Cleaning homes in El Cerrito
The hill half of El Cerrito was built for the view, and the view is what makes the work. Houses in Mira Vista and up along the Arlington face west into afternoon sun off the bay, so their windows show every mark, and the sliding doors onto the deck get opened a hundred times a summer. Around them are mature gardens — oaks, redwoods, camellias, decades of them — which means leaf litter, pollen and a fine grit that walks in on shoes and settles on the sills.
Down the slope the job changes character. The flats between Fairmount and El Cerrito Plaza are largely single-story homes from the late forties and fifties, laid out simply, with hardwood under carpet in a lot of them and kitchens that have been remodeled once. These clean quickly and reward a steady biweekly rhythm. The difference between the two halves is big enough that we quote them separately rather than by square footage alone.
El Cerrito homes, structurally
Most of the city went up between 1945 and 1965, so the baseline is a three-bedroom, two-bath single-story house of 1,300 to 1,700 square feet with oak floors, a tiled hearth and aluminum windows swapped for vinyl at some point. The hillside tracts break that pattern: split levels, downhill bedrooms, floor-to-ceiling glass on the bay side and exterior stairs to a lower deck. Condominiums cluster near the Plaza and along the Greenway, mostly two-bedroom, with elevator access and a shared trash room.