Plaster and picture rails
Original plaster does not behave like drywall. It chalks, and a wet cloth across it leaves a mark that stays. Rails, crown detail and door casings get brushed and dry-dusted; only painted, sealed surfaces see any moisture.
Alameda holds one of the largest surviving concentrations of pre-1940 housing in California, and cleaning a Queen Anne with picture rails and eleven-foot plaster ceilings is a genuinely different craft.
Your price in about 60 seconds. No walkthrough, no phone tag. Pay after the clean.
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MaidSimple works throughout Alameda, California, cleaning houses, condos and townhomes. Everyone we send is a W-2 hire with a finished background check, and they bring their own products and machines. The island is dominated by Victorian, Edwardian and 1920s stock with plaster walls, tall ceilings and original woodwork, alongside Bay Farm Island’s 1980s tracts and the newer building at Alameda Point. A 3 bed / 2 bath home is about at99.85 per clean. Both island ZIPs are served: 94501 and 94502.
The reason this island looks the way it does is that very little of it was ever knocked down. Whole blocks in the East End and along the Gold Coast are Victorian and Edwardian, put up between roughly 1880 and 1915, still carrying their plaster, picture rails, pocket doors and deep baseboards. Ceilings run ten and eleven feet. Light fixtures sit high, and the crown detail collects dust that nobody sees from standing height.
Cross to Bay Farm Island and the century changes. The Harbor Bay developments are eighties and nineties, two-story, carpeted upstairs, with attached garages and homeowner associations. Alameda Point, on the former naval air station, is newer again. One city, three approaches, which is why we ask which side of the estuary you are on before quoting anything.
Pre-war Alameda means lath-and-plaster walls, softwood floors, tall double-hung windows and a great deal of milled trim, often in original finish. Those houses run 1,500 to 2,600 square feet over two floors with a steep straight staircase and a basement or under-house space. Bay Farm Island is the modern half: 1,600 to 2,200 square feet, slab, drywall, carpet up and tile down. Sea air works on window tracks and metal fixtures, and the whole island runs damp in winter.
Real prices from the same engine behind the quote form above, not a range that moves once we see the place.
| How is it looking? | Time we plan | Per clean, recurring | Just this once |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kept upCleaned recently | 2 hrs | $199.90every week, 2 weeks or 4 weeks | $235.18 |
| Lived-inNormal life happens | 3 hrs | $299.85every week, 2 weeks or 4 weeks | $352.77 |
| It’s a messNo judgement, truly | 4 hrs | $399.80every week, 2 weeks or 4 weeks | $470.36 |
You pay for the time it takes: the hours we plan at $99.95 an hour for every recurring clean, or $117.59 an hour just once. Supplies and equipment included. Anything extra you tick — inside the oven, the fridge, baseboards in full — adds its time at the same rate, and a deeper clean or a move-out is simply more hours. Slide the hours before you book if you know your home better than we do.
The small things that decide whether a visit runs smoothly or runs late.
Original plaster does not behave like drywall. It chalks, and a wet cloth across it leaves a mark that stays. Rails, crown detail and door casings get brushed and dry-dusted; only painted, sealed surfaces see any moisture.
Victorian staircases here are steep, straight and often turn at a landing barely wide enough for one person. Equipment goes up in pieces rather than as a loaded caddy, and the upper floor is planned as a single continuous sweep.
Harbor Bay associations generally set where a working vehicle may stand and for how long, and some gate the guest bays. Tell us the arrangement at your address and we work inside it instead of circling the block.
Every Alameda address in 94501 and 94502.
One rate, one standard. Pick the one that fits your week.
The whole-home refresh most Alameda homes book: kitchens, bathrooms, floors, dusting and tidying.
How it works →Baseboards, inside appliances, grout and vents — the same clean with more hours, at the same rate.
How it works →Empty-home cleaning for deposits and handovers — more hours, the same rate.
How it works →Weekly, every 2 weeks or every 4 weeks, at the advertised rate every clean.
How it works →Most cleaning companies send whoever is available that day. Our cleaners are our own background-checked, W-2 employees — which costs us more in payroll tax and workers’ comp, and is exactly why the standard holds: we employ them and dispatch them ourselves.
Every maid is on our payroll and background-checked before she sets foot in your home. If anything’s not right, tell us and we come back and put it right — you don’t pay twice.
The general FAQ covers access, supplies, rescheduling and paying.
It is most of our island work, so yes. The rules are simple and they matter: dry methods on unsealed wood and original plaster, no ammonia on leaded or stained glass, neutral cleaner and a barely damp mop on old floors, nothing abrasive on hexagonal bathroom tile. Where a surface has been modernized we treat it as modern.
Yes, because they are different buildings. Harbor Bay homes are newer, drywalled and slab-built, generally quicker per square foot than a comparable Victorian, but they carry more bathrooms and a full upstairs. The quote comes from your real bedroom and bathroom count either way, so the difference lands where it should.
Yes, and there are a lot of them here. Where a large older home has been divided, each unit is quoted on its own time rather than the building’s, because your visit covers your rooms and your share of the shared entry. Say which unit and which floor at booking so nobody knocks on the wrong door.
Alameda sits inside our The East Bay coverage.
Your Alameda quote takes about a minute and commits you to nothing at all.
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