Window cleaningin Coconut Creek, FL.

Coco Lake is 165 homes on a 55-acre lake, and Regency Lakes was laid out around water too. The back of those houses is mostly glass: sliders, lanai windows and sometimes a screened room between the house and the bank. Humidity off the lake holds pollen and dust to that glass, and the afternoon sun shows every bit of it.

Each pane is scrubbed and squeegeed by hand at ground level, frames and sills wiped, and the tracks brushed and vacuumed so the heavy sliders run again. Screens come out and get washed on both sides. Upstairs glass, where there is any, is done by pole from the lawn. Lake-side glass also tends to catch the spray from the lawn sprinklers, so any spotting is checked before the quote.

The build-out at MainStreet covers 170 acres between four main roads, and grading, new roads and building pads throw dust for months. Homes near the edge of it pick up a fine grey film on every window, and in the humidity it bonds to the glass rather than rinsing off in the next rain.

If the heavy work is right next to you, book after that phase, not during it. If the film is too much to live with, the outside glass and screens can be done in between and again after. Farther away than a few streets, a normal schedule is fine. Screens near the site hold the dust in their mesh, so they are washed along with the glass.

The Township's attached homes were built between 1980 and 1993, and in most sections the owner looks after their own windows even where the association handles the building. That usually means a mix of ground-floor windows, a slider onto a patio and sometimes a few upstairs panes. Some sections have the association clean nothing but the building walls, so it is worth checking what yours covers.

Ground-floor glass is hand work. Upstairs glass on a townhome is done from the ground by water-fed pole, which avoids ladders on shared walls and in narrow side yards. Inside glass can be added room by room. Screens are removed, washed and refitted, and the patio slider track is cleaned so it runs freely again.