East Cambridge has been changing fast. Older triple-deckers getting gutted and renovated, condos being built out, young families moving in and immediately tearing up floors or opening up walls. It’s one of the most active renovation corridors in all of Cambridge, MA right now.
And renovation always means the same thing when the contractors leave: dust. Everywhere. On every surface, inside every cabinet, settled into every corner you didn’t know existed.
That’s the call we got from a homeowner on a residential street in East Cambridge. A kitchen and bathroom gut renovation had just wrapped up after six weeks of work. The contractor had done a sweep before handing back the keys. But as our client put it when she called BraBos Cleaning Services: “They swept the floor and called it done. Every single surface in my house is covered in a white film. I don’t even know where to start.”
We did.
“I was completely overwhelmed after the renovation. The whole apartment looked clean at first glance but everything was coated in this fine dust — inside the drawers, on top of the cabinets, inside the oven. BraBos came in and went through every single inch. By the time they left it finally felt like home.” — East Cambridge Client
What Renovation Dust Actually Does to a Home
Most homeowners don’t realize how far construction dust travels. During a kitchen or bathroom renovation, drywall sanding alone releases particles fine enough to stay airborne for hours before settling — and they settle on everything, not just in the room where work was happening. Tile cutting, plaster removal, new flooring installation — each creates its own layer.
By the time the last contractor leaves, you’re typically dealing with:
- Fine white drywall dust on every horizontal surface throughout the home, not just the renovation zone
- Grout haze on new tiles that hardens to a cloudy film if left too long
- Sawdust and debris packed into corners, baseboards, and along window tracks
- Dust inside cabinets, drawers, and appliances that were “protected” with drop cloths that shifted
- A film on windows that makes the glass look permanently fogged
- Debris in HVAC vents that will circulate through the air the moment the heat or AC kicks on
For families with allergies or asthma, this isn’t just a cosmetic issue. Construction dust — particularly from drywall, tile work, and older plaster — can be a genuine respiratory concern until it’s properly removed.
This East Cambridge home was a textbook example of all of the above.
The Condition When We Arrived
The renovation itself was beautiful work — new kitchen with white shaker cabinets, quartz countertops, and fresh tile backsplash; a fully updated bathroom with new fixtures and floor-to-ceiling subway tile. Everything new. Everything coated in dust.
The Kitchen
The brand-new quartz countertops had a visible film of fine white dust across the entire surface. The new cabinetry — interior and exterior — was dusty on every shelf and along every edge. The contractor had installed protective covering over the appliances, but it had slipped during the work and the oven interior, the hood vents, and the top of the refrigerator were all fully exposed to weeks of airborne particles. The new tile backsplash still had grout haze across the entire surface — a thin, chalky film left over from the installation that needed specific treatment before it could set permanently.
The floor, despite being swept, had fine grit along the baseboards and in the corners where a broom doesn’t reach properly.
The Bathroom
The new subway tiles were beautiful underneath the haze. But there was grout residue on nearly every tile face, and the new fixtures — still wrapped in their protective film in places — had dust packed into every crevice. The vanity mirror had a film of dust and installation fingerprints. The new floor tiles had grout hazing as well, with dried smears visible near the edges where excess grout had been wiped during installation.
The Rest of the Home
This is what surprises most clients: the bedrooms, the living room, and the hallway — rooms where no renovation work happened — were just as dusty as the kitchen. Fine drywall particles had traveled throughout the entire apartment during six weeks of open-wall work. Furniture surfaces, window sills, the tops of door frames, the interior of closets that had been left ajar — all of it covered.
The HVAC vents were visibly clogged with a grey-white film of construction dust. The first time the heat came on, all of it would have blown straight back into the living space.
Our Approach: Post-Construction Cleaning from the Top Down
Post-construction cleaning is a specific discipline. It’s not the same as a standard deep clean. The sequence matters — you have to work from ceiling to floor, from dry removal to wet cleaning, or you just move dust from one surface to another. Our team of two spent four and a half hours in this East Cambridge home working through every room methodically.
Phase One: Dry Removal Throughout the Entire Home
Before any wet cleaning, we did a full pass through every room removing loose dust with HEPA-filter equipment. This included ceiling fans, the tops of door frames and window frames, light fixtures, the tops of all cabinets, all horizontal surfaces, window sills, blinds, and baseboards. Vacuuming all HVAC vents to prevent recirculation.
The sequence here is non-negotiable: if you start wiping surfaces wet before vacuuming the upper areas, the dust from above just falls onto what you just cleaned.
Phase Two: Grout Haze Treatment
The new backsplash tiles and bathroom floor tiles both needed grout haze removal before any general cleaning. Dried grout residue requires a specific acidic cleaning solution applied carefully — the wrong product on the wrong tile can cause etching or discoloration. We treated the tile surfaces, allowed the solution to work, then buffed and rinsed thoroughly. Both surfaces came up completely clear.
Phase Three: Kitchen Deep Clean
With the dry pass done and the grout haze addressed, we moved into the full kitchen clean:
- Cabinet interiors and exteriors wiped down completely, including shelf edges and the interior corners where dust packs in
- Quartz countertops cleaned and polished — quartz is low-maintenance but needs a non-abrasive approach
- Oven interior vacuumed and cleaned, hood filters removed and degreased
- Refrigerator exterior and top cleaned; the interior checked and wiped where dust had penetrated
- New backsplash tiles cleaned and polished after the grout haze treatment
- Sink and new faucet polished to remove any installation residue and fingerprints
- Floor mopped along the baseboards and into every corner
Phase Four: Bathroom Detail Clean
The bathroom received the same treatment — tiles cleaned after grout haze removal, new fixtures polished and cleared of protective film residue, mirror cleaned to a streak-free finish, vanity interior and exterior wiped down, floor mopped including grout lines and tile edges.
Phase Five: Full Home Surface Wipe-Down
Every remaining room in the apartment received a thorough surface wipe — furniture, windowsills, shelving, door frames, light switches, and baseboards. The HVAC vents were vacuumed and wiped on both the grate face and as far into the duct as safely reachable. Windows were cleaned on the interior to remove the construction film that had settled on the glass.
The Result
When our client came back to the apartment that evening, she walked through slowly and didn’t say much at first. Then: “It actually looks like the renovation is finished now.”
That’s the thing about post-construction cleaning that most people don’t anticipate. The renovation work can be excellent, but until the dust and haze and film are gone, you can’t actually see the result. The new kitchen looked like a new kitchen for the first time. The bathroom tile was bright and clean rather than cloudy. The rest of the apartment, rooms that hadn’t been touched by the renovation, felt fresh instead of gritty.
The grout haze removal alone made an enormous difference — the backsplash tiles that had looked dull and chalky were suddenly exactly what the homeowner had chosen when she picked them out of a sample book.
What Makes Post-Construction Cleaning Different from a Standard Deep Clean
We get asked this often. The main differences are the sequence, the specific treatments required, and the scope.
A standard deep cleaning assumes a lived-in home where the primary challenges are grease, soap scum, general grime, and accumulated dirt. A post-construction clean is dealing with a different category of mess: fine airborne particles that have settled universally, installation residues that require specific treatment, and a need to work in a strict top-to-bottom sequence to avoid re-contamination.
It also typically covers a larger scope than clients expect. The entire home needs attention, not just the rooms where work happened. And it’s usually a one-time service rather than a recurring one — a full reset that hands the home back to its owners in a condition where normal maintenance cleaning can take over.
More of Our Work in Cambridge, MA
East Cambridge is one of many Cambridge neighborhoods we’ve worked in. A few other jobs from across the city:
- From Neglected to Spotless: A Cambridge Deep Cleaning Transformation — a move-out property left in difficult condition, transformed in 48 hours
- Office Deep Clean for a Kendall Square Startup: What We Found (and Fixed) — commercial cleaning for a growing tech team before an investor visit
- Deep Cleaning for a Busy Cambridge Mama: When Service Comes with Heart — one of our most personal Cambridge stories
- From Mess to Fresh: Another Cambridge Bathroom Shining with BraBos — before and after bathroom transformation
- A Fresh, Thorough Clean in Cambridge’s Historic Prescott Street — a detailed clean on one of Cambridge’s most characterful streets
- Affordable, Reliable Cleaning in Cambridge, MA: A Happy Client Story — quality cleaning that doesn’t break the budget
Just Finished a Renovation in Cambridge? We Can Help.
Whether you’ve done a full kitchen gut, a bathroom remodel, new flooring throughout, or anything in between — the post-construction cleanup is the final step that makes the whole project feel finished.
BraBos Cleaning Services serves homeowners across all of Cambridge, MA — East Cambridge, Inman Square, Porter Square, Central Square, Cambridgeport, and everywhere in between. Our team is fully insured, experienced in post-construction cleaning, and will treat your newly renovated home with the care it deserves.
