If the thought of spring cleaning your Santa Cruz home doesn’t bring a smile to your face, you’re not alone. To help you (and me) get going now, I’ve come up with this short list of the 6 essential, in my opinion, spring cleaning chores:
1. Store winter clothes: It’s time to pack away your winter clothes. Coats, sweaters, and your heavy winter clothing need to be inspected, cleaned if needed and packed away. Don’t skip the step of cleaning, or, when you get your clothes out of storage next fall, you might find that they’ve been damaged beyond repair by insects or set in stains. Where should you store your clothes? Somewhere clean, cool, dark and dry.
2. Wash window treatments: Spring is the perfect time to inspect and clean the window treatments in your Santa Cruz home. Clean window treatments brighten any room. Wash blinds, launder curtains that are machine washable and send drapes to the dry cleaners. While you’re at it, dust the window casing, wash window sills, and clean any window hardware. You’ll be surprised at the huge amount of dirt and grime that a thorough window cleaning removes.
3. Clean carpets and upholstery: Deep clean fabrics that have absorbed a winter's worth of dust and germs. Shampoo your carpets; clean cloth furniture. Open windows to speed the drying process, which can take a day or more.
4. Wash woodwork, walls, baseboards and cabinets: Even if your Santa Cruz home’s walls don’t look like they need cleaning, they do. Just enough dust clings to vertical surfaces to warrant a seasonal bath. Using a sponge and hand dishwashing detergent, wash the surface in sections to make sure you don’t miss a spot.
5. Clean light and ceiling fixtures: To clean your light fixtures, remove the light bulb and fixture if possible. Wash glass fixtures in soap and water. If the fixture cannot be removed from the ceiling, use a damp cloth to wipe it off. Dry the fixtures. Wipe the light bulbs with a rag. The easiest way to clean your ceiling fans is to use a vacuum with a soft nozzle attachment.
6. Check your coils: Caked on dust can cause your refrigerator to overheat, so take the time to clean the condenser coil. It’s usually found behind the toe grille. Clean it with a long-handled bottle brush and a vacuum cleaner with an attachment hose. If the condenser coil is on the back of your refrigerator, carefully pull the fridge out several feet and vacuum thoroughly.
Put on your favorite music and start your spring cleaning. It’ll be done before you know it. Then you can relax and enjoy your sparkling clean home.
Spring is also a great time to shop for a new Santa Cruz home, especially this year with the home buyer tax credits still available until the end of April. Call me right away at 831.662.6522 or email me at Lauren@LaurenSpencer.com to find out how you can get the $8,000 or $6,500 tax credit.
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Clean light and ceiling fixtures
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