A guest post from our friends at Maid-Zen

5 Habits For A Cleaner Apartment

Despite their smaller square footage, apartments still require the regular cleaning and upkeep that you would need for a house twice the size. In fact, sometimes the smaller square footage can exacerbate otherwise negligible messes and clutter. Whether you’re located in North Houston (where we are) or you live elsewhere in the country, there are daily habits that you can build to help maintain a clean and completely habitable apartment.

As a cleaning services provider, we don’t only work with single family homes – we clean them all, including apartments and condos. Just like we would with our single-family home customers, we want to make the day to day lives of our apartment and condo customers as hassle-free as possible, and the best way to do that is to provide helpful tips so they can keep their residence cleaner.

First, let’s understand the basic differences between cleaning an apartment and a cleaning an entire home.

The size: Simply put, apartments are typically smaller than homes with more compact or dual purpose rooms. You might think that means there’s less stuff to deal with, but on the contrary, smaller messes and clutter can seem like an even bigger problem.

The type of space: a traditional home has other things such as the garage, laundry room, porch, courtyard, driveway, and numerous other facilities that can make home cleaning a full-day job. Apartment have connected rooms, which greatly expedite the overall cleaning process.

Who’s in your place: you’re dealing with a group either way but with apartments and condos, you’re often dealing with friends or acquaintances as opposed to immediate family.

Without further ado, here are 5 practical habits you can use to help maintain your apartment day to day and long term.

1. CLEAN AS YOU GO

The first rule to minimize the time you take on cleaning your apartment is to keep things clean on the go. Dishes, for example, are a great place to start. Instead of putting them in the sink and leaving them for later, rinse and wash them right away. Any piled dirt adds an extra minute to your cleaning schedule.

If you have something that should be put away or cleaned, do so immediately. If you’re not in a rush, a good productivity hack is to tackle anything that can take care of in two minutes or less. The same principle can be applied to community rooms, bedrooms, and bathrooms.

2. CREATE A MENTAL LIST OF PRIORITIES

Consider the different parts of each room or cleaning duties that you have and decide on a logical place to start. For instance, if your laundry is always getting out of hand, that’s probably a good place to focus some of your daily work. For renters who have pets, the hair can get out of hand pretty quick, so focusing on floors might be your top priority day to day.

By setting a priority cleaning list, you can make sure you’re staying on top of the big picture items without getting mired in the details.

3. KEEP CLEANING PRODUCTS STOCKED

In order to maintain a clean home, you need to have the right tools to help you complete the job. We recommend keeping the following cleaning items stocked up:

• glass cleaner
• paper towels
• rubber gloves (for the harder jobs)
• a stain remover (Oxiclean is a solid go-to for a wide range of fabrics and surfaces)
• laundry containers and baskets to manage your clothes
• dishwashing scrubbers and brushes
• bathroom cleaner

4. PLAN TIME TO CLEAN

For the most part, cleaning duties are relatively easy to manage if you break them up into smaller, daily tasks. One of the most important habits that you can develop to help with your day to day cleanliness is to devote a specific amount of time to it each day. The goal will be to figure out what is feasible for you. Even 5 minutes devoted to picking up, washing dishes, or organizing clutter will help with your overall cleanliness.

5. HAVE ONE DEEP CLEANING DAY PER MONTH

While daily cleaning can help with the small things, you still need to make sure that you’re tackling the big-ticket items. We recommend that you spend at least 1 day per month – at least a couple of hours- organizing and tackling some of your bigger projects. We’re talking fan blades, bathroom tiles, on top of cabinets, bookshelves, doors, mopping floors, etc.

Our goal with this list isn’t to make renters feel like they always need to be cleaning – quite the opposite. By following these steps, you’ll be able to enjoy a cleaner house and spend less time cleaning built up messes.