Plenty of cleaning companies put pet safe on a van. It is worth asking what they mean by it, because the phrase covers everything from a genuinely considered process to a bottle with a nice label on it. Here is what it means at Sparkle Pane, in the order it happens on the day.
Before we arrive
When you book, Marie asks three questions: do you have pets, do you have anything growing close to the house that you are attached to, and is there anywhere we should not put a ladder. The answers go on the job sheet, so the crew knows before they pull into the driveway.
- Dogs that bolt get noted in capitals. Crews check gates twice, once on arrival and once before they leave.
- Cats that slip out through open windows mean we work one room at a time and close behind ourselves.
- Prize roses, vegetable beds and young shrubs get flagged so nothing is leaned on them.
- Outdoor water bowls are moved clear of the work area and put back afterwards.
What is actually in the bucket
For most exterior glass the answer is nothing but water. Our pole systems run deionised water, which cleans because pure water is aggressive about picking up dissolved solids, not because of any additive. There is no detergent to rinse into a bed and nothing for an animal to lick off a pane.
Interior work uses a few drops of biodegradable surfactant in a bucket of water. It is the same class of product used in baby bottle detergents. For soft washing siding we use a diluted sodium hypochlorite solution, which is the standard treatment for algae across the industry, and that is where the handling process matters most.
The pre-wet and the post-rinse
Any bed or shrub within range of a soft wash is soaked with clean water first. Wet foliage cannot absorb much of anything else, so the detergent that lands on it is diluted immediately. After the wash the same plants are rinsed again. This two-step is the single most effective thing a crew can do to protect a garden, and it is also the step that gets skipped when someone is in a hurry.
Vegetable beds and herb gardens get a tarp as well. We would rather look overcautious than explain to someone why their tomatoes taste odd.
While we are working
Buckets never sit unattended at ground level where a curious dog can reach them. Cords and hoses are run along walls rather than across paths. If an animal is clearly stressed by the noise of a pole system, we will move to another elevation and come back, and we would rather you told us than had a bad afternoon.
After we leave
Beds are rinsed, gates are checked, bowls go back, and anything we moved is put where we found it. The walk-through at the end covers the garden as well as the glass, because a spotless window above a scorched hedge is not a job well done.
None of this is complicated. It is a list of habits, repeated on every visit, and it is what the phrase is supposed to mean.
