So you’ve finally found the house of your dreams. Congrats! Moving into a new home is like hitting a major milestone in life – it’s incredibly exciting! Whether it’s a newly built property or a pre-owned one, to truly make it feel like home, a thorough cleanup is a must before moving in. Here’s a couple of tips to help get you started.
Get all the supplies first
When tackling this big of a chore, you want to make sure you have everything ready first. Cleaning rags, scrubbers, sponges, microfiber cloths, and paper towels will be your best friends when tackling the post-construction dust and debris or the dirt and grime that’s left behind from previous homeowners.
Brooms, dusters, mops, vacuum, and buckets will also help you battle against dirt, while a pair of thick rubber gloves will keep your hands protected. You’ll need to get your hands on some good cleaning products, too. Eco-friendly commercial cleaning products are your safest bet, but you can always make DIY cleaners, and they’ll cost you next to nothing.
Clear the space from clutter
The next step in the process would be to remove all the clutter you come across. The idea here is to create a blank slate that will make it easier for you to clean. Whether it’s old newspapers, empty boxes, used soaps, or broken items, throw everything away to help clear out space.
Some people find it easier to clean if they turn on a TV show that’s sure to give them that extra push. For some, it’s the British ‘queens of clean’ Kim and Aggie from “How Clean is Your House” or an army of “Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners” that will give them that much-needed motivation to start decluttering. For others, it’ll be “Tidying up with Marie Kondo” where a Japanese organizing consultant helps American families keep their homes clean and organized. Whatever it is that inspires you to clean, turn it on, and get to work!
Call for backup
Tackling dirt and grime is a chore that many homeowners would rather skip if they could. Picking up the sponge is a task that’s generally despised universally. According to an Australian study, only 32 percent of the respondents claimed to help clean the house twice a week. The discouraging statistics also state that one-third of Australians haven’t had their home cleaned for three weeks or longer, with New South Wales being the messiest state where 19% of households go without cleaning for a month.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that hiring a reliable Sydney Cleaner is a no-brainer these days, especially if they’ve just moved in for many Aussies living in the coastal metropolis. Calling in the pros takes the stress out of the equation, and it’s a godsend for those who hate cleaning.
Start from the top
Hiring professional cleaners helps take some of the load off your back. However, if you decide to do the cleaning yourself, a word of advice would be to start from the top. There’s no use of polishing those marble floors first only to cover them with dirt the second you start dusting.
Start from the ceiling, using brooms to get to hard-to-reach spots and nasty webs and then working your way down. You may need to get a ladder, too. Sweep all those lights, upper cabinets, shelves, as well as tops of doors.
Tackle spots that aren’t cleaned frequently
As much as many of us like to think otherwise, we’re all guilty of not tackling certain areas of our home because cleaning them is just too tedious of a chore.
These will often include the space behind the appliances, tops of upper cabinets and their insides, cupboards, vents, and ovens. These spots aren’t cleaned as frequently as other surfaces, so you want to make sure you tackle these before moving in. Do it right away, and you won’t have to think about deep cleaning, at least for a while.
Move on to frequently used surfaces
This is especially important if you’re moving into a pre-owned home. To make moving into your new home feel like a fresh start, be sure to tackle all the surfaces that might have been used frequently by the previous homeowners.
These include door handles, light switches, appliances, baths/showers, toilets, sinks, and staircase railings. Multi-purpose cleaners will do the trick here, but you can also use special cleaners for the bathroom and the kitchen.
End at the bottom
After cleaning your new home room-by-room, all that’s left to do is tackle the floors. Simply vacuuming the surfaces won’t cut it. You’ll need to use special attachments to clean the hard-to-reach edges and corners where the remaining dust usually collects. You’ll also need to tackle grimy grouts – bleach will be your best friend here.
Finally, mop all the wooden/tile/linoleum surfaces, and consider steam cleaning the carpets. Doing so will help eliminate any allergens and dust and improve air quality.
Wrapping up
A fresh start requires exactly that: starting fresh. Therefore, make sure to cross off these tasks from your move-in cleaning checklist. You can then get to the fun part and start unpacking and decorating this new place you’re going to call home.