The ultimate spring cleaning checklist + Infographic

Although you wouldn’t necessarily know it from the exceptionally cold and snowy spell we’re having at the moment, spring really is just around the corner.

It’s a beautiful time of year, as the first spring flowers begin to appear, the nights start to get longer and it’s lovely and light as we set out for work in the mornings. There’s a real sense of renewal in spring, perhaps even more so than at New Year, meaning it’s the perfect opportunity to give your home a good clean from top to bottom, and finally let some fresh air into your house after the long winter.

Spring cleaning has its origins in traditions that stem back thousands of years, including the Jewish festival of Passover, and khooneh takouni, which translates as ‘shaking the house’ and is practised at the time of Iranian New Year. Both of these customs ensure that the new year begins on the best possible foot, with a clean and tidy house from which to face upcoming  challenges and celebrate joys.

However, cleaning a whole house is a big task, which is why many of us only get around to tackling it once a year. Our team at FastKlean are here to help with your weekly and monthly cleaning tasks all year round, and we also offer a specialist spring cleaning service too.

But if you want to tackle the job for yourself, we have prepared the ultimate spring cleaning checklist with just about everything you need to do:

Start at the top, and work your way down

We recommend that you take the phrase ‘cleaning from top to bottom’ literally when it comes to tackling your spring cleaning. While it doesn’t really matter if you start upstairs or downstairs, you should begin working on each room from the ceiling downwards. That means getting rid of any cobwebs in high corners, dusting the tops of cupboards and sorting through any mess piled on them before you get to surfaces lower down and the floor.

If you go from bottom to top instead, you’ll only end up with all of that dust and those cobwebs on your carpet and you’ll have to sweep or vacuum all over again.

Be thorough

You should be wiping down kitchen worktops and cleaning your toilet regularly anyway, but if there’s a burn mark on the kitchen island that you’ve been meaning to tackle or the toilet has been flushing with a worrying gurgling sound for months, use your spring cleaning sessions as a time to tackle these problems once and for all.

Call in any professional outside help you need – including a cleaner, if it’s easier for you – and make sure your cupboards are stocked with the handy ingredients that can be used to tackle just about all cleaning conundrums: fresh lemons, vinegar, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.

If it is a burn mark that you’re looking to remove, toothpaste, or a paste made from bicarbonate of soda and water should do the trick. These substances are abrasive, so stains left by burning should come off after they are applied, left for a few moments and then scrubbed away. If you’re struggling though, remember that you can always call in the experts.

Do those once-a-year tasks

As spring cleaning is an annual task, it makes sense to combine it with those household jobs that you only tend to do once a year, like washing your curtains (and, of course, ironing them before you hang them back up), and turning over your mattress.

It’s generally recommended that you actually turn your mattress every three months to make sure it continues to provide your back with the best level of support, and that you wash your curtains just as often.

But we know that busy lives can get in the way of these tasks, and they tend to get pushed right to the back of a to-do list. So, as long as you’re carrying out these jobs at least once a year, when you’re doing your spring cleaning, it’s better than not at all. It’s obviously much more hygienic to do these tasks more often though.

Clean inside…

Of course you’re going to be cleaning inside your house as part of your spring cleaning, but you should also be tackling the inside of drawers, cupboards and wardrobes. We’re all guilty of shoving mess into these and adopting the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality. But it’s a different story when the chest of drawers is so full and under so much strain that it’s at risk of collapsing.

Use your spring cleaning as a chance to go through everything and be ruthless, getting rid of anything you’ve not used for a few months and know you won’t miss.

…and clean outside

It’s a good idea to wipe down the outside of your wardrobes and drawers too, taking the time to get rid of any sticky marks, rather than simply giving them a quick dusting like you should already be doing at least once a week.

However, spring cleaning also presents the perfect opportunity to clean outside your home too. The worst of the winter weather should soon be over with, meaning you’ll be able to sort your garage, balcony, patio, garden or driveway out properly.

At FastKlean, we also offer our own driveway and patio cleaning service. We pride ourselves on not using any products containing chemicals to do this, regardless of the material your driveway is made from.

Doing this now will mean you’re not faced with an untidy, messy outdoor area when the sun does finally come out, and you find yourself spending hours trying to clean it up instead of enjoying a barbecue in the sun.

That’s another great thing about spring cleaning time – it means summer’s really not too far away.

Source: E-Cloth, How to clean stuff

Infographic – The ultimate spring cleaning checklist

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