By the Come Home Happy House Cleaning Team | 8 Years Serving the St. Louis Metro | Published December 2025

Here’s something most cleaning companies won’t tell you. That beautiful hardwood floor in your 1920s University City bungalow? It needs completely different care than the engineered wood in a new Chesterfield subdivision. Use the wrong product and you’ve got a skating rink. Use too much water and you’re looking at warped boards and an expensive refinishing job. The National Wood Flooring Association has detailed guidelines on this for a reason.

We learned this the hard way back in 2019 when we took over a client from another service. They’d been using an all-purpose cleaner on antique oak floors for six months. The finish was completely stripped in the high-traffic areas. That homeowner ended up spending $3,200 on refinishing because her previous cleaner didn’t know the difference between sealed and unsealed hardwood.

After eight years cleaning homes and businesses across the St. Louis metro we’ve seen every mistake in the book. And we’ve learned that the St. Louis area has specific challenges that generic cleaning advice doesn’t cover.

The Humidity Problem Nobody Talks About

St. Louis summers are brutal. We’re talking 80-90% humidity for weeks at a time. That moisture doesn’t just make you uncomfortable. It changes how your home collects and holds onto dirt and dust.

Bathroom grout in St. Louis homes grows mold faster than almost anywhere else in the Midwest. The EPA’s mold prevention guide recommends drying wet areas within 24-48 hours to prevent growth. Good luck with that during a St. Louis July. We’ve pulled apart shower caulking in Clayton apartments that looked fine on the surface but had black mold growing underneath after just one summer of neglect. The property manager thought monthly cleaning was enough. It wasn’t.

For homeowners dealing with this humidity battle and looking for recurring house cleaning in University City MO the schedule matters as much as the cleaning itself. Bi-weekly service barely keeps up with bathroom moisture in summer. Weekly service during June through September makes a real difference in preventing the buildup that leads to expensive remediation later.

Apartment Cleaning and the Security Deposit Game

Let’s be honest about something. Most landlords in the St. Louis metro are looking for reasons to keep your deposit. Under Missouri law they have 30 days to return it or provide an itemized list of deductions. We’ve seen property managers in Clayton charge $400 for “deep cleaning” when the apartment just needed a proper scrub that any decent cleaner could handle in three hours.

The trick with move-out cleaning isn’t just making things look clean. It’s knowing what property managers actually check. They open the oven. They look behind the toilet. They run a finger along the top of door frames. They check the inside of window tracks.

One thing we’ve noticed after doing hundreds of move-out cleanings in the area: the newer luxury apartments off Clayton Road and in the Central West End have stricter inspections than the older buildings. Makes sense. Higher rents mean pickier management.

If you’re renting and want to actually get your deposit back we put together a guide on apartment cleaning services in Clayton MO that covers what local property managers typically look for during walkthroughs.

The Office Cleaning Mistake That’s Costing St. Charles Businesses Money

Here’s a pattern we see constantly in St. Charles County. A growing business signs a cheap janitorial contract. The cleaning crew shows up at 5pm when people are still working. Vacuums running during phone calls. Trash being emptied while someone’s trying to finish a report.

Then management wonders why employee satisfaction surveys keep mentioning “workplace environment” as a problem.

We picked up a 12-person insurance agency off First Capitol Drive last spring. Their previous cleaner had been coming at 4:30pm for two years. The office manager told us her staff had basically given up on getting anything done after 4 o’clock because they knew the vacuum was coming.

Switched them to 7pm service. Same cleaning. Same price. Productivity in that last hour of the day went up noticeably according to their metrics. Sometimes the fix isn’t better cleaning. It’s smarter scheduling.

For business owners in the area dealing with similar headaches we’ve written more about office cleaning in St. Charles MO and what actually matters beyond just “is the trash empty.”

Commercial Spaces Need Commercial Solutions

A residential vacuum cleaner on commercial carpet is like using a garden hose to fill a swimming pool. It technically works but you’re going to be there forever and the results won’t be great.

Commercial carpet in a busy St. Louis office building takes hundreds of footsteps daily. The dirt gets ground in. The fibers get compressed. A standard vacuum pulls surface debris but leaves the deep grime that makes carpet look dingy even right after cleaning.

We had a law firm downtown that couldn’t figure out why their carpet always looked dirty. Turned out their cleaning service was using residential equipment. Looked fine on tile and hardwood but the carpet was basically getting a light dusting twice a week. Six months of proper commercial extraction and the carpet looked five years younger.

If you’re running a business and your space just never looks quite right no matter how often it gets cleaned the equipment might be the problem. We go into more detail about commercial cleaning services in St. Louis MO and the difference commercial-grade tools actually make.

The Property Manager’s Nightmare: Common Area Complaints

Nothing makes tenants angrier faster than nasty common areas. We’ve talked to property managers in Creve Coeur who get more complaints about the lobby and hallways than anything else combined. And here’s the thing. When common areas look bad every tenant assumes management doesn’t care about the whole building.

One apartment complex off Olive had a tenant turnover problem they couldn’t explain. Decent units. Competitive rent. Good location. But people kept leaving after one lease cycle. Exit surveys mentioned “building maintenance” over and over.

Turned out the common areas were being cleaned monthly when they needed weekly attention. The fitness center smelled. The laundry room had visible grime buildup. The lobby carpet hadn’t been deep cleaned in over a year. New tenants saw nice apartments during tours but lived with gross shared spaces every day.

Property managers dealing with similar complaints should look at common area cleaning services in Creve Coeur MO for realistic scheduling and what proper high-traffic maintenance actually requires.

Chesterfield’s Specific Challenges

Chesterfield has some of the nicest homes in the metro. It also has some of the pickiest homeowners. And honestly? They should be picky. When you’re paying for high-end finishes you deserve someone who knows how to care for them.

The subdivisions off Wild Horse Creek Road have a lot of newer construction with granite counters and stainless appliances and engineered hardwood throughout. Standard cleaning products leave streaks on stainless. Granite needs to be sealed periodically or it stains. Engineered hardwood can’t handle excess moisture.

We’ve also noticed Chesterfield homes tend to have more square footage which means more surfaces collecting dust and more floors tracking in dirt from those big yards. A cleaning schedule that works for an 1,800 square foot house in Maplewood doesn’t necessarily work for a 4,000 square foot home in Chesterfield.

For Chesterfield residents looking for service that matches the quality of their home we cover residential and commercial options in our guide to cleaning services in Chesterfield MO.

What We’ve Learned After 8 Years

Every cleaning disaster we’ve fixed taught us something. The flooring mistakes taught us to ask about surfaces before we ever show up. The deposit disputes taught us exactly what property managers look for. The office complaints taught us that scheduling matters as much as scrubbing.

The St. Louis metro isn’t like other markets. The humidity is worse than most of the Midwest. The housing stock ranges from 100-year-old city homes to brand new construction. The commercial spaces run from tiny professional offices to massive retail centers.

Generic cleaning advice doesn’t cut it here. What works in Phoenix or Seattle doesn’t translate to St. Louis. And what works in University City might not work in St. Charles.

If you’re tired of cleaning services that disappoint or you’re just trying to figure out what kind of service actually makes sense for your situation feel free to reach out. We’ve probably seen your exact problem before and we’re happy to talk through what’s worked for similar homes and businesses in your area.

About Come Home Happy House Cleaning

Come Home Happy House Cleaning has been providing residential and commercial cleaning services across the St. Louis metro since 2017. We serve University City and Clayton and Chesterfield and St. Charles and Creve Coeur and surrounding areas. Fully insured with references available from long-term clients throughout the region.

Get in Touch:

Phone: (727) 687-7920

Emergency: (314) 662-6879

Email: Scotterbschloe@gmail.com