In the leasing journey, the end is scary for renters. The scare is because they have to face mountains of dirt and dust. This situation is unnecessary and can be avoided with timely work.
It is more advisable to clean bit by bit, so it doesn't pile up into that monster you'll get scared of, but don't just take our word for it, Delah Gomasi, who is the director of Maidforyou.com.au, a cleaning service based in Sydney, echoes the same tip.
You have to plan.
It's always a bad idea to postpone something you need to do until the last minute. It hardly ever goes well because everything is rushed just to meet up with a deadline, and you wouldn't get the best results. Imagine not reading all semester, trying to cram all your course work overnight, or not practising your lines before starring in a play; there will be some mistakes.
You know that you'll need it to be clean to get a renewal and continual stay at your apartment. It is much better to break down tasks into small bits over time; you wouldn't need to exert a lot of energy and time doing the chores if you break them up conveniently instead of doing everything in one batch. Taking care of your tasks this way would make the process seamless.
Gomasi opines that If the renters could simply do a few minutes of cleaning when they get home from work, they may not even need to hire a professional cleaner when it's time to move out.
As mentioned earlier, breaking up the tasks into small bits goes a long way. You can create a cleaning schedule and dedicate 10 minutes every day to clean up a particular corner of the house. Doing this as a routine every day can help you keep consistency as you'd be creating a good habit.
Clean one room per time
Cleaning your room every day would do a lot in relieving the stress of cleaning your home at the end of your lease. However, you will need to do some work while moving out, even with this. To ease this and make it just as easy as the other tasks, you can pick one room per session (this can mean per day) to clean.
Gomasi once again suggests that this is a good technique; he says that starting from the back of the house and leading up to the front is an excellent way to do it and ensure everywhere is adequately cleaned.
Do a thorough clean
It is not just enough to clean the prominent spots, the walls and floors might be the first parts you start with, but you would need to go deeper if you want to renew your bond. You have to remember that those are not the only places you've used over the year. Hence, kitchen appliances, laundry space, hidden corners of your room, inside of your cabinets, and others that might be out of your daily or weekly cleaning plan also need to be attended to adequately. Some people even forget to clean corridors and verandahs, don't do that.
Make sure to move the furniture
One of the ways to guarantee a refund on your bond at the end of the lease is to give back your apartment as close as possible to how it was handed to you by the property owner. We often forget that dust and dirt would get stuck behind and under our furniture. Sometimes we remember but just procrastinate and refrain from moving them while cleaning. Property managers Often find lots of dirt hidden when people move out, leaving a sour taste in their mouths. Gomasi says he and his staff go through that more often than they would like.
Essential places to clean and how to clean them
Oven
If you choose a more environmentally friendly method, a popular DIY option uses easy-to-find home materials like baking soda. All you have to do is make a paste by adding water to the baking soda powder and use it with the aid of gloves to cover the oven's walls. Remember to use aluminium foil to protect the oven's borders and carefully remove the racks. The heating element is a sensitive part, so you have to do your best not to damage it. You can do that by allowing it to sit overnight and then spraying vinegar the following day. This procedure will cause it to foam, and you can then wipe it off to reveal a clean surface that looks just as good as new. Chemical cleaners from the store will remove even the hardest oil stains that refuse to leave after conventional cleaning; simply follow the directions on the container.
The Walls
The standard sugar soap is excellent for removing markings from walls. All you have to do is add the soap to water and wash the wall with a soft cloth, scrubbing at the darker spots. After the wash, it is good to leave it for some hours to dry before repainting. You can take a tiny sample of paint in use currently at the store to ensure a precise match before getting new paint.
Toilets
This area is one part of the apartment that you need to show a lot of care to because when it's dirty, it looks terrible, and when it's good too, it looks nice and says a lot about the user. At the end of your lease, you should clean the walls, floor, tank and the toilet itself. You can use popular commercial chemicals, which will make the cleaning process much more manageable.