When winter ends and the weather begins to warm, you’re going to start thinking about opening the windows and letting some fresh air circulate through your home. Unfortunately, it’s also around the same time that you’re likely to notice all of the musty smells that accumulated during the months when you had the windows closed and the furnace running. That’s why spring cleaning exists – because warmer weather tends to coincide with increased motivation to clear some old junk out of the house and get things looking and smelling fresh.
Motivation, however, can only get you so far when it comes to tasks as big as giving your home a proper deep cleaning. You’re already tired from work and the usual tasks associated with managing your home and family. You don’t have a lot of time to devote to spring cleaning, and you want to use the time you do have in the most efficient way possible. In this article, we’re going to provide some advice that can help. When it’s time to give your home a good spring cleaning, don’t waste your effort on tasks that won’t produce noticeable results. Make the most of your time with these tips for making your spring cleaning easier.
Hold a Garage Sale or Sell Your Unwanted Items Online
One of the biggest reasons why people feel compelled to clean their homes in spring is because they’ve just finished spending the holiday season accumulating all sorts of new things. It’s hard to find places in which to store your new items, though, when all of the storage space in your home is already consumed by the things that you had before the holidays. There’s only one solution for this problem: You need to get rid of the old things that you no longer use.
There are several ways to clear unwanted items out of your home. For items that are small and easy to ship, you’ll probably earn the most money by auctioning those items online because that’s the way to expose the items to the highest number of potential buyers. For larger items like furniture and old appliances, a garage or yard sale is probably a better option. Don’t forget that you can also donate items if they’re in good condition. When you donate items to goodwill, you can request a receipt that you can use during tax time if you itemize your deductions.
Quit Habits That Lead to Unpleasant Smells
One of the biggest reasons why people want to clean out their homes in spring is because musty smells tend to accumulate during the colder months when the windows are closed most of the time. Hopefully, you’re already doing many of the things that help to minimize the proliferation of foul odors such a cleaning the toilets and garbage disposal frequently and vacuuming the floor as often as possible. If you’re a smoker, though, you’re ignoring the one thing that contributes most of all to foul odors. Cigarette smoke residue smells so bad to nonsmokers that it can significantly reduce the value of your home. You probably notice the smell as well when you come from work. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just eliminate that foul odor permanently?
As it turns out, quitting smoking may not be as difficult as you think. Millions of people around the world have used inexpensive products like the Nord 4 to help themselves stop smoking and switch to vaping. Today’s small pod-based vaping devices uses high-strength nicotine salt e-liquid to deliver the same satisfaction that you’d get from puffing on a tobacco cigarette – and you won’t believe how quickly your home’s smell will improve when you stop flooding it with smoke.
Use Baking Soda to Vacuum More Effectively
Vacuuming your home thoroughly is one of the things you’ll definitely want to do during your spring-cleaning project. You’ll want to vacuum all of the spots that you normally skip, such as under the furniture. If you really want the vacuuming project to make a noticeable difference in how clean your home feels and smells, though, you need a little chemical assistance. Thankfully, the chemical that we have in mind is cheap, readily available and completely safe – all that you need is a big box of baking soda.
Before vacuuming a section of your home, remove all of the furniture except the fabric items that you intend to vacuum. Sprinkle baking soda liberally on the floor and fabric furniture – don’t forget to sprinkle it under your couch’s cushions as well. Baking soda does an excellent job of absorbing odor-causing molecules; that’s why some people place it in their refrigerators and freezers. Leave the baking soda on the floor for a day and vacuum it thoroughly. When you’re done, you’ll find that the room smells dramatically better.
Clean Your Ducts and Climate Control System
As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, one of the reasons why people procrastinate on their spring cleaning or stick to only the simplest cleaning tasks is because they already feel completely overworked. You have very little energy left at the end of the day as it is; how could you possibly muster the initiative to give your home a top-to-bottom cleaning? Here’s an idea that might be perfect: You can pay someone else to do the work instead. In fact, having someone else do the work is generally very wise with the final project on this list: cleaning your home’s ducts and climate control system.
If your home has had central heating and air conditioning for a while, there’s a good chance that the ducts have accumulated a significant amount of dust and potentially even mold. Every time you turn on the air conditioner or furnace, those contaminants circulate throughout your home, spreading unpleasant smells and allergens. The same is true of your air conditioner’s coils, which can become quite dirty after years of use. Cleaning your ducts and climate control system is a difficult project, and it’s easy to make a mistake that can be quite costly to repair. It’s worth the investment to have a professional crew do the job, and it can make a remarkable difference in your home’s air quality and in the way it smells.
