Post-Construction Cleaning in NYC After Renovations and New Builds

Sanded joint compound is fine enough to pass straight through an ordinary vacuum bag and settle again behind you. Tile cutting leaves a silica grit that scratches if it is wiped dry. Primer overspray dries on window glass, construction adhesive bonds to new white oak, and every appliance, cabinet door and window arrives wrapped in stickers and protective film. In a New York apartment there is nowhere for any of that to go, so it drifts into the bedrooms and closets that were never part of the renovation and coats those as well.

A standard deep clean handles none of this well, and the difference is mostly sequencing. Everything gets HEPA vacuumed before anything gets wet, because water on drywall dust makes a paste that smears across fresh paint. Cleaning runs from the ceiling down, and microfiber cloths are swapped constantly so we are not dragging grit across new quartz. Matte paint, oil-finished floors, unsealed grout and brushed brass each get a product that will not mark them. And because airborne dust keeps landing for days after the last cut, the job is planned as more than one pass.

City buildings add their own layer. Co-op and condo alteration agreements almost always include a final-cleaning requirement and a deadline, and the board's inspector will look at the hallway and the freight elevator pads as closely as the kitchen. Pre-war plaster throws far more dust than modern drywall when a wall is opened, and steam radiators and their covers pack it in. In the new glass towers going up in Long Island City and Downtown Brooklyn, the work is floor-to-ceiling windows covered in haze and film, with a developer's punch-list clean that rarely goes past a quick sweep.

The people who call us are the homeowner who just finished a kitchen or bath remodel in a Brooklyn brownstone, the buyer taking delivery of a new condo, the general contractor closing out a gut renovation in a Manhattan co-op ahead of the board walkthrough, and the property manager turning over a rehabbed unit in the Bronx before a tenant signs. Pricing follows scope: a bathroom renovation cleanup is $200 to $350, a kitchen remodel $300 to $450, and a full gut renovation runs from about $450 for a one-bedroom to $900 and up for three bedrooms or more.

Done, for us, means a white cloth comes away clean from the top of a door frame, the glass is streak-free with every sticker gone, the inside of every new cabinet has been wiped, and the vents, tracks and light fixtures no longer shed dust when touched. We walk the space with you at the end and recommend a lighter second visit about a week later for anything that settles after we leave. Our post-construction crews work in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.