Decatur has more independent businesses per block than almost anywhere we work, and a building stock old enough that the floors have real history in them. Dull VCT floors Decatur owners want brought back usually can be, and the surprise is how little aggression it takes. What people read as worn-out tile is normally old finish that has ambered in the quiet corners and worn away down the middle. In the same building you will often find terrazzo and tired grout, neither of which belongs anywhere near a strip and wax cycle. Around here that suits everyone, because gentler methods are what most owners were asking for anyway.

Green purchasing is a real criterion here, not a slogan

Plenty of businesses around the Square and in Oakhurst have written product standards, and they check. That pushes us toward lower-odor, lower-impact chemistry and toward methods that need less of it.

The EPA Safer Choice program is the cleanest way to check what is in a product without taking anyone word for it. If your board has a policy, bring it to the walkthrough and we will build the list to it.

Aged, dull VCT floors Decatur buildings have kept for decades

Older tile has usually been recoated many more times than it has been stripped, so the edges carry a thick, yellowed shelf of finish that never gets walked on.

Removing that evens the whole floor out. The color comes back, the light bounces properly again, and the room stops looking like it has given up. It is a very satisfying before and after for something that costs so little.

Terrazzo and grout: leave the stripper in the van

Older DeKalb County buildings and the properties around Agnes Scott have terrazzo that must be polished and sealed rather than coated. Harsh stripper can etch it, and etching does not come out.

Grout is the other one. In restrooms and kitchens near the Emory ring, tired grout is often the real reason a floor reads as dirty. That needs deep cleaning and sealing, not more finish over the top of it.

Any vendor who quotes a single treatment across a Ponce-era building has not walked it. Buildings this old rarely have only one kind of floor.

Most commercial cleaning gets sold on price per square foot, then quietly handed to whoever was cheapest and free that night. That’s why quality slides after month two — the scope was never real to begin with. We build yours from an actual walkthrough of your actual building, on your actual hours. Then we send the same crew who learned it. Boring? Completely. It’s also the only thing that makes month five look like month one.

DBS Cleaning Services Group

Small businesses, short nights, real coordination

Independent operators cannot lose a service, so the work goes overnight and gets sectioned so the doors open on time.

A restaurant group with a couple of locations can have both done in the same week without either one closing. Not glamorous, just organized.

Frequently asked questions