Clean Like You Mean It as You Prepare to Sell

If you have ever prepared a home for sale, you are probably very aware of the need to deep clean it. It doesn’t matter if it’s your first, second, third, or fourth home you’ve sold, it is important that it is spick and span before anyone comes to take a look at it. When you decide what your home specifically needs, and when it needs to be done, it is always good to come up with a strategy. Cleaning costs can get expensive very quickly, so it’s good to not only know what you are cleaning, but how. We have compiled a list of cleaning hacks, tips, and tricks to help lighten the load on you and your wallet as you prepare your home for sale. These may or may not work in your case, so you are using that at your own risk.

1) Removing hard water deposit from your kitchen and bathroom

The kitchen and bathrooms are key players in the battle to get your home clean and ready for the open market. Usually people don’t want to clean up their own bathrooms and kitchens, let alone one with someone else’s mess in it. For this reason, cleaning them correctly is a vital part of the home preparation process; and what is the hardest part of bathroom and kitchen cleaning projects? Hard water deposits.

Hard water deposits are a pain to try and get rid of, but luckily there are some easy was to cut it down to size. For most people, using standard distilled white vinegar has done the trick. Usually it needs time to soak in before it will be able to do much good, so it is best to soak a rag or paper towel in the vinegar and let it sit on the deposit for 20 minutes to an hour and then scrub or rub it off. However, be sure not to use vinegar on marble or stoneware as it can have adverse effects on these materials.

However, if you are trying to clean the hard water off of an awkward place like the shower head or the end of a faucet, you can try this ‘life hack’: fill a sandwich bag with vinegar and put it around the showerhead so that the headrests in the vinegar; then attach it to the faucet with a rubber band so it won’t fall off. Let this sit there for 20 minutes to an hour and scrub it, just like before.

2) Get the loose hair from your carpet that your vacuum can’t get

Hair in the carpet is a really big no-no when it comes to showing a home. Not only can it be unsanitary, but it can also make other people uncomfortable too. However, what are you to do when your vacuum can’t get at it all? Well there are a few ways.

Number one, use a squeegee. A simple squeegee, like you would use to dry the windshield of your car, can be a useful tool when trying to dislodge troubling hair. All you need to do is to squeegee the carpet, applying constant pressure, and the hair should come right up. It can then be finished off with the vacuum. This process can also be used on furniture if there is pet hair there as well.

The second option, if the squeegee doesn’t work, is to use duct tape. Though it may be primitive and not as effective as the squeegee if it worked, duct tape can make quick work of a hair patch of carpet or piece of furniture. All you need to do is take a length of tape and attach both ends of the tape to each other so that the adhesive end is facing out. Then all you need to do is to take the tape to the carpet or couch until it is no longer sticky—in which case you throw it away, get a new length of tape and start again.

3) Clean crusty microwave like a pro

No matter how hard you try, your microwave is going to get dirty—it is a given. Now, messes in a microwave are much harder to clean than messes on the counter since every time you run the microwave afterwards, it solidifies more and more to the walls and ceiling. However, if nothing else works for you, a good option is to use this useful tip:

For this you will need a microwave safe bowl, some water, and some dish soap. First, fill the dish with the water and a few dabs of dish soap. Next, you will need to microwave that bowl of water and soap for a few minutes. This will evaporate the water soap and cause the crusty food particles in your microwave to become moist again and much easier to clean. If needed you can repeat this process multiple times.

4) Make your leather furniture look like new

Leather, in whatever capacity it is, gets scuffed up and hard or prickly over time, which can make for a less than pleasant house showing—even if the couches aren’t part of the deal. However, there is good news, leather couches, unlike microfiber, can be restored fairly easily and inexpensively. The answer? Shoe polish. Just like the leather of your shoes, the leather of your couch or armchair can be rejuvenated with shoe polish. All you need to do is make sure that you get polish that is the same color as the rest of the leather, and to follow all the directions that come with them. For added measure, however, be sure that all the wet polish is soaked up or removed before anyone sits on it. That way they won’t walk away with trousers the same color as your furniture.

This are just a few ideas that can be used when you are cleaning your home, there are more online. So, in order to save time and money, keep searching for newer and faster ways to clean your home before a showing. Just remember that you use these tips at your own risk and that they may not work every time.