Spring Clean Before You List Your Home for Sale

With Spring upon us, and now that Daylight Savings Time is here for most of the country, it is time for home sellers to start thinking about the spring housing market. One of the best ways to prepare for putting your home on the market, even if it doesn’t feel like spring yet where you are, is by an early spring cleaning.

The best place to start spring cleaning in any room is at the top. With a cloth or a microfiber mop, dry dust the walls and pay particular attention to the corners of the room where cobwebs tend to collect. Depending on the type of wall covering or paint, you can also damp wipe the walls to help remove any sort of cooking residue or fingerprints from the walls. Pay particular attention to the corners around doorways and the vicinity around switches; these areas tend to get the dirtiest. If plain water won’t remove smudges, use a mild vinegar solution instead.

Take care of your windows next. Check the washing instructions on any fabric drapes and wash or dry clean them as required. Dust your window blinds carefully so they don’t get bent. Wash the inside and outside of your windows to let the spring sunshine in. You may want to wait on doing this until after all the Spring pollen has cleared in your area. One of the best ways to clean glass is with a spray bottle of vinegar and newspaper to wipe it down. The outside of windows might require a ladder or a window washer’s squeegee to get high enough. In some areas it’s also possible to hire a company to come and clean your outside windows.

If you have carpet or rugs you have a few options. Area rugs can be sent out to have cleaned and wall to wall carpeting can be steam cleaned if it’s really dirty; but if your carpets or rugs are just a little stale you can sprinkle a liberal amount of baking soda over them, let them sit for a few hours or overnight and then vacuum it up. This will pull any smells out of them and leave them fresh and clean smelling.

There are probably more areas of your home you can think of that might need a good cleaning when the bright spring sunshine peeks in your windows, but these steps will give you a good place to start. Another benefit to giving your home a good cleaning before you put it on the market is that you can see where repairs might need to be made or painting might need to be done to help perk up your home.

Happy cleaning!