Soft washing on Marco Island.

Almost every Marco Island home is on the water in one direction or another, and island humidity does not let a wall dry the way an inland one does. Salt arrives off the Marco River canals and off the beach along South Collier, settles into the stucco, and holds moisture there — and once a wall is permanently damp, the black streaking follows on the shaded sides while the sun-facing walls just go grey.

Our soft washing clears both with a solution that kills the growth at the root and a low-pressure rinse that carries the salt film off with it. On the condo buildings along the beachfront the same method handles balcony soffits, ceilings, and railings without forcing water into the structure, and on the canal homes it handles the pool cage screens that a pressure washer would tear.

Marco's landscape ordinances and dense plantings mean runoff gets handled deliberately — beds pre-wet, solution diluted, everything rinsed down behind us. For the deck and the enclosure itself, pool deck cleaning and lanai cleaning are the matching jobs. More on the island in Marco Island.