Cleaning in Bab Doukkala, Marrakech

Bab Doukkala occupies the north-western corner of the Marrakech medina, right on the seam between the historic city and the new town: the gate, the mosque, the municipal market, the old bus station, and the avenue that runs off towards avenue Mohammed V. It is one of the areas closest to our address, and it is also one of the most demanding.

What sets it apart is that it is two urban fabrics stuck to one another:

• Inside the walls: traditional courtyard houses, riads restored as guesthouses or private homes, family dars, fondouks — old caravanserais — turned into workshops or shops.
• Just outside the walls: four- and five-storey apartment blocks from the 1960s to the 1980s, shops at street level, small workshops, a dense commercial fabric.

This proximity has a very concrete effect on a quotation, and it is unique in the city: you go from an ordinary floor to one of the most fragile by crossing a street. On the medina side, bejmat — porous terracotta — zellige with its plaster joints, and the tadelakt of bathrooms and hammams: 30 MAD/m².

On the avenue side, the tiling of the apartment blocks, which needs no special precautions: 20 MAD/m² when it is standard tiles. A floor we cannot identify is counted at 30 MAD/m², then adjusted after photos.

Our first question here is therefore never the floor area. It is: which side of the rampart is the property on, and what floor lies under the dust? The method specific to old materials is set out on the cleaning of traditional floors.

Everything else on this page follows from a single fact: in Bab Doukkala, the vehicle stops at the gate or in a car park along the rampart, and it goes no further. Beyond that, narrow alleys, often closed to traffic or impassable: equipment is carried, by hand or by handcart, over distances of fifty to four hundred metres depending on the derb — the alley.

Logistics calls this a break of load, and it drives four decisions we take before setting off:

1. The drop-off point. Located from your photos, not searched for on the morning. It determines the carrying distance, and so the set-up time and the arrival time.
2. What gets through and what does not. A derb can be less than a metre wide and have bends that rule out long objects. A one-piece machine does not get through everywhere: we work with equipment that comes apart, even if it takes two trips.
3. The inventory is closed before leaving the vehicle. It is the strictest rule in this area. Nobody goes back down three hundred metres for a forgotten accessory: what goes up, goes up in one go, products and consumables included.
4. Rubble does not make the trip with us. We do neither clearing out nor rubble removal: it must have left the riad before we arrive. No skip gets into a derb, which is exactly why getting the rubble out is settled with your contractor, before our date is set.

That is also why we always ask for a photo of the alley and the entrance along with the photos of the riad. Two houses a hundred metres apart can have completely different carrying conditions; the price per m² stays the same, but access is looked at before confirming.

The second constraint in Bab Doukkala is not inside the walls, it is in the street. The municipal market and the trade around the gate saturate the area in the morning: deliveries, stalls spilling onto the road, slow traffic, parking all but impossible between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m.

What we do about it:

• Arrival outside the peak, early in the morning before the stalls are set up or early in the afternoon, depending on the job and the client's agreement.
• Grouped unloading, one stop, one manoeuvre: a van does not park for an hour in front of a stall.
• Equipment taken out at quiet times, never when the alley is crossed by the market deliveries.

Inside the houses, two more checks. Water and electricity are available in restored riads, but still to be confirmed in old dars, where the networks are sometimes re-run on the surface with low flow; without them, we do not work. And the stairs up to the terrace are narrow and steep: the equipment that goes up to the top level is chosen accordingly.

One clarification, because it is asked constantly in this area: we clean on request — a post-construction clean, a day of housekeeping, windows, upholstery. We take on no property management tasks of any kind, here or anywhere else.

Three services dominate, and they are split either side of the rampart.

1. Post-construction cleaning of riads and traditional houses. Bejmat, zellige and tadelakt at 30 MAD incl. VAT per m², interior area with floors added together, with a 7,500 MAD riad minimum: a 180 m² riad comes to 5,400 MAD of items and is therefore invoiced at 7,500 MAD; a 300 m² riad, 9,000 MAD. The roof terrace is added if it is flat, protected and reached by a staircase — 10 MAD/m² on standard tiles, 30 MAD/m² otherwise. Carrying does not change the rate. The detail is on post-construction cleaning of a riad and, for renovating an apartment outside the walls — 20 MAD/m², 3,000 MAD minimum — on cleaning after a renovation job.
2. Upholstery in family homes. Mattresses 300 MAD single and 400 MAD double, L-shaped sofa from 550 MAD, rugs 30 MAD/m² — a 2 × 3 m rug comes to 180 MAD — with a 400 MAD textile minimum. For a wool rug, the method is confirmed from photos. It is the service most readily ordered in the blocks outside the walls.
3. Windows. Riad windows onto the courtyard, 75 MAD each, 400 MAD minimum; wrought-iron grilles add 20% if the glass can still be reached, and if they prevent reaching it, it must be made accessible before we come. For the shops at the foot of the blocks along the avenue, the shop window counts at 25 MAD/m², both sides included, 1,000 MAD shop minimum.

For an apartment in the blocks outside the walls, routine upkeep is ordered as standard housekeeping, 800 MAD per day — housekeeping for an apartment — with no carrying, since there is road access.

Prices include VAT, are indicative, and are confirmed after photos or a visit.

In an area where logistics sets the schedule, an honest quotation is the only argument that counts.

• The carrying distance is written on the quotation, with its effect on the duration of the job. It does not create a price line: rates are the same throughout Marrakech.
• Conditions are checked before the date: works finished, rubble out, water and electricity available. If one is missing, we move the date rather than come for nothing.
• A test patch is compulsory on bejmat, zellige and tadelakt before anything is rolled out: these materials cannot be put right afterwards.
• A checklist signed on site, with a free return on the point raised if it is not up to standard.

EPUREVA answers on WhatsApp seven days a week, more than 195 clients, certified products, professional liability insurance. Send us a photo of your alley and the entrance to get a realistic figure; the other areas we serve are on our coverage map.