Essex is unusual in how sharply its housing changes across a few miles: dense brick multi-family buildings and high-rises in Newark, hundred-year-old Victorians with steep carpeted staircases in Montclair and the Oranges, and post-war colonials in Livingston and the Caldwells. Those are three different cleaning problems. We answer the phone at any hour and book by appointment, and the visit is planned around the building rather than around a standard package.
Essex County packs a full range of American housing into about 130 square miles. In Newark you are working in brick apartment buildings and multi-family houses where the carpet takes traffic from several households and where getting equipment to a third floor is part of the job. Twenty minutes north-west, Montclair and the Oranges are full of houses built between the 1890s and the 1920s, narrow staircases with a turn in them, original hardwood with area rugs over it, and rooms that were never designed around a vacuum. Out toward Livingston, Millburn and the Caldwells the stock is post-war and newer, with wall-to-wall carpet through the bedrooms and finished basements below grade. Each of those needs a different plan, and the plan is made when we see the place, not before.
Pre-war staircases
A staircase from 1910 has a turn in it, treads of unequal depth and a carpeted stringer on both sides. There is no machine head that fits it. Stairs in this part of the county get done by hand, step by step, and they are the surface where the difference shows most because you look down at them from directly above.
Finished basements below grade
The newer stock west of the Oranges almost all has a finished lower level, and below-grade carpet stays cooler and damper than the rest of the house. It dries more slowly, it holds odor longer, and it is the first place to check after any plumbing problem upstairs.
Local notes
- Montclair and the Oranges are dense with houses built between the 1890s and the 1920s, which means steep narrow staircases with a winder turn, the slowest and most hand-worked part of any carpet job.
- Branch Brook Park in Newark is known for its cherry blossoms, and the pollen season that comes with a mature tree canopy is the same season the mattress and upholstery calls go up.
- South Mountain Reservation runs along the county's western edge through Millburn, Maplewood and West Orange, and houses backing onto it track in leaf litter and wet clay through autumn and spring.
- Newark's older multi-family buildings frequently have no elevator, so equipment reaches the upper floors by hand, worth knowing when you are booking a third-floor apartment.
