"You Can Spray That Again"

By Jerry Zezima

Every so often, when dirt, grime and mildew build up, a good power washing is in order. But it would be too messy, so I took a shower.

I had the house power-washed instead.

It had been a long time since our humble abode got such a thorough cleaning. Before that, it was the same mold story: I was responsible for getting the green gunk off the outside of the two-story Colonial.

This involved climbing a ladder — a hard-bristled brush and a spray bottle of bleach in  hand — and attempting to scrub the fungi away.

Since I am afraid of being any higher off the ground than the top of my head, and I had to keep moving the ladder a couple of feet at a time, my efforts not only were pathetically ineffective, but they took roughly as long as it would take a kindergartner to read “War and Peace.”

Then I had a brilliant idea: Sell the house!

No, actually, I bought a power washer. But there was a problem: It wouldn’t start.

Risking the rupture of a vital organ, I loaded the bulky machine into my car and drove it back to the home improvement store, where a helpful employee started it on the first try.

When I got home, I revved up the power washer, squeezed the trigger and was immediately blasted with a soapy spray. In a grave miscalculation, I was standing about 10 inches from the side of the house and got soaked to the skin.

Unfortunately, the power washer wasn’t powerful enough to wash the second story. The first story, which began, “Once upon a time, there was an incompetent homeowner,” was easy to wash once I learned to back away.

Ultimately, I gave the power washer to our contractor, who stripped the house of its moldy aluminum siding and replaced it with clean vinyl siding.

Slow-forward several years.

“The house needs to be power-washed,” my wife, Sue, told me recently.

“I’m not buying another machine,” I told her.

So we hired Benedetto Costanzo, who owns Three Village Power Washing on Long Island, New York.

Benedetto and his great crew saved me from having a heart attack last winter by getting rid of the nearly five feet of snow that fell on our property.

This time they lived up to the company’s name by power washing not only the house (including all the windows, the French doors in back, the storm door in front, the brick facade, the foundation and the gutters), but the driveway, the Belgian blocks on either side of it and those surrounding a front-yard tree, the mailbox, the front and side walks, the white PVC fence, the short brick wall in front and the backyard patio.

“Close and lock the windows,” Benedetto said before his guys, Brendan and Jose, got started. “And don’t come out of the house until they’re done.”

That’s because the cleaning solution they would be using contained eco-friendly chemicals that only professionals should handle. The chemicals mixed with water from a tank in the back of the company truck, went through long tubes and were shot out of the nozzles of the two industrial-grade power washers.

When the job was done, the house was fresh and fungus-free; the windows and doors gleamed; the walks and the driveway were spotless; so were the wall, the fence and the patio; the Belgian blocks sparkled; and the mailbox was letter-perfect.

“What do you think?” asked Benedetto.

“The house is cleaner than I am,” I replied.

“We could power-wash you,” he said.

“I’d have to take off my clothes,” I pointed out. “And the neighbors might call the cops. Thanks, but I’ll just go upstairs and take a shower.”

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima