Guests Arriving Soon? Speed Clean Your Home

Have you ever gotten one of those calls?  A friend or family member plans to stop by – and they’ll be there in an hour.  You can’t say no, so you tell them they’re welcome.  But when you hang up the phone and take a quick look around, you realize your house isn’t presentable.  What now?

The only way out is to clean your house in a hurry, and these tips for speed cleaning will help:

• Concentrate on areas your guest will see.  If your guests will never go upstairs, forget about the bedrooms and upstairs bathroom.  Concentrate your efforts on the rooms where you’ll be entertaining your unexpected visitors.
• Get the kids to help.  HGTV offers a good speed cleaning tip that involves the whole family: set a timer at 10 minutes and tell the kids it’s a race to see how much they can pick up before the timer goes off.
• Get rid of clutter.  Cleaning up clutter is the most effective way to dramatically transform your home.  Remember, this is a speed clean, so you won’t have time to store everything in an organized way.  Simply move from room to room and remove anything that’s out of place.  Clear used dishes and silverware and put them in the dishwasher, collect papers that are lying around into a single pile to be set aside and sorted out later, place newspapers and magazines in a magazine rack, replace books on bookshelves and bag up your child’s toys.  Hang coats in the closet or on hooks and place dirty garments in the laundry.  In a pinch, you can store random items in a spare room and close the door. 
• Deal with the dishes.  If dirty dishes are piled up in the sink, quickly load them into the dishwasher.  If you don’t have a dishwasher and you have enough time, wash the dishes and stack them in the drying area.  If neither of these options is possible, fill the sink with warm, soapy water so that your dishes are less visible, with the benefit of soaking them clean during your visit.
• Empty the drying rack.  If you have dry dishes in the drying rack, store them in cabinets or on shelves. 
• Wipe off tables, shelves, and countertops.  Dust-free, clean surfaces definitely shine up a room.  Grab a microfiber cloth or paper towel and your favorite eco-friendly cleaner (see our blog post on non-toxic cleaners), and dust or wipe tables, countertops – and if you have time, electronics such as the TV.  Again, this is a speed clean situation, so you don’t have to remove books from the bookshelves and do a thorough dusting.  Just do your best to remove dust and dirt from visible surfaces.
• Scoop the litter box.  If you have cats, scoop the litter box quickly if it is within sight or smell, and pour in some clean litter.
• Do a quick bathroom cleaning.  Speed cleaning the bathroom can be as simple as throwing dirty towels in the hamper and replacing them with clean ones, wiping off the toilet and vanity with a bathroom cleaner, making sure there’s plenty of toilet paper, and cleaning the mirror.  For more comprehensive speed cleaning tips for your bathroom, check our earlier blog post here.
• Clean the floors!  Clean floors do wonders for the appearance of your home.  Pull out the vacuum cleaner and vacuum the carpets in any rooms your guests will frequent.  Sweep the kitchen and bathroom floors, and if you have time (but you probably won’t) pull out a mop to give them extra shine.

You probably can’t clean every room in your home in an hour and still feel fresh and presentable for guests.  But if you banish clutter, clear the dishes, dust and wipe surfaces, speed clean the bathroom and vacuum the carpets, your home will look surprisingly fresh. 

And once the guests have gone, give COIT a call at 1-800-FOR-COIT to schedule your next professional cleaning service, so you’ll be ready for that phone call the next time it comes!