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Cleaning up after the festivities
What you need to know:
- Your toilet also needs a thorough clean.
The festive season is a time to spend and share with family and friends. Whereas it is an enjoyable time, it often gets messy as well. After the visitors have probably left and you have all the mess to yourself, how do you easily clean up back to shape?
Immaculate Kateregga, a professional cleaner at Just Clean It, shares how quick you can tidy up.
“You may have done the simple day to day cleaning during the festivities, however, your house needs a thorough clean up after everyone has left,” Kateregga notes.
Unless you live alone, you will need all the help you can get, so have your other family members on board – even the children.
“However, do not make them feel forced to help out because if they do, they won’t clean up the best way.
You can for example have a simple reward for the person who cleans up best or simply make it fun and none commanding. Here, they will be willing to put in their best work,” Kateregga says. However, if you are alone, take it one step at a time.
She notes that the easiest way to thoroughly clean-up is by arranging your chores from either the hardest to the easiest or from room to room.
“You can start with the room that requires more cleaning and finish with the one that requires less. Or, you can start with cleaning surfaces and tops so you put back everything in its place, clean sofas and chairs, then carpets and rugs and finish with cleaning the floor,” she says.
Make sure not to miss anything, so do not only clean the mess that is obvious.
“Look out for stains on your sofas, chairs, carpet, blankets, bedcovers or duvets – in the case where you had visitors spending the night. This is so because the longer the stains remain, the harder they get to be washed away.
Use stain removals to wash off the stains. Use vinegar and warm water or a few drops of beer for stains on the carpet and on sofas.
Since a number of people use candles during the festive season, candle wax may be one of the bad stains you have either on your table cloth, children’s clothes or on your surfaces.
To remove wax on clothes, dip the stained area in hot boiling water and repeat the process until the stains are removed.
For wax on surfaces, pouring hot boiling water can do, however, you can place ice on the wax, and let it seat for some time. This will make the wax loose grip of the surface and it can then be removed.
Don’t forget
“Your fridge has probably had an assortment of things this time around, so do not forget to give it a thorough clean. Remove everything that you no longer need, like left overs or finish up all perishables like vegetables and clean up. If you already have a bad odor coming out, cut a piece of lemon into two and leave it there for about a day to combat the odor,” says Kateregga.
Additionally, your toilet also needs a thorough clean.
“Use a disinfectant to clean up your toilet and scrub your bathroom to the utmost level,” she reminds.
