the same home, what moves the price, and how to read a quote. Most of the gap is dust you cannot see yet.
Hourly or flat, and which one suits the place you are leaving. What decides the price, the three rooms that decide how long the job takes, and how to read a quote.
What decides whether a water job is a quick extraction or a strip-out, how the price is put together, and the one factor you control. Most of it is settled before anyone arrives.
No single figure fits every carpet. Here is what decides the price, how the quote is put together and confirmed before anyone starts, and how to tell a fair quote from a bait one.
The water is on the floor and it is still arriving. What to do in the next sixty minutes, in order, and the one habit that turns a dry-out into a rebuild.
Four to six hours in a normal room, longer in a basement or in August. What the drying time actually depends on, what you can do about it, and when damp stops being an inconvenience.
The spot looked gone on Saturday and there is a brown ring there on Tuesday. Two mechanisms explain nearly every returning stain, and one of them is in the bottle under your sink.
Construction dust is not household dust and it does not behave like it. What the final clean after a renovation actually involves, the places that get missed, and what it costs.
Written for a Toronto tenant handing back keys and for a buyer cleaning a house before the furniture arrives. What is in scope, what is not, and the order it has to happen in.
Every cleaning company gives you a number of months. The number is not the useful part. What actually decides it is how much traffic the carpet takes and what comes in on people's feet.
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