House cleaning in Conroe, TX

Conroe grew up around a courthouse square in the pines north of Houston, and the older streets still carry frame houses from the oil years: wood floors, painted trim, high ceilings, porches deep enough to sit on. Out along the highways it is a different town, with big subdivisions cut into cleared pine land, two stories and open plans. The pines drop needles and a yellow dust over all of it.

Two kinds of house, two kinds of day. In the old ones, dust settles into painted trim, sash windows and floor registers, and the wood floors have been down long enough that they get damp-mopped and dried rather than soaked. In the new ones the hard floor runs unbroken from the front door to the back, so it is one long pass. Pine needles come in at both doors either way.