Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Even your dust bunnies are embarrassed by your messy house. Tips on keeping a students house from looking like a “student house”.


Besides doing homework, cleaning could probably be the most dreaded task of a student. You keep putting it off and as the weeks go by the dust bunnies begin to become larger and larger; they grow to a size where they can longer be ignored. Before you pull out the vacuum cleaner and start sulking, here are a few tips to make the time go by faster and even make it slightly more enjoyable.

According to house cleaning experts at Molly Maid Canada, they recommend organization and working together as the first key steps in the cleaning process. Molly Maid suggests that putting all out-of-place objects back where they belong will making cleaning easier, you are able to see the exact areas that need to be cleaned. Working together is the second part of their recommendations. Get your roommates together and assign tasks that each person will be responsible for on a daily or weekly basis. Click here to find an example house-cleaning chart that you can print out. On this chart, you and your housemates can assign and record cleaning tasks.

When outlining your own cleaning schedule it is important to determine what areas of your house will need to be cleaned on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Here list of example tasks to get you started.

Daily
ü  Wash your dishes. This is probably the most important task you and your roommates need to keep on top of. If you let the dishes pile up, this can be disgusting task down the road with stuck on and moldy food pieces.
ü  Casual picking up. As soon as you and your roommates come home from school, don’t just drop your bag, books and coats in one heap on the floor pick them up and put them where they belong. This will help with the organization of your house, speeding up your cleaning when the time comes.

Weekly
ü  Clean the floors. This involves vacuuming/sweeping and washing all floor area. Keep you focus on high traffic areas like the kitchen, common areas and the bathroom; as crumbs, dust and pieces of food are more likely to be deposited in the carpet and grout.
ü  Dust. You can use a product such as a Swiffer, which makes it easy to go over all surface areas in your house quickly and easily.

Monthly
ü  Clean out the refrigerator. Sometimes it feels like the refrigerator is a black hole and your food is never seen again. To make sure you and your roommates always know what is in your refrigerator, take the time to go through all the bottles, cans and Tupperware to make sure your food isn’t green and fuzzy.
ü  Vacuum your couch. Yes, lift up all the cushions and take the vacuum wand and clean it out. You never know what you will find.

To make sure you and your roommates cleaning experience is a little less painful; try putting on music or a movie in the background to distract you while you work.

I know house cleaning may seem like an endless job, but if you stick to these guidelines you might be able to stay on top of the housework and not end up on the next episode of Hoarders.

For more information and tips on house cleaning visit Molly Maid Canada.

xo xo, your how to girl!

6 comments:

  1. I agree that making a chart giving everyone assigned tasks makes a huge difference. Then people are accountable for what they are supposed to be doing, and no one can blame someone else later on for not taking out the garbage.

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  2. After reading your post I realized I really need to stop procrastinating and clean my apartment! The chore chart is a great idea, but in the past it has not worked for me. Some roommates would follow it, while others would simply ignore it. I like your suggestion of a group cleaning session with music. I think this would be a great way to spend time with your roomies while getting your house clean at the same time.

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  3. These are really great tips! Do you have any suggestions for introducing this plan to your housemates?

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  4. I have always found that the easiest way to keep a clean home is to maintain it always - never let it get out of hand in the first place. That way, when you go to scrub floors, sinks and table tops, there is nothing in your way - definitely makes the process a lot shorter. However, this is much easier said than done.

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  5. I would suggest bring the chore chart idea up during a house meeting. This would be the best time to talk about a cleaning chart as this is a time when everyone in your house is addressing ideas around the house that you all live in. This will be a time when you can assign tasks to each housemate.

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  6. I totally second on this thing. But don't you think it's much easier and nicely done when professionals like Cleaning Services Chandler AZ do it?

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