Exterior window cleaning in Old Naples.

A lot of the older cottages in Old Naples still have divided-light windows: six or eight small panes per sash, with wood or aluminum bars between them. Salt doesn't sit evenly on that kind of window. It collects along every bar and in every corner, and a quick pass across the glass leaves a gray outline around each pane. We work the brush along the bars and into the corners before the rinse, and the ground-floor sashes get a hand strip-wash and squeegee pane by pane.

The new houses going up between the cottages are the opposite problem: big single sheets of glass on two floors. Those get the water-fed pole and a deionized rinse so the upper panes dry clear. Most homes here are a few blocks from the beach, so we keep the exterior window cleaning on a two-month rhythm, or monthly for houses on Gulf Shore Boulevard South.