Screen cleaning on Sanibel Island.

Nearly every home on Sanibel has a pool cage or a screened lanai facing the water, and on an island that takes the Gulf broadside those panels are working as a salt-and-sand filter around the clock. Fine shell sand and airborne salt pack into the weave, and because the mesh is what you look through to see the water, a loaded screen dulls the exact view the house was built for.

Our screen cleaning pulls window screens so the mesh can be cleared from both faces, the frames and tracks wiped, and each panel rinsed with pure deionized water before it is reseated square. The large cage panels are soft-washed in place at low pressure, which is the only method mesh that size survives — a pressure washer will stretch it out of the spline in a single pass.

Screens come clear once a year at no extra charge on a recurring plan, on the same visit as the glass, which on Sanibel is the difference between a clear pane and a clear view. The full enclosure — framing, kickplates, and floor — is our lanai cleaning. More on the island in Sanibel.