From German Village brick to the 1910s revival houses of Old Arlington and the prewar streets of Grandview Heights and Marble Cliff, older Columbus homes need gentle products, careful hands and respect for old paint.
Columbus is growing fast, but it is also an old city. About a quarter of the city's homes were built before 1960 and about 12 percent before 1940. Step into the inner-ring suburbs and the share climbs: in Grandview Heights, roughly 42 percent of homes predate 1940.
Those houses are a pleasure to live in and a particular kind of house to clean. This guide covers where the older housing is, what its materials need, and the lines a cleaner should never cross in a home built before modern finishes.
German Village, in Columbus itself, developed mainly between 1840 and 1914 and is known for red-brick homes on brick-paved streets. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, and the German Village Commission oversees exterior changes to its buildings.
Upper Arlington's original Old Arlington area was listed as a National Register historic district in 1985 for its Twentieth Century Revival architecture, with homes dating to about 1917 and 1918. Across Upper Arlington as a whole, about 55 percent of housing was built before 1960.
Grandview Heights and the small Village of Marble Cliff next door have some of the oldest housing in the area, with about 42 and 40 percent of homes built before 1940.
Older Columbus homes tend to share a set of finishes that modern products were not designed for. Each one has a safe approach.
Homes built before 1978 may have lead-based paint under newer coats, and in houses from the 1910s and 1920s it is a real possibility on windows, sills, doors and trim. Intact paint is generally not a hazard; dust from sanding, scraping or wearing it away is.
That sets a firm rule for cleaning. Wet wipe sills and window wells, never dry sweep paint chips, and never sand, scrape or strip paint. If paint is chipping or peeling, it is a repair for a qualified contractor, not something to scrub. Report it to the owner or landlord rather than cleaning around it.
In older houses, the plumbing can be as old as the plaster. Columbus started a Lead Service Line Replacement Program in 2024 that aims to remove all public and private lead and galvanized service lines in the city by 2040. If you own an older home, the city is the place to ask about your line.
Closer to the sink, the water utility says a rotten egg smell usually comes from the drain trap or faucet aerator, not the water, and that cleaning them with chlorine bleach usually clears it.
Older Columbus homes face the same weather as new ones, with more surfaces that react to it. About 103 nights a year fall below freezing, and salt from sidewalks tracks onto original floors; old wood and porous tile hold it more than a sealed modern finish. In summer, normal dew points in the low 60s in July and August keep any bathroom without a strong exhaust fan damp longer, and older bathrooms are often the ones without one.
Steady, gentle cleaning works better in these houses than an occasional heavy scrub. A bi-weekly plan, opened by an Initial Deep Clean, is the usual fit. See recurring cleaning in Columbus.
The questions Columbus homeowners ask most often about this topic, answered plainly.
TotalCare Cleaning will service Columbus and surrounding areas with background-checked cleaners and is insured up to $1 million. Re-clean guarantee: if we missed something, tell us by the end of the next day and we come back to fix it. Beyond Clean. TotalCare.
