Cleaning in Victor Hugo, Marrakech

Victor Hugo is a micro-district: a handful of streets only, north-east of Guéliz, around the street that gives it its name, between avenue Mohammed V, boulevard Mohammed Zerktouni and the approaches to the Majorelle garden. A tight perimeter, very well served, and an address the residents use as such — never "Guéliz".

The building stock here shows a combination found nowhere else in the city: upmarket vertical density on a tiny footprint. Five- to eight-storey residential blocks with lifts, well-kept lobbies, basement parking, large apartments, terraces and penthouse duplexes. Demolition-and-rebuild schemes are gradually replacing the villas of the 1950s to 1970s. A few upmarket shops and professional practices occupy the ground floors.

The decisive point is not architectural: this is the district where the relationship with the managing agent is the most formalised in Marrakech. A professional managing agent, written building rules, applied and enforceable. That is not an administrative detail — it is what governs how any job runs, and often how long it takes.

As for floors: marble in lobbies, stairwells, landings and living rooms; timber floors in the bedrooms of recent schemes; large-format porcelain tiling in kitchens and wet rooms; tiled terraces on the penthouses and duplexes. No traditional floors in circulation, and therefore none of the material precautions the medina demands.

When an apartment refurbishment goes wrong in Victor Hugo, it is almost never because of noise. It is because of the marks left in the common areas: the lobby marble scored by a trolley wheel, the lift car scratched, plaster dust in the stairwell, dirty water in the basement. The managing agent records it, writes it up, and the owner pays for a reinstatement that was on nobody's quotation.

We arrive once the tradespeople have left, and our visit must add nothing to that picture. So we take on three things by default:

1. Protection of the entire route, from where the vehicle unloads to the door of the flat. Lobby floor, thresholds, lift car or service stair treads, wall corners. It goes down before the first piece of equipment comes through, not after the first incident.
2. Cleaning of the route we use, at the end of every day. If the job lasts two days, the lobby is handed back clean on the first evening: the lobby of an occupied building does not stay marked because a flat on the fourth floor is being cleaned. Dust left in the common areas during the building work, however, is not part of our service.
3. Prior notification to the managing agent or the caretaker, with the names of the operatives, the vehicle registration, the dates and the time slot planned. That document is what prevents the job being stopped on day two.

And what the rules impose we take as a given rather than as an annoyance: a ban on using the lift for equipment in some buildings, exclusive use of the service entrance where there is one, regulated noise hours, a ban on storing anything at all in the common areas, a prescribed route for dirty water.

Each of those rules bears on how long the job takes: so they are read before the date is set, not discovered on the morning.

Four lines of work cover the district's demand.

1. Cleaning a flat after refurbishment. On the indoor floor area: 30 MAD/m² incl. VAT on marble, wood and any floor other than standard tiles, 20 MAD/m² on the tiles of kitchens and wet rooms; where several floors sit side by side, only the m² that are not standard tiles go up to 30 MAD. Example: 120 m² of which 80 m² is marble and wood comes to 80 × 30 + 40 × 20 = 3,200 MAD, above the 3,000 MAD apartment minimum. A home that is already furnished adds +15%. On marble the treatment is suited to the stone: not every floor can be crystallised, and crystallisation is not one of our services. Stone floors are covered in detail on treating stone and zellige floors. The rubble must be removed before we come: we do not clear out.
2. Penthouse terraces, added to post-construction cleaning: 10 MAD/m² on standard tiles, 30 MAD/m² on another surface. A roof terrace is done if it is flat, protected and reached by a staircase, like penthouses served by their own private stair.
3. Glazing. On the upper floors we clean from inside the flat: 75 MAD incl. VAT per window up to 2 m², 150 MAD per patio door up to 4 m², both sides where they can be reached, minimum call-out charge 400 MAD. We have neither a cherry picker nor ropes: a pane that cannot be reached from inside, or from the ground below 5 metres, is not offered. For the professional practices on the ground floors, only the inside face is cleaned, at 15 MAD/m², 500 MAD minimum. Large glazed areas are covered on patio door cleaning.
4. Sofas and housekeeping for a large flat. L-shaped sofa 550 or 600 MAD incl. VAT, U-shaped 650 or 750 MAD, mattresses 300 or 400 MAD, rugs 30 MAD/m², textile minimum 400 MAD — see our sofa cleaning rates. For a large home furnished and lived in all year, standard housekeeping is booked by the day: 800 MAD incl. VAT, one person included, +250 MAD per extra person, as described on the apartment service.

Indicative prices in dirhams including VAT, identical across Marrakech, confirmed after photos or a visit.

The district is central, and that is exactly what makes it difficult. The streets are narrow and very busy, and parking is next to impossible during the day. So the arrangement is always the same: equipment dropped as close as possible, then the vehicle goes to park elsewhere, and comes back when it is time to load up. That back-and-forth takes time, and it is built into the schedule.

Inside, five points are settled before the first day:

• The authorised way in. Main entrance or service entrance? Some sets of rules require the second for all equipment, and it does not always lead to the same staircase.
• The lift. Car protection compulsory, or an outright ban for equipment. In the second case everything goes up the stairs: the equipment has to come apart, and the number of trips is planned in advance.
• Noise hours. Set by the building's rules, they fix the hour at which a noisy machine can start, not the hour we arrive.
• Water points in the common areas. Often shut off, which means working from the flat's own water supply, with the corresponding length of hose. Without water and electricity in the flat, we do not work.
• The route for dirty water. It follows a prescribed path, sometimes to the basement, sometimes to the back of the building. It is identified beforehand, on a plan or on photos.

One remark on the penthouses and duplexes, of which there are many here: their terraces are served by a private internal staircase, often in marble, and all the equipment intended for outdoors crosses the finished home. That is one more reason to protect the route, and this time inside your own flat.

Our undertakings here are written to be enforceable by the managing agent as much as by you.

1. The prior notification is made by us, with names, registration, dates and time slot. You do not have to play go-between with the building.
2. Protection of the route and daily cleaning of the route we use are included, not charged as an extra after a reminder from the managing agent.
3. A test patch on the marble, treated, dried and approved with you before anything is rolled out. On polished stone that is not negotiable.
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. Tell us the floor, the area, the floor types and your building's rules, and have a quotation drawn up. Every area served is listed on the districts of Marrakech we work in.