Soft washingin Deerfield Beach, FL.

The Cove was built out from the early 1950s by local builder Robert Sullivan, whose houses were white concrete block with white tile roofs and terrazzo floors, and the neighborhood was established by 1963. A lot of those houses are still light-colored, and on a white wall every grey streak from a gutter and every green patch from a sprinkler shows from the street.

The Cove sits between Federal Highway and the Intracoastal, and the Hillsboro River bends around it, so salt settles on the walls and the screens from more than one direction. The soft wash lifts the salt and the growth together at low pressure. Sixty-plus years of paint on old block can chalk, so every side is walked before anything goes on, and anything failing is pointed out first.

Hillsboro Ranches was built in the 1980s and 1990s in Spanish and Mediterranean styles, with textured stucco, arches and trim bands under barrel-tile roofs. West of I-95, away from the salt, the story is shade and humidity: the north wall greens, the soffits go black, and the trim collects mildew in its recesses.

Textured stucco is what pressure damages, flattening the texture and forcing water into hairline cracks. The soft wash cleans it at low pressure, with a lighter mix on painted trim and a longer dwell on the heavy black under the eaves. On a two-story, the upper walls and soffits are reached from the ground or the ladder, never by standing on the roof. It is quoted on the whole house, with the screen enclosure if there is one.

Independence Bay, west of Powerline Road, was built from the 1980s into the early 1990s and is split among eleven neighborhood associations. That means eleven sets of rules about who washes what. In some neighborhoods the association washes and paints the buildings on a cycle; in others the owner handles more. Screened patios and courtyards are the parts most often left to owners.

Check your neighborhood's documents before booking, and send Michael the part that says what is yours. If it is only the patio, the screen and the walls inside your fence, the wash stops at your line and the neighbor's side is kept dry. If the association is the one that should be booking, the quote can go to them instead, and the method does not change.