How To Declutter Your Home Before Your House Cleaning

Posted on: 15 April 2015

No, you don't have to clean before the maid service arrives! But decluttering -- removing the items that you don't need -- can definitely make it easier for the maid service to clean your home. Since you're usually paying by the hour, decluttering can also save you a lot of money. And you can't really tell that your home is clean when it's filled with items that you no longer want.

Make It a Family Night

It's always best to turn a decluttering into a family activity. Otherwise you'll find yourself spending a lot of time running around and asking other family members what they want to keep. Even worse, you might throw out something that they actually valued! By making it a family night, you also make it much more fun. And it probably goes without saying that it will also go much faster.

Go Room by Room

It's easier to focus on one room at a time rather than to try to tackle your whole house at once. You can have your children focus on their rooms while you focus on a family room or simply all do one room at a time. Try to take the rooms from one side to the other so that you keep track of what you have already gone through.

Get Your Supplies

The items that you do want to keep will need to be organized. Having standard plastic boxes to sort everything in will make it much easier to keep items managed. Space saver bags are very useful for saving clothing, bedding and other cloth items that you want to keep but don't have a lot of space for.

Put Together Donation Items

Items that you don't want to throw away but also don't have any use for can be donated instead. You can create a "donate" pile that your family can move these items into. Don't forget to keep a list and take some pictures of these items. You can usually deduct a certain percentage of their value as a donation for tax purposes later on. You can also consider having a garage sale if you want to recoup some of the cost of your items directly.

Of course, your maid service can also help you declutter if you just can't do it on your own. But the act of decluttering is usually intensely personal because you need to decide on your own what you want to keep and what you want to throw away. 

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