The holiday festivities are over, and your house may not be as tidy as it was a few months ago. Instead of panicking and hiring a professional team, you can easily clean your space step by step with the help of expert advice. Below, two cleaning professionals share four essential tasks to complete post-holidays and tips on how to streamline these processes.
Meet the Expert: Danielle Moore, founder of A Little Moore Clean, a commercial and residential cleaning company, and Vanessa Terra Bossart, founder of GreenTerra Cleaning Service.
Clean Your Kitchen and Appliances: The holiday season often involves cooking, baking, and hosting, which might leave your kitchen in need of a thorough clean. Danielle Moore suggests focusing on areas such as the inside of your refrigerator and freezer, stovetop, oven, mixers, microwaves, and dishwashers. “Be proactive and tackle those spills and splatters while they’re fresh and easy to remove, avoiding the build-up in the future,” she advises.
Vanessa Terra Bossart recommends paying special attention to the refrigerator and microwave, especially after the holiday season. She explains that the holidays often result in an overloaded fridge filled with leftovers, forgotten condiments, and half-used ingredients. First, remove the entire contents of your fridge, discarding anything expired. Then, perform a deep clean of the appliance itself. “Wipe down the interior surfaces with warm water and mild dish soap, focusing on any spills or sticky spots,” Bossart says. “For an added boost, mix a little vinegar into the cleaning solution to naturally disinfect.”
As for the microwave, Bossart offers a hack that she finds more effective than scrubbing. Fill a microwave-safe bowl with water, add a few slices of fresh lemon, and microwave it for three to five minutes until it steams. “The steam will soften stubborn food particles, and the lemon will help deodorize the space,” Bossart says. Remove the bowl and wipe down the inside of the appliance using a damp cloth. This will help your microwave look spotless and smell citrus-fresh, according to Bossart.
Go Through and Sort Your Holiday Decor: While putting away your holiday decorations, it’s wise to be thoughtful about what you keep and what you discard to streamline the storage process. “After the holidays, decorations, wrapping paper, and leftover party supplies can quickly pile up, creating visual and mental clutter,” Bossart explains. She recommends sorting items into three categories: things to hold onto and display next year, things to donate or recycle, and things related to hosting and gift wrap storage solutions.
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Bossart recommends labeling each bin clearly with helpful descriptions to make it easy to locate items next year.
Declutter and Organize Your Space: The period following the holidays is an excellent time to evaluate your space as a whole and part ways with clutter. As most people receive gifts and accumulate an abundance of items around the holidays, it can be challenging to make room for all the new items if there’s no space, according to Moore. Moore’s rule of thumb is: ‘If it doesn’t have a perfect place, it must be removed from my space.’
Get Your Carpets Professionally Cleaned: There are certain home cleaning tasks that you may wish to outsource, like carpet cleaning. Moore explains, ‘After cleaning everything else, I’m left with carpets that hold not just the memories of visitors but bacteria, visible stains, food, pet hair, etc. My house just doesn’t feel clean until all carpets are deep cleaned, deodorized, and protected.’
Prefer going the DIY route? Bossart offers her own hack. Sprinkle a decent amount of baking soda over the surfaces and let it sit for at least 20 minutes. This will allow the baking soda to absorb unwanted odors and loosen dirt, Bossart says. The final step is to vacuum everything up after the time is up.
