Pre-Hurricane Season Exterior Cleanup: 5 Tasks to Finish Before June 1

Hurricane season in the Atlantic basin opens on June 1 and runs through November 30. For Southwest Florida, the first watches usually go up in late June, but the smart prep work happens in May - before the heat, the surface activity, and the supply-store rush.

We’ve spent over 20 years cleaning exteriors in Cape Coral, Fort Myers, and the rest of Lee County. Every year after a major storm we get the same call: “Can you come fix what the wind did?” And every year, a lot of that damage was avoidable - not by buying shutters or upgrading the roof, but by finishing five basic exterior cleaning jobs before the first storm watch is issued. Here’s the list, in the order we’d book them ourselves.

1. Soft-wash the roof - and clear what’s growing in the valleys

Algae, Gloeocapsa magma streaks, and lichen aren’t just cosmetic. They hold moisture against the substrate, trap leaf debris, and turn into projectiles in 80+ mph wind. A soft-wash treatment before storm season removes the biological load and lets us spot lifted tiles, loose flashing, and underlayment problems that need a roofer’s attention - while there’s still time to fix them.

If you have an asphalt, tile, or metal roof in SWFL, our soft wash roof cleaning service handles all three with a low-pressure, EPA-compliant blend. No high-pressure spray near the seams, no walking on brittle tile.

2. Clear the gutters and verify the downspouts run free

Florida hurricane rains aren’t normal rain. A tropical system can drop 6–12 inches in 24 hours, and clogged gutters route every drop of that against the fascia, into the soffit, and down the inside of the stucco. By the time you see the stain on the ceiling, the wood behind it is rotten.

May is the right month for this because the spring oak/pine drop has finished and the rainy season hasn’t started fouling the cleanout. A proper gutter cleaning includes flushing the downspouts to the splash blocks and verifying water actually exits at the bottom - not just clearing leaves off the top.

One quick test you can do today

Walk the perimeter of your home during the next afternoon thunderstorm. Look at every downspout. If water is exiting at the bottom in a clean stream, you’re fine. If it’s overflowing at the seam, dripping mid-run, or producing nothing at all, that gutter needs to be cleared before the first named storm.

3. House wash the stucco, siding, and lanai

A dirty exterior isn’t just curb-appeal damage - algae and mildew on stucco and Hardie board hold moisture against the wall, soften the paint film, and accelerate the kind of failure storm-driven rain finds first. A pre-season house wash strips that biological layer off and dries the wall surface back to its design state. We use the same EPA-compliant soft-wash chemistry on the walls as the roof, safe for the plants directly under the drip line.

This is also when our crews spot pre-storm warning signs: cracked stucco at corners, gaps around windows, missing caulk lines at the lanai connection. None of those are fixed by a wash, but catching them in May beats discovering them at 2 AM during a Category 2.

4. Soft-wash the lanai screen enclosure and pool cage

Screen enclosures fail in two ways during storms: the screens themselves rip, and the frame anchors pull out of the deck. Both modes get worse when the screens are heavy with algae, dust, and Sahara dust film. Clean screens flex with the wind. Dirty, saturated screens act like wet sails.

A gentle soft wash on the screen panels and pool deck also gives you a clean baseline for the after-storm damage assessment your insurance carrier may want photographs of. We recommend taking the photos the same day the wash dries - clean screens make any new tear obvious.

5. Pressure wash the driveway and walkways

This one is the least dramatic but it matters for the same reason gutter cleaning does: water needs somewhere to go. A driveway caked with the season’s algae and biofilm sheds water unevenly and pushes it toward the garage threshold. Walkways with a thick mildew layer get dangerously slick when they’re soaked, which is exactly when family members are running between the house and the car during evacuation prep.

A driveway and walkway cleaning is the fastest of the five jobs on this list - usually a single morning - and it’s the one we get the most “should have done this last year” feedback on.

The booking window closes faster than people expect

Every cleaning company in Lee County books up in the second half of May. We do, too. Once the first NHC advisory hits the Atlantic - usually mid-to-late June - the calendar is gone until September. If any of the five jobs above are on your list, the right week to book is right now.

We’ll handle all five in a single visit or schedule them across two mornings, whichever works for your week. The work is EPA-compliant, the pricing is upfront with no hidden fees, and we’re not going anywhere - we’ll still be in Cape Coral 20 years from now, doing exactly this same pre-season list for the next generation of SWFL homeowners.

Lock in your pre-hurricane exterior clean for May or early June - Get a free instant quote