The questions everyone asks first.

Fair question, and it's the right one to ask. Micro Maids is new — it's a mother-and-son business based in Clay. The family running it is not new to cleaning — they also run Brooms Over Broome and Swept Away, two cleaning companies here in Upstate New York. Look both up. So the company is new, but the way it works came from somewhere. If you'd rather not commit to a schedule straight away, book a one-time deep cleaning first and see what you think.

It comes down to the size and condition of your place and how often you'd like us. Tell us your bedrooms, bathrooms, and how often you want us — about a minute on the quote form — and we'll come back with a price. It's free and there's no obligation to book anything.

We're based in Clay and we cover Syracuse, Clay, Liverpool, Cicero, Baldwinsville, and North Syracuse, here in Onondaga County. If you're just outside that list, ask anyway. You'll get a straight yes or no about whether we can reach you rather than a maybe.

A regular cleaning keeps your home at a steady level — kitchen, bathrooms, dusting, floors, and taking out the trash. A deep cleaning resets it. It reaches the build-up a routine visit never gets to, like inside the oven, limescale in the shower, baseboards, and behind furniture that can be moved. A deep cleaning takes a good deal longer. If your house has already got away from you, start with the deep cleaning and put a regular schedule on top of it — booking weekly visits into a house that needs a reset just means paying every week for a reset that never finishes.

Everything in a regular cleaning, done more thoroughly, plus the details that get skipped week to week — inside the oven and refrigerator, soap and limescale build-up in showers and around faucets, baseboards, door frames, switches and handles, cabinet fronts, and interior window glass, sills, and tracks. We move furniture where we safely can and clean behind it.

Completely up to you, and it makes no difference to us. Some customers are home every visit. Others meet us the first time and then leave a key or a door code. Either works, as long as we can get in and we know what you'd like done. Tell us which you'd prefer when you book.

No — and everybody asks this. It does help if floors and countertops are reasonably clear, because time we spend moving your things around is time we're not spending cleaning. But nobody is judging the state of the place. That is the entire reason you called us.

It depends on the service and how full the schedule is. A regular cleaning is usually easier to fit in than a deep cleaning, which needs a longer block of time. Ask us and you'll get a real date rather than a vague one.

We price on the number of rooms and areas you want cleaned, plus anything you tell us about the condition of the place. Photos help a lot — send the worst room, not the best one. It's worked out without us seeing the property, so on the first visit we do a quick walkthrough to check the job matches. If it's noticeably bigger or needs extra attention, you hear about it before we start, not after.

Often, but we can't promise it — schedules and routes change week to week. If you get on well with someone in particular, tell us and we'll do our best to keep them on your place. Everyone works to the same method either way, so the cleaning doesn't change with the face.

Yes. Move-in and move-out cleanings are a separate service, done while the place is empty, and they include the insides of cabinets and appliances. Book it for after the property is cleared and before the handover or inspection, and make sure the water and power are still on — that last one is the most common way this job goes wrong.