When the day you leave for your vacation or trip is coming up, it’s usually the one thing that’s always at the top of your mind. You’re busy preparing for it by packing your items, notifying your workplace and relatives, and so on.
If you’re close at this point, make sure you also start paying attention to your house. One thing that you should do, aside from securing your home, is making sure that it’s clean before you leave.
Taking the time to clean your house ensures that your home is just as you left it. Therefore, you should use these six home cleaning tips before going on your vacation.
1. Take out the garbage
Cleaning your house before going on a vacation has something to do with living in comfort after a long journey. However, it’s also about preventing something from festering and happening while you’re away and can’t act on it on the spot.
One thing that you want to avoid is an infestation of some sort.
Food waste and garbage inside the house that you didn’t throw away for a while will attract all sorts of creatures into your home. Therefore, you have to ensure that you take out the trash before you leave. Be thorough and get rid of the garbage from every garbage bin inside your house, so you don’t invite an unwanted incident.
You should also pay special attention to the garbage bins inside your kitchen because there is more food waste there than anywhere else.
If you have the extra time, you should also wash and wipe down the garbage bins to ensure no remnants. That’s because there are going to be insects that will still find these small remnants.
2. Do not leave dirty laundry
Aside from taking out the garbage, it would be best if you also took care of your dirty laundry before leaving. The longer you leave dirty laundry unclean, the worse the effects will be on your clothes.
That’s why, the day before you go on a vacation, make sure that you wash and dry your clothes first.
When you leave behind dirty laundry for a long time, it can eventually start to develop mildew, and the stench of it will start sinking into your clothes. Once you come back, it’s going to be harder for you to get rid of these from your clothes. At some point, you might even have to throw them away because of it.
If you’ve washed your clothes, make sure that you don’t leave them in the washing machine and the dryer too. It can also harm the quality of your clothes, especially if there’s still some form of moisture in there.
3. Vacuum or sweep the floor
As mentioned before, one of the things that you don’t want to be there in your house is food waste. However, food waste isn’t just the substantial leftover food you threw away in the trash.
It would also be the tiny crumbs that might be around your floors without you noticing. That’s why, before you leave, make sure that you vacuum and sweep the floor.
Again, it doesn’t have to be as thorough as long as you’re able to get rid of the crumbs there. Don’t forget to pay attention to your surfaces as well and wipe them down while you’re vacuuming or sweeping around the house.
If you use the vacuum, make sure that you also clean the vacuum bags, preferably when you have free time. That way, you’re confident that you get rid of the food waste, residue, and crumbs around the house.
4. Fill and run the dishwasher
As you should know by now, it’s the food that we should prioritize when we’re cleaning our homes before going on a vacation. Therefore, it makes sense that you should also wash all of your used dishes and dry them.
You can wash it using your sink or, if you have a dishwasher, using a dishwasher. Suppose your dishwasher isn’t full, though, handwash them instead.
If you use the sink to wash the dishes, make sure that you wash the sink as well after cleaning dishes with it. Food waste might rest at the bottom of your sink, which is why you should make sure that you clean it too.
For the dishwasher, make sure that you don’t leave the dishes inside the dishwasher while you’re away.
5. Clean the toilet
When you’re thinking of cleaning your home before heading out for a vacation, many places should come to mind. At Maid Sailors Maid Service Chicago, we tell our clients that one of the first things you should prioritize would probably be your toilet.
There’s nothing quite like returning to the familiar, and you feel that statement is even more true when it comes to your toilet. After a long way home, you might need to head to the bathroom, and coming back to a dirty toilet isn’t the most appealing. That’s why you should clean the toilet before you leave for your trip.
It doesn’t even have to be a thorough deep clean of your toilet bowl. A quick clean and once-over around your toilet should be enough. You should also sprinkle baking soda inside your toilet bowl and flush it a couple of times. This is to ensure that you’ve thoroughly rinsed away the baking soda.
6. Check your fridge and pantry
Back to food-based waste, you should also make sure that you run through your fridge and pantry before leaving for your vacation. Clear out your fridge, especially if you’re going to be away for a long time. That’s because they’re going to rot while you’re away, and it will harm your fridge if you leave it there for a long time.
It would help if you also got rid of any food inside your pantry that will spoil when you’re gone. Rotten food is the last thing you want to deal with after your vacation. The remnants of rotten food are not only a pain to get rid of, but the stench is also a challenge to remove from both your fridge and your pantry.
If you’re going to throw away any food in the fridge and pantry, you might as well clean it because there still might be remnants of food in there.
When you are leaving for vacation, it will be impossible for you to control what’s going on in your home. Hence, it would be best to ensure that everything is in top shape. Doing so allows you to enjoy your vacation because you have the peace of mind that you’ll arrive in a clean house.
