Manitou Springs is a town of 4,858 people at 6,306 feet, about six miles west of downtown Colorado Springs along US-24 just past Old Colorado City, tucked at the foot of Pikes Peak in western El Paso County. Eight mineral springs run through it, each with its own mineral character, and the whole downtown of shops and restaurants sits inside the Manitou Springs Historic District -- established in 1980 and one of the largest National Historic Districts in the country.
That district is the reason cleaning here is a different job. This is Victorian housing stock: original wood floors and trim, plaster walls, period fixtures, radiators, narrow stairs and awkward corners that no modern floor plan has. You cannot run a national franchise script through a house like that. Products that are fine on engineered flooring are not fine on hundred-year-old finish, plaster does not forgive the same scrubbing drywall does, and getting equipment up a narrow Victorian staircase is a planning problem before it is a cleaning problem. Two of the town's historic inns, Briarhurst Manor and the Cliff House, are on the National Register.
The other half of the work is visitors. The Manitou Incline climbs over 2,000 feet straight out of town, the Manitou and Pike's Peak Railway runs to the summit, Cave of the Winds is minutes away, and the creekside city park and downtown fill up all summer. Guest lodging turns over in the same square mile as the residential work, which means a cleaner working here has to be able to do both -- a careful recurring clean in an old house, and a turnover on a checkout-to-check-in clock.
