Soft washingin Tamarac, FL.

Ken Behring built the Mainlands of Tamarac Lakes between 1967 and 1977 as eighteen villages of ranch-style single-family homes, and nearly twenty associations run them today, eleven of them 55-plus. A ranch house that age is single-story block with a long, low wall line, which makes the whole wash reachable from the ground.

Each village's association sets its own rules, and some handle exterior paint on a cycle while others leave it all to the owner. If yours is on a paint cycle, a wash a week or two before the painters arrive gives them a clean wall. If the walls are yours, a ranch home is a short, ground-level job. Where a ranch home has a screen room on the back, it is washed in the same visit.

Kings Point was built between 1983 and 2001: 4,869 villas, coach homes and condos across thirteen gated neighborhoods. In a coach home, units are stacked and share a building, so the association almost always handles the walls. What owners usually book is their own patio, screen enclosure or balcony. Ground-floor villas often have a screened patio, and upstairs coach homes a balcony.

The wash stays inside your share. Screens get the lightest mix and a gentle rinse, the patio ceiling is done from below, and overspray is kept off the neighbor's patio and car. Get Michael on your gate list before the day, since every Kings Point neighborhood is gated. Where parking is tight, say where the truck can stand.

In June 2026 the Atlantic Fire burned more than 4,700 acres of Everglades west of Sunrise, Coral Springs and Tamarac, and smoke reached western Broward. Ash and soot settle on screen rooms and textured stucco and, in the humidity, smear into a grey film that a hose moves around rather than removes.

Leave it alone until the fire is out and the smoke has cleared, and do not brush it dry, which grinds it into the screen. A soft wash lifts the soot along with any algae in one pass, at a pressure the screen can take. Brush fires out there are a dry-season pattern, so this is not a one-time question. Lanai floors under those screens usually need a rinse too.