Cleaning in the Palmeraie, Marrakech

The Palmeraie is not a district in the urban sense. It is a web of tracks and private lanes serving isolated properties on very large plots, enclosed by rammed-earth walls, among palms and olive trees. Architect-designed villas, houses in the traditional idiom, converted farming estates, low-density hotels.

What that gives you in surfaces to treat:

• The terrace is the largest surface here, ahead of the interior. Covered terraces, paths, courtyards, thresholds: you count in hundreds of square metres, not in rooms.
• Patio doors everywhere. Living rooms opening onto the garden through large sliding doors, bedrooms giving onto the terrace: on a Palmeraie villa, the patio door counts for more than the window. The pool, present almost every time, is not part of what we do.
• A combination of floors typical of the area: marble in the living rooms and circulation, tadelakt — the polished lime plaster — in the bathrooms and the hammam, bejmat — the small hand-cut terracotta paver — in the patios of houses in the traditional idiom, polished concrete in the contemporary architects' houses. Tadelakt and bejmat impose the protocol set out on treating traditional floors: no acid, no aggressive mechanical action, ever.
• Several buildings on one property, which multiplies the thresholds, the doors and the transition surfaces where dust settles back in.

A good proportion of owners are not resident: the person on site is a caretaker or a manager. We work with them, but the quotation and the approval stay with the owner or their appointed representative.

The decisive fact in the Palmeraie is neither the distance nor the standing of the properties: it is that the environment puts the dust back faster than anywhere else. Sand in suspension, dry palm fronds falling continuously, unsurfaced drives that a single vehicle turns into a cloud, irrigation throwing hard-water droplets onto the lower glazing.

A commercial consequence few contractors will put in writing: a one-off deep clean on a Palmeraie property is often a bad buy. Paying for one big exceptional visit and watching the sand come back in ten days is buying a photograph, not a condition.

What we propose instead, in this order:

1. Windows and patio doors first, at close intervals. That is the item the environment attacks continuously. The price of a visit does not fall with frequency — 75 MAD a window, 150 MAD a patio door, every time — but frequency avoids the supplements: glazing left for a long time becomes "very dirty", +20%, and sprinkler droplets baked on by the sun end up as encrusted limescale, +40%, with marks that may remain depending on the glass.
2. The interior next, by the day. Behind closed openings, marble or tadelakt holds up far better than a terrace does; a day of standard housekeeping is enough to keep it up, with light terrace upkeep included.
3. An honest judgement on the drives. A surfaced drive and a sand drive do not give the same useful frequency. We say so when we discuss it, even when the answer is "cleaning is not your problem here".

What we do here, and the limit is a clear one: housekeeping days and window visits ordered by the owner, each one agreed before it is invoiced. We take on no management duty for the property: no security guarding, no garden maintenance, no pool.

1. Patio doors and windows. 150 MAD a patio door up to 4 m² — a large sliding door onto the terrace counts as one —, 75 MAD a window up to 2 m², counted as the whole frame; frames, tracks and accessible roller shutters included, 400 MAD minimum call-out charge.

A patio door larger than 4 m² is counted at the standard size, and the top-up is checked on photos.

On high-level glazing — a transom, a double-height window, a glazed gable —: up to 3 m from the ground, base price; between 3 and 5 m, by pole from the ground, +25%, feasibility confirmed on photos; above 5 m, we do not take the glazing.

We have neither a cherry picker nor ropes, we do not hire either in, and we do not let anyone believe otherwise. The detail on large glazed areas is on cleaning sliding patio doors, and the particular case of villas in the area on window cleaning in the Palmeraie.

2. Standard housekeeping of a villa. 1,200 MAD a day, one person included, 250 MAD per extra person per day. Dusting, floors, kitchen, bathrooms and light terrace upkeep are included; specialist window cleaning, upholstery and building residue are not.

One day does not guarantee a complete clean of a large villa: priorities are set beforehand, and any extra day or person is agreed before it is invoiced. See villa housekeeping by the day. Outside this housekeeping and a post-construction clean, the terrace has no separate price.

3. Upholstery in the living rooms and bedrooms. L-shaped sofa from 550 MAD, U-shaped from 650 MAD, mattresses 300 MAD single and 400 MAD double, rugs 30 MAD per m², 400 MAD minimum, treated in place — see sofa cleaning in the Palmeraie.

Renovation and extension work in the area comes under post-construction cleaning of a villa: 20 or 30 MAD per m² depending on the floor, 7,500 MAD minimum, terraces added at 10 MAD per m² on standard tiles and 30 MAD per m² on any other surface. The particular logistics — water, power, rubble removed before we come — are covered on post-construction cleaning in the Palmeraie.

The last kilometre is the real subject in the Palmeraie. The tracks are neither surfaced nor named, there is no street name and no number, and two neighbouring properties can be reached by two opposite entrances. What we ask for every time:

• a GPS point, sent by message, plus a visual marker (the colour of the gate, a boundary stone, a distinctive tree);
• the distance between the gate and the building, because a long drive means carrying and extension leads;
• what water and power are actually available: some properties run off a well, a borehole or a generator, a low flow rules out flood washing, and with no water or power we cannot do the job;
• the mobile coverage, patchy in places, which means settling the organisation before setting off rather than by phone on the way.

The sand and the palm fronds are not scenery: they fall during the visit. So we treat the surfaces under the palms after clearing the dry fronds, not before, and we do not wash glazing on a full south elevation at the hours when low sun dries the water before the squeegee reaches it.

A visit to the Palmeraie is prepared, not improvised. Before every trip, a point is gone through with the caretaker or the manager: access, water, power, working area, animals on the property, which buildings are concerned. That point appears on the quotation, which avoids the classic "we had not allowed for that".

The chosen protocol is written down: type of equipment, nature of the treatment for each floor, order of work. On marble, on tadelakt or on bejmat, a discreet test patch is treated, dried and approved before anything is rolled out. The checklist is signed on site at the end of the visit; if a ticked item is not up to standard, we come back free of charge within 48 hours.

All prices are incl. VAT and remain indicative until the photos or the visit; no supplement is committed without your agreement. The Palmeraie is part of the surroundings of Marrakech where we work: the sectors are detailed on the areas we cover, and you can describe your property — number of patio doors and windows, buildings, floor types — on the quotation form.