This recommendation may sound weird, but you could contact your homeowners insurance company for references. They may have companies that they use to clean up after household fires and the like.

FWIW, the flooring guys used a jackhammer of some sort on the concrete slab *inside* the house. Luckily, the cats and I had moved out for the reno work, and I had most of the furniture in storage. But I did leave some clothes in the built-ins in the master dressing area. My GC hired a cleaning crew that came in one night to wash everything down. They even did the laundry.

Best of luck.

I hear you loud and clear on the dust thing! I think I have several inches of the stuff ranging from brick dust to drywall dust ALL over my entire house.

I would also recommend contacting an insurance or water/fire restoration company for recommendations. I used to do marketing for Servpro and we had cleaning crews that did that sort of thing for us (contractors), just be sure that they are experienced companies that won't send a bunch of 17 year old guys out to clean your house...no offense to 17 year old guys who might be reading this!

Also, contact a really good custom homebuilder in your area, they also use cleaners to finish clean their homes prior to the owners taking possession.

Good luck!

Kat :)

hi bwaibel, I wrote about my cleanup crew being ready on the panic thread. I got them when I bought this cottage thru my realtor. She uses them for houses that she shows but the buyers have already moved. When I bought my place, I didn't have cleaning supplies here since it's a 2nd home and I didn't want to run out and buy EVERYTHING I needed. So to get started I had them come in and clean every where... inside every kitchen cabinet, the basement etc. etc. It cost $172 for a 1200 sq. ft. house and $72 for the basement and it was well worth it. Then I bought a little Hoover and mop, swiffer... u know and did it myself but after my painter, window treatments being hung and now the kitchen renovation, I am having them come back and do it all over again.. except the basement.

Check a realtor if you know any. Ask friends. I like cleaning companies better than a cleaning woman because they come in with more industrial vacuums etc. and really get the job done quickly.

It's like the Loreal commercials: "I'm worth it." LOL

The prof type Servpro may be very costly -

I hired my reg cleaner & crew of 4 people - I supervised & worked alongside them - I knew where the dust lurked.

If the house was built/painted before 1978 that dust likely contains lead & will need to follow lead abatement to properly rid the home of it

ahh... jejvtr... good tip, I don't mind getting my hands dirty, working with them might be just the right thing. I'm not as worried about costly as I am about effective. I don't really know what might be lurking in the dust so I'd like it gone.

bwaibel:
four months after katrina, my gc came in with his group of cleaners to throw everything out perishable. they cleaned all my dishes, disinfected everything. well, you can imagine. my husband had snuck in one week after the flood, and ripped out the carpet and punched holes on the sheetrock to ventilate. unfortunately, he left doors and windows open to ventilate the house, and at least one rat had moved in and discovered a goldmine of sam's club pistachios! i was displaced in texas with my family, so there was little i could do from there. i just let the gc deal with it--i couldn't face the situation at that time.

looking back, i wish i had had more fortitude to face the situation, and taken better control of what the gc was up to. one day i stopped by and found his cleaners wiping down the dishes with something that smelled toxic. they threw so much away that didn't need throwing away, like non-perishable items. they had clogged my septic system with rolls of paper towels, and blamed me, saying that it was clogged because i must've poured cooking oil down the drain. when we moved in, i couldn't find anything (i think they broke a few things in the process). the toilet backed up into the bathroom. we lived here 8 years prior to katrina without one plumbing problem.

ANYWAY, unless you are willing to totally supervise a group of people coming into your home, you had better not expect the attention to detail, and level of common sense, that you yourself would give. i've been where you are, not just with Katrina, but with dust everywhere from a total kitchen renovation. it is very upsetting, isn't it? i started with mopping everyday after the guys left. after a month, i only broomed and swiffered. thank goodness, as of one week ago, we are at 80% completion and done with the dust. last weekend, my husband's office housekeeper came for the big cleaning. she wiped down everything. it just helped so much to have someone working by my side.

i think you feel overwhelmed. but i don't think you want a huge swarming crew of strangers in your home. hire someone to clean it in stages, not just in one shot. if they know you are cleaning too, the person will take more responsibilty. the two of us working together, i got five times more done than working by myself. i feel for you. i nearly went insane a month ago before the light started to appear at the end of the tunnel. hang in there, and don't wait to hire someone to help you now.

jejvtr our Servpro franchise didn't do any cleaning at all, maybe it varies from franchise to franchise, but we did contract out with cleaning companies in our area when fire and water damages occurred. I'm sure if you contacted them or any other fire water restoration company they would be more than happy to recommend one, we did that for general contractors and handymen as well when someone called.

If someone called, we simply gave them the phone number of the cleaning company, we didn't get involved beyond that, so the cost would be the same as if you had found the cleaning company on your own, it just meant that you had a recommendation. Of course you'll want to make sure that the company who makes the recommendation is well thought of too.

I forgot about realtors, they see horribly dirty homes that need cleaning to be put on the market, they would be a great resource I would think!

Nolamom, that's terrible! I hope everything is going more smoothly now!

Kat :)

My clean-up wasn't nearly as bad as I'd imagined. I'd heard horror stories about drywall dust clouds coming out of the couch even after being repeatedly vaccuumed. However, I do think that dust got into my TIVO machine, because it's never been the same.
But, during the reno, I had taken my Hoover in for service. The vaccuum experts warned me not to use my good vaccuum for any drywall dust cleaning. Apparently, it will ruin a vac pretty quickly. We used our shop vac and a $39. vac from WalMart. Not bad.

I think if you found a cleaning service that did move-in, move-out cleanings (think deep cleaning and multiple crew members) and specified that this is a post-construction cleanup, you'd do fine. I'd also recommend that when you talk to the owner, salesman or whoever comes to bid the job, you specify the areas in particular that you want cleaned. THEN be there on the cleaning day to supervise, ask/answer questions, and make sure it gets done.

BTW, I went with a woman who wasn't a real cleaning service, just a single mom who knew my contractor and needed extra cash, and she did a great job. Mostly the key is mopping and damp dusting, because trying to get that plaster dust up with dry swiffers, brooms or whatever is a joke. And lay in plenty of bottles of pledge, or whatever.

bwaibel - you have a lot of company, although that probably doesn't make you feel much better :) The worst thing about that dust is that it seems to reappear every time you clean it off - yikes!!!! I'm wondering if changing vent filters and such after it's all over will help???

Anyway, I like the idea of cleaning companies that deal with post-construction and am heavily leaning in that direction since I'm overwhelmed also and don't know where to begin. However, most of those places seem to deal with empty homes - will they do as good of a job with a house that's furnished (and every single thing from walls to furniture is covered with dust)? Aside from the dust, we have actual red dirt all over our basement due to them having to rip up the concrete foundation for plumbing and tracking in and out thousands of times a day, etc. All the contractors also use the bathroom down there, so you can imagine what shape it's in! Goodness knows what some cleaning service is going to charge when they see what a mess it is!

traci29 - That's exactly what I'm worried about with the post-construction crew, I don't think they'll have much experience with the personal items. All of our surfaces are hard, so I am pretty confident I can find someone to clean them. It's the things like the lamp shades, leather chairs, sofa. We have it all "covered" with plastic, but I just looked at the leather chairs that are downstairs and the seams are caked with dust.

nolamon - I'm sorry to hear about your experience. I hear you, I find it extremely difficult to trust anyone doing anything in my home, and cleaning is no exception. That ends up being why we do most of our work ourselves. I'm lucky to have a GC in the family, but he works me like a dog, and it's taking a toll.

I think I have what I need, thanks everyone for your replies. Just like everything else, there's no easy answer. I'll do most of it myself, hire a helping hand, and probably try to find a furniture specialist and a duct cleaner to come in while we're at it. I'm definitely replacing the furnace's filter.