How do you plan house cleaning before and after Ramadan?

The first organisational headache is the calendar itself, and it catches many households off guard.

Ramadan follows the lunar calendar: it moves about ten days earlier each year against the Gregorian one. What fell in late March three years ago now falls in February, and it will keep moving back. In 2027, the month will begin around mid-February.

Two very concrete consequences in Marrakech:

• preparation slides into winter. Days are shorter, sunshine is weaker and nights are cooler: drying heavy textiles, which was a given in April, is no longer a given at all in February. That single factor pushes everything else back.
• the booking window shifts too. A household that used to call "early March, as usual" is now calling too late.

The practical rule fits in one sentence: count backwards from the first day — four weeks for the textiles, two weeks for the windows and floors, and the final week for the finishing touches. The rest of this article sets out that schedule in detail.

The classic mistake is starting with the floors, which give instant satisfaction, and finishing with the textiles, which then have no time left to dry. It should be exactly the other way round.

Four weeks ahead — anything that needs drying time

• rugs, beldi and machine-made;
• sofas, the Moroccan salon seating and its cushions;
• curtains, drapes and voiles;
• bedroom mattresses, often forgotten at this time of year.

Two weeks ahead — anything that does not depend on drying

• windows, inside and out, with frames and tracks;
• floors, including grouting and skirtings;
• doors, handles, switches and joinery.

The final week — the kitchen and finishing touches

• the extractor hood, filters and hob, the oven, fridge and freezer;
• storage cupboards, before the month's provisions arrive;
• silverware, glassware and entertaining crockery, brought out and washed.

This sequence is not an abstract rule: it follows directly from drying time, and everything else is fitted around it. Floors, bathrooms and the accessible kitchen surfaces are exactly what a day of standard housekeeping covers.

This is the room that receives guests, and it is also the longest to treat. A U-shaped salon running twelve linear metres represents a considerable seating and backrest surface, padded in depth.

What a year of use has left behind:

• sand and mineral dust settled deep in the foam, which a surface vacuum cleaner never lifts out;
• tea, food and body-oil marks on the armrests and the front edge of the seats;
• a background odour fixed into the textiles, noticeable as soon as you sit down.

What you can do yourself, three weeks ahead: vacuum slowly with the cushions off, working the joins between seat and backrest where sand collects; air the room every morning; blot a fresh stain, never rub it. Deep cleaning of padded seating is done by hot-water extraction: a solution is injected into the fibre and immediately drawn back out along with the dirt, without soaking the foam.

Our textile price list covers L-shaped and U-shaped sofas — from 550 MAD incl. VAT for a small L-shaped sofa to 750 MAD incl. VAT for a large U-shaped one, set out on the sofa page — as well as mattresses and rugs.

Two honest points. A sofa gets cleaned; it does not get restored: a torn cover, sagging foam or fabric faded by the sun stay as they are. And a delicate fabric — wool, silk, velvet — or one of unknown composition needs a method confirmed on photos, then a hidden test patch first.

In Marrakech, a rug is not just an accessory: it is often the most valuable piece in the salon, and it is also the most heavily loaded textile in the house.

Two families, two treatments, one price:

• the beldi rug, hand-woven wool. Wool is sensitive to temperature, excessive friction and certain alkaline products. It needs a gentle method, confirmed on photos, and above all controlled rinsing and drying: a wool rug put back in place while still damp develops an odour within forty-eight hours, and that odour is hard to shift;
• the machine-made rug in synthetic fibres, more forgiving and quicker to dry.

Both are 30 MAD/m² incl. VAT, length × width. A 2 × 3 m rug is 6 m², so 180 MAD, raised to the 400 MAD incl. VAT textile minimum; with a large U-shaped sofa on the same visit, 750 + 180 = 930 MAD incl. VAT.

The full protocol — deep mechanical dust removal before any moisture is introduced, stain treatment, rinsing, controlled drying — is described on cleaning Berber and beldi rugs.

The point that decides the date: in February, a thick wool rug will not dry in a day in a Marrakech house. That is the reason, and the only one, why we recommend four weeks' notice on this item.

During the month, the kitchen runs at a pace it does not keep the rest of the year: two concentrated sittings, long cooking times, frying, pastry-making, and an unusual volume of storage. It is prepared beforehand, not during.

The useful order, top to bottom:

1. The extractor hood and its filters. This is the item that changes the perception of a kitchen the most. A saturated filter pushes fried-food smell into the living room from the very first cooking session.
2. The oven, the hob and the top of wall units, where grease has mixed with dust and formed a sticky film.
3. The fridge and freezer, emptied and defrosted before the month's shopping.
4. Storage cupboards, cleared of opened food and wiped dry. It is also the moment to check for signs of pests before stocking them up.
5. The floor and grouting, last, because everything above ends up falling onto it.

One point of method: degrease, then rinse. A degreaser left without rinsing leaves a film that catches the next layer of dust and turns sticky within days. It is the most common reason a kitchen "gets dirty again straight away".

It is worth saying plainly, because it is the reality of the Marrakech market and nobody writes it down: in the fifteen days before the first day of the month, serious providers are fully booked.

What happens then:

• the remaining slots go to informal help, taken on for the season;
• drying times get squeezed, and textiles are handed back still damp;
• last-minute rates go up with providers who charge for urgency.

What we recommend:

• book three to four weeks ahead for the textiles, two weeks for everything else;
• group the textiles into a single visit rather than spreading them out: one visit covers the sofa, the mattresses and the rugs, which avoids paying the 400 MAD incl. VAT textile minimum twice and cuts the number of disrupted days in the house;
• accept a weekday date, far more available than a Saturday;
• do not book the textiles the day before: drying takes half a day to a full day, sometimes more, and nothing is used or covered until it is completely dry.

Windows, on the other hand, can still be booked late since they depend on no drying time at all: 75 MAD incl. VAT per window up to 2 m², 150 MAD incl. VAT per patio door up to 4 m², frames and tracks included, 400 MAD incl. VAT minimum call-out charge — six windows and two patio doors come to 750 MAD incl. VAT. See window cleaning in Marrakech.

The second peak is less well known and just as real. After four weeks of intensive cooking and entertaining, the house shows specific signs of wear.

What we consistently find:

• a kitchen heavy with grease, extractor hood included, after a month of daily cooking;
• marked floors in the traffic zones and around the dining table;
• fresh stains on the seating — tea, coffee, pastries, dates — which treat far better in the days that follow than a year later;
• windows and joinery clouded again by cooking condensation.

The after-month visit is shorter and more targeted than the before-month one: a day of standard housekeeping for the kitchen and the floors, and the textile service for stained seating, rarely for everything. Stains trigger no automatic surcharge, but no 100% result is guaranteed: that is the subject of textile stain removal.

It is also the quietest time of year for us, so the most flexible on timing. A household that handles the bulk of the work before the month and spot treatment after gets a better result than one that crams everything into the two weeks of peak demand.

The scope, set out before the quotation, as always.

What we do:

• standard housekeeping by the day: dusting, floors, accessible kitchen surfaces, bathrooms. 800 MAD incl. VAT per day for an apartment, 1,200 MAD incl. VAT per day for a villa, 1 person included, and 250 MAD incl. VAT per extra person per day. Two days in a villa with one extra person each day: 2 × 1,200 + 2 × 250 = 2,900 MAD incl. VAT;
• sofas, mattresses and rugs, at your home: single mattress 300 MAD incl. VAT, double 400 MAD incl. VAT, L-shaped and U-shaped sofas from 550 to 750 MAD incl. VAT, rugs 30 MAD/m² incl. VAT, 400 MAD incl. VAT textile minimum;
• windows, frames and tracks included.

What we do not do:

• furniture restoration: re-stitching, re-padding, dyeing, foam replacement;
• restoration of old, damaged rugs — fringes, weave, burns;
• decorating, tidying and sorting household belongings;
• restoring a heavily soiled home under standard housekeeping: send photos on WhatsApp for a tailored proposal;
• any job scheduled with too little time left for proper drying. We would rather turn a date down than hand back a damp sofa.

A day does not guarantee that the whole property is fully cleaned: priorities are set beforehand, and any extra day or extra person is agreed by you before it is invoiced. These are indicative prices, confirmed after photos or a visit. Describe your textiles — number and size of rugs, type of sofa, mattresses — and the size of the home from our page for a quotation.