Spring is around the corner, and, love it or hate it, that means it’s time for the annual tradition of spring cleaning.
According to Wikipedia, spring cleaning is “the practice of thoroughly cleaning a house in the springtime,” a practice which is “especially prevalent in climates with a cold winter.”
Yup, that certainly includes northern Indiana!
In this blog post, we’re going to have some fun by sharing some of our favorite spring cleaning tips and revealing a list of the top five cleaning supplies we use at the Interfaith Community PADS homeless shelter.
Let’s go!
5 Awesome Spring Cleaning Tips
These tips will make your spring cleaning quicker and easier this year!
1. Go room by room.
To get more accomplished, it’s best to approach spring cleaning in a room-by-room fashion. Choose the room that could use the most TLC and start there, before moving on to the next room. This way, if ‘life happens’ and your spring cleaning project gets derailed, you’ll at least have some rooms that show the efforts of your work.
2. Make a checklist.
When you select a room to clean, take some time to evaluate the kind of TLC it could use and make a checklist of the things you want to do in that room. There is nothing more satisfying and motivating than crossing an item off a checklist!
3. Declutter your space.
Oftentimes the rooms in your house are not necessarily dirty…they just have too much stuff. Have boxes or totes on-hand to gather unused and unnecessary items that can be given away or donated to charity.
4. Minimize cleaning supplies.
Purchasing supplies for your spring cleaning can be a task all its own. But there is no need to go overboard and spend more than you need to. A few cloths or rags and a bottle of all-purpose cleaner should be all you need to clean the majority of surfaces in your house.
5. Spread it out.
Cleaning an entire house is a daunting task. Don’t try to do it all at once! As we mentioned in tip #1, it’s best to go room by room, AND you can split up the work by choosing one or two rooms to tackle each weekend. When you finish, be sure to reward your hard work and make a plan to resume the work next week.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalms 51:10)
ICPADS Top 5 Cleaning Supplies
Cleaning is a big deal at the Interfaith Community PADS homeless shelter, where we seek to provide a clean and safe space for our nightly guests. Here are the supplies we use most often.
1. Dish Soap
Unfortunately, dishes aren’t a seasonal thing like most spring cleaning tasks. EVERY night we face a huge pile of dirty dishes that were used to prepare, cook and serve meals. Heavy duty dish soaps are best, so Dawn is very popular around here.
2. Laundry Detergent
Another ongoing cleaning task for us is doing laundry. In fact, we wash about 100 blankets, 100 pillow cases, 200 sheets, and lots of towels every week! Laundry detergent is a staple.
3. All-Purpose Cleaner
All-purpose cleaner is our go-to for cleaning the many floors and surfaces inside our homeless shelter. Since COVID started, cleaning highly-trafficked areas and commonly-touched surfaces regularly is a health and safety MUST.
4. Gloves
We use gloves for a variety of reasons, including preparing food and scrubbing surfaces. More specifically, we use nitrile, vinyl and poly gloves (no latex!) in sizes small, medium, and extra large.
5. Garbage Can Liners
Garbage bags are also on our list of cleaning needs, especially garbage can liners that are 45 gallon or larger. We have six garbage cans that get liners replaced at least once a day. Doing the math, that’s 42 trash bags (or more!) per week!!
This year as you embark on your own spring cleaning, we encourage you to donate some of these items to the ICPADS homeless shelter.
To learn more about how to donate, check out this page.
Happy Spring, and best of luck with your spring cleaning!