Cleaning in Sidi Youssef Ben Ali, Marrakech

Sidi Youssef Ben Ali — SYBA, as everybody here calls it — spreads south-east of the medina, immediately outside the ramparts, between Bab Ghmat, the start of the route de l'Ourika and the southern suburbs. An old working-class district, very dense, laid out in narrow streets that are nonetheless passable by vehicle, with a continuous run of shops and local markets.

The dominant building type is neither the apartment block nor the villa: it is the Moroccan family house, outside the medina. Two to four storeys, arranged around a patio or a lightwell, built or rebuilt over the course of the twentieth century.

Roof terrace, formal reception room on the first floor, service rooms at ground level. Occupation is dense, often several generations under one roof. Add to that recent four- and five-storey infill blocks and commercial units at street level.

The floors mix two worlds within the same house:

• zellige on dados, staircases and in the patio, sometimes bejmat on the terraces;
• old cement tiling on the floors of the rooms, very common in anything built before the 1980s;
• contemporary ceramic tiling in everything that has been redone since.

And here is the feature that sets SYBA apart from the medina, a few hundred metres away: this zellige is in everyday use, not heritage. It is fifty years old, it is worn, it has never been restored, and it has been washed for decades with whatever came to hand.

The owner is not trying to conserve it in the sense an architect would. They want to know what can still be got out of it.

The question we are asked here is never "how much does it cost". It is: "is it actually going to change anything?" It deserves an answer in three terms, because they are constantly confused — sometimes in good faith, sometimes by contractors it suits.

Cleaning. Removing what has built up: cooking grease, a limescale haze, the film left by successive household products, dust packed into hollowed-out joints.

We do it in two settings, and only two. After building work — a kitchen redone, a bathroom reworked — zellige and bejmat come under post-construction cleaning at 30 MAD/m² incl. VAT, with a treatment suited to the material: not every floor can be crystallised, and we do not promise a shine a stone cannot give. Day to day, standard housekeeping by the day mops these floors without putting them through anything harsh.

A heavily soiled floor that needs a genuine restoration falls under neither: send us photos on WhatsApp, and we will tell you what is feasible before any proposal. What we do on these materials after building work is described on cleaning zellige and bejmat floors.

Restoring. Repointing, replacing missing tesserae, relaying a section that has come away, redoing part of a patio. That is not our trade, we do not invoice for it, and we do not subcontract it. It is the work of a zelligeur, a specialist tile craftsman, and on a house in SYBA it is often an investment out of all proportion to the rest of the budget. We say so.

Damaging. That is what happens when people try to get the second out of the first. An acid dissolves the plaster joints and loosens the tesserae. Machine scrubbing done a little too firmly hollows out what joint was left and scratches the glaze.

On zellige that is already worn, the result is spectacular for a week, then worse than before — because the opened-up surface now gets dirty twice as fast.

On an old floor we always start with a corner where it will not be noticed, treated and then dried completely before we go on. Wet zellige always looks superb; it has to be judged dry. You see the real result before the rest of the room is done.

The three requests that keep coming back in the district, in the order they arrive.

1. Rugs, mattresses and sofas, in your home. The formal reception room of a SYBA house is first of all rugs and mattresses. A rug is measured in m², length × width: 30 MAD incl. VAT, so 180 MAD for a 2 × 3 m rug. A single mattress costs 300 MAD, a double mattress 400 MAD, an L-shaped sofa starts at 550 MAD. The textile minimum is 400 MAD: a mattress on its own is brought up to 400 MAD, which is why it pays to group it with a rug. A wool rug counts as a delicate fabric, and its method is confirmed on photos. The detail is on rug cleaning at home.
2. A housekeeping day before a family occasion — a wedding, family returning, the end of Ramadan. Standard housekeeping is sold by the day: 800 MAD incl. VAT for an apartment, 1,200 MAD incl. VAT for a villa, one person included, and +250 MAD per extra person per day. The form knows only those two property types: for a family house, say so in your message, and the rate is confirmed on photos. One day does not guarantee the whole house gets done; the number of days and people is set with you, and nothing is added without your agreement. What a day covers is described on house cleaning in Marrakech.
3. Cleaning after a partial refurbishment. A new kitchen or a reworked bathroom leaves dust right through the house. Post-construction cleaning is measured on the indoor floor area: 20 MAD/m² incl. VAT on standard tiles, 30 MAD/m² on zellige, bejmat or any other floor. A floor you cannot classify — old cement tiles, often — starts at 30 MAD/m², adjusted after photos. The minimum depends on the property declared: 3,000 MAD for an apartment, 7,500 MAD for a villa or riad. A furnished property — an occupied house always is — adds +15% for protection and working around the furniture. We come once the tradespeople have finished and the rubble is out: we do not clear out.

These amounts are indicative, in dirhams including VAT, and the same across Marrakech; scope and price are confirmed after photos or a visit.

Unlike the medina, the streets of SYBA can be driven down. That does not mean you can park in them: they are narrow, often one-way in practice, permanently congested with deliveries and handcarts, with a run of shops that occupies the carriageway for a good part of the day. The vehicle comes close, unloads, and goes off to park further away.

What gets prepared beforehand:

• The drop-off point and the length of the short carry, identified from your photos of the access. They set the arrival time and the set-up time.
• The stairs. Narrow, steep, with cramped landings. The roof terrace is only reachable through the inside of the house: all the equipment intended for outdoors goes up through the lived-in rooms, which means protecting the route.
• How the house is occupied. This is the most important constraint, and it is not a technical one. We are working in a house lived in by several generations, with children, meal times, adjoining neighbours and a formal reception room that is not a room like the others. The order in which rooms are done is agreed with the family before we start, not in the rush of the morning.
• Water and electricity, which are essential: without them, we do not work. In older construction the amperage is sometimes limited, and running two machines at once is checked before they are switched on.
• The patio. It concentrates the zellige, it serves as the circulation route for the whole house, and it cannot be closed off for a full day. It is done in halves, which lengthens the job and has to be announced.

What we commit to, in a district where trust is earned on transparency about the figure rather than on talk.

1. You can read the price before you call us. The estimate works line by line with the amounts on this page; you send it on WhatsApp with 3 to 5 photos, and we confirm scope and price before setting the date. No extra is committed without your agreement.
2. The result is judged on a dry corner, before anything at all is rolled out.
3. We tell you what will not be recovered. Missing tesserae, joints hollowed down to the substrate, glaze scratched in the traffic lanes: those defects will still be there after cleaning. On a rug or a mattress, some stains, discolouration or odours may remain: no 100% result is guaranteed, and we say so beforehand.
4. A checklist signed on site, room by room, with a free return on the point flagged if it is not up to standard.

EPUREVA is reachable seven days a week, works with certified products, covers over 195 clients and carries professional liability insurance. Describe the house — number of storeys, floor types, what you want treated — and ask for a price. The other areas covered are listed on the other districts we cover.