You might try hosing them down in the morning. Painting might make them look cleaner, but when it comes to sitting on them they still have to be cleaned. I finally figured out fixing my deck up nicely was just adding another room which has to be cleaned. The only furniture I have on my deck now is one lounge with removable cushions. I keep the cushions just inside the patio door or in the deck box. When I hose down the deck I hose down the lounge frame. This post was edited by EmmaR on Sun, Mar 3, 13 at 9:05

I'm sorry, I've been away for 3 weeks. My front porch was rebuilt by the previous owners. I'm not sure when, but my best guess was in 96 (porch supports are wrapped in aluminum and the house was sided in 96). It appears to only have 1 coat of paint on it. It's made of typical materials you'd find on an old porch, ie tongue and groove flooring and the steps are 1x6's. The railings, to me, look like they have primer on them and not paint. The floor of the porch does have paint though. The porch is approximatly 40" off the ground with lattice around the bottom, which I'm not fond of and would like to replace. I have borrowed a pressure washer and plan on removing all paint and cleaning the wood before it's repainted. Regarding the deck on the back/side of the house.....IMO (which really is the only one that counts since I live here *insert smile here*) looks so out of place on a house that is 110 yrs old. If money grew on trees, I'd have the whole thing ripped off and replaced with a porch, not a deck. But it doesn't, so I can't. I used a solid stain for floors from Cabot to try and make the deck look more like a porch. My next thing is to remove the deck rails and make railings that match the front porch to help it to look more like a porch and not a deck. I used a product (can't remember the name, but recommended by a guy I know who does deck cleaning and restoring but has no idea on porches) to remove stain and paint, then a product that neutralized the first. Let it dry for the recommended 4 days and then put on the solid stain. Both products required scrubbing and rinsing off with a power washer. I know it was a grammatical error on your part pressurepros, but the local SW really is a pain. This store does not have anyone who really knows what they're talking about. When someone from the store told me that Stripeeze was supposed to be all glumpy and would take the whole darn can to remove paint from a door and I got a hold of the company and found out my can, that the SW store sold me, was over 2 yrs old...well, let's just say that was pretty much the last straw for me. Stripping paint isn't new to me, nor is Stripeeze, so I knew better. I'm limited in my paint stores here and SW really isn't the place to go.

It definitely seems like the Contractor used to much and / or didn't wipe off any excess after applying. Unfortunately the only way to get it off now is to sand it off. I would recommend using a floor sander if it's a large porch or if smaller use a orbital sander by hand. If it's a standard spaced deck and not Tongue and Grooved be sure to get in between the boards as best you can. Another UN-confirmed way (unconfirmed by me at least) would be to use a Deck Cleaner and Brightener like Messmers offers. I'm just not sure how well it would work, it's usually used to clean off the graying of faded material.

I'd vacuum up what I could then carefully spread an appropriate liquid cleaner (depending on what kind of "filthy" it is) then suck up the liquid with a wet/dry shop vac. It might involve some scrubbing with a stiff brush and going over it all more than once. If it's moldy, algae type of "filthy" you may just be able to spray it with 30 Seconds cleaner and it will clear up a lot of it without much scrubbing or vacuuming up the liquid. https://30secondscleaners.com/