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Monday 1 February 2010

How to make your home ready for spring.

Spring cleaning is not just about emptying cupboards and de-cluttering, banishing cobwebs lingering high up in the stair well or cleaning windows inside and out. Spring cleaning also presents a good opportunity to review how well your housing is running generally and to adjust your organisational skills. Here are 4 steps to a spring clean sweep:

Once a year it pays dividends to take the time to review how you manage your home.
MOT your central heating boiler, water tank, and other regularly used household appliances like the dish washer. These simple checks will ensure that you avoid unexpected breakdowns.

Check your standing orders/direct debits for utility bills are accurate, ensure your meter has been read recently and your have no outstanding credits/debits.

Check guarantees for household appliances like toasters, vacuum cleaners are up to date, if not check out if further household insurance for appliance failures are available.

Sit down with a notebook and list the bare minimum needed to keep household systems flowing on a weekly basis. The usual tedious chores: washing up, the kitchen tidied fairly regularly, food shopping, laundry washed and ironed and put away, vacuuming, dusting, changing bedding and cleaning bathrooms and toilets. This is a list of the bare minimum health and safety standards for your home.

Divide your list into daily jobs and weekly ones. It is for example not necessary to change your bedding every day, but washing the dishes or filling the dishwasher is a daily task.

Next draw up another list for: Spring-Cleaning Tasks.
This should include some of the following:
clean interior windows - remove curtains/blinds (have those dry-cleaned).

Open windows (silly as it sounds people usually keep their windows shut all winter) air the whole house thoroughly. Keeping a house ventilated is very important to avoid the growth of mould. A damp house is essentially an unhealthy house.

Take all your rugs (if you have any) outside and take your aggression out on them by beating them thoroughly. (It is good exercises too). Carpet beaters are still available at old- fashioned hardware stores.

Move beds, vacuum underneath, also vacuum the mattress and turn it over to ensure even wear.

Empty out and clean all cupboards in the house: this is an ideal time to de-clutter and get rid of things you never use. Charity shops, car boot sales and ebay are just a few options of recycling your unwanted belongings.

Employ an Oven cleaner, but get a reputable company. They can deep clean your cooker so it looks like new.

Hire a carpet cleaner: choose a day when it is dry and you can leave all the windows open. Clean carpets in high traffic areas thoroughly. If you don’t have carpets, you can also hire a floor polisher to give your wooden floors a boost.

Use these lists to divide up chores between your household members and get started.

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