Autumn Cleaning and Home Maintenance Tips

While autumn is the best time to go for trekking, cycling or fly fishing, it’s also the ideal time to clean out the rain gutters from autumn leaves and debris. As you watch autumn’s last leaves fall, beware of the damage it can cause - these leaves clog your gutters and send water into your home. However, if you don’t have the time to clean the gutters or don’t want to pay house gutter cleaners, try installing quality gutter protectors which stop leaves and debris etc. from entering your gutters.  

Autumn season is the right time to give the deck and patio some face-lift. If you have a wood deck, you should consider giving it a bath before it goes for seasonal hibernation in the rains or snow. This is to avoid mould and fungi growing and staining the wooden surface. Brick or concrete patios also need thorough cleaning and if possible apply some concrete or sand seal at worn out joints and cracks.

When you turn the clocks forward and back, remember one more thing- do the functional check on fire alarms. Change their batteries as needed. Also remove all dust and dirt accumulated in the alarms with the brush attachment on the vacuum cleaner.

Autumn is also the right time to collect and store enough firewood for the burner. And if you see that your mud yard is slippery, make an alternate brick pathway to the mailbox or boundary wall before the onslaught of rain or snow. Similarly, inspect and fill the cracks on the sidewalks and driveways now, or they may get larger and damage the driveway when water seeps inside the small cracks and freezes during the winter.    

General home cleaning and maintenance tips

There are two basic organisational tips: 1. Maintain a place for everything; 2. Inculcate the habit of removing things that are no longer in use.

Stains on plastic cutting boards: Sprinkle some rock salt into a cut lemon; now use it to clean the cutting boards, you’ll see that all the stains have gone!

Barbecue cleaning: This cut lemon with salt also works fine to clean your barbecue. First, heat the grill up to a high temperature, and then wipe it clean with the half lemon and salt.

Bathroom & toilet cleaning: If you see mould growth on the caulk between the bath tub and tiles, make it a habit to clean the area with white vinegar.

For stubborn toilet stains, clean it with the help of a good quality bowl cleaner solution and a pumice stick. 

Home Cleaning Service providers in New Zealand

Select Clean professional home cleaners- the security cleared, owner operators- are insured, and trained on latest technology in the house cleaning industry.

Everybody knows that cleaning a house at times is very stressful. Let Select Cleaning in New Zealand take away that stress from you as their cleaners can come in and do all the normal weekly or fortnightly cleaning tasks with more technical precision than you would normally do. 

Select Clean's routine cleaning service include: vacuuming all floors, dusting surfaces, spot cleaning marks around doors and switches, washing all hard floors, cleaning all kitchen surfaces, and completely cleaning bathrooms & toilets. They can also do the little extras like inside the fridge or oven.  

Call Select Clean today on 0800 000 907 for a free home cleaning quote.

More Tips on Autumn House Cleaning and Gardening Activities

Falling autumn leaves can create havoc in your home drainage system. Autumn water blocks and related issues can be solved if you take gutter cleaning seriously- timely inspection of gutters and roof is important, need not to spend much time for this. If the gutters and drains are blocked, and roofs show signs of wear and tear, it can cause water to seep into your house foundation, wall cavities etc., affecting the security of the concrete structure. Installing gutter guards is highly recommended.

Check your fireplace thoroughly and get it cleaned and repaired by experts to prevent chimney fires and carbon monoxide poisoning. This can happen with wood-burning fireplace.

Rearrange your furniture and bookshelves etc. to allow or restrict more air into your home by blocking or freeing windows and air passages as per the outside temperature. While re-ordering, take some time to dust out the furniture and bookshelves.

Autumn Window Cleaning

Here is a nice DIY window cleaning method. Use a bucket half filled with water. Pour a cup of methylated spirits into the bucket and stir well. Take some of this mixture into a spray bottle and spray on windows while wiping with a squeegee. Once cleaned, polish the windows with a paper towel. Using newspapers for cleaning is not advisable as the printing ink has a latex base which may make smear marks on the window glass.

Shape Up and Organise Your Wardrobe

An autumn clean is exactly the right time to organise your wardrobe, all the way streamlining your huge clothing storage. Remove less used garments. Think of charity or some garage sale or Kidspot Market to dispose of staunchly unworn clothing that belongs to you, the children or other members of the family. Do the same process to your linen cupboard also. Keep the most used items on shelves at eye-level for easy pick up, and move the rest to higher shelves.

Put Your Bathroom Cabinet in Order

De-clutter the cabinet- check out the cosmetics, soap, oil etc. and remove those items which are untouched for long.  If you call professional bathroom cleaners on a regular basis then there won’t be much to do for autumn cleaning too! Otherwise it could be a Herculean task ahead.

Make Your Kitchen Neat and Tidy

Have the kitchen cleaned out and the cupboards washed inside out for autumn by a home cleaning company. The refrigerator, ovens, dishwasher etc. also should get some professional cleaning by skilled technicians.  

Gardening and Outdoor Cleaning Tips

Autumn is the best time to keep your outdoor area well maintained!

Before winter peeps in, it’s necessary to do a few seasonal extras to your cleaning list to prepare your home exterior for the winter. Drain and store garden hoses, lest they get spoiled in winter. Give a close look to the painting and do the touch up wherever required. Drain the pool and close it up after seeking advice from experts.

Clean all outdoor furniture and garage, in addition to drains and gutter cleaning. And have a closer look into the garden! If you grow lot of vegetables, clean up is required in Autumn. Remove all piled up green waste and garden rubbish, and replant the winter crops after cleaning tubs and planters and refreshing and conditioning the soil. Grow new plants from stem cutting as Autumn is the best time for tip cuttings from your favourite shrubs.

Trim the hedges, shrubs and wall-trained bushes to shape. Cut off dead branches of trees in order to avoid them falling during a winter storm and causing damage.

Spray the weed killers on your lawn. Use a garden fork to aerate the lawn and sprinkle some lime over it to sweeten the soil. Give suitable autumn feeding in tired lawns so as to prepare them for the winter months.

Call Only Well Known House Cleaners

We are daily watching many media reports about unlicensed home cleaners with poor workmanship and unscrupulous behaviour. You can avoid this experience by depending only on reputed cleaning companies. Also search the internet for reliable home cleaners in your locality and visit their websites to read testimonials and also to have a feel of their work culture and quality.

Home Maintenance Checklist for Autumn Months

The weather is now excellent in this autumn season as temperatures are a little cooler than summer. Here are a few home maintenance activities for March to May autumn months. Never use cleaning materials that are harmful to plants and animals. Make sure that the home cleaners use mostly Eco-Friendly products.

March:

Caulking and weather-stripping - Check for worn caulking and weather-stripping around doors and windows. They are the ones that reduce entry of cold air into the home during winter. Cracked or worn weather stripping should be replaced with new stripping. Same way, worn and ragged caulking has to be removed and re-caulked with branded products. Properly weather-stripping the gaps will seal all air leaks and thus pay for itself in terms of energy savings.

Get rid of the clutter – Cluttered homes generally create tension and bring in negative energy. De-clutter your home efficiently. Never keep too many furniture in the living room. Magazines and newspapers are not to be piled up in the bedroom or living area, they have to be kept in the storeroom. Don’t pile up things on the coffee table! Clear, unimpeded traffic flow will keep your mind free and fresh, that’s why clutter shouldn’t be allowed at any place.

Neat and clean exterior - Remove piles of leaves and dirt in the courtyard and garden and prune back trees, shrubs & vines. Trees should not obstruct light from entering into your living room.

April:

External surfaces - In addition to routine home cleaning and maintenance, give attention to clean the outside of the house in the month of April - Wash down all external surfaces including windows, driveways, and fencing etc.

Fire Alarms - Check all smoke and fire alarms when turning the clock ahead for Daylight Savings. Change the batteries of the alarms if necessary.

Tree-planting - After thoroughly cleaning the garden, make sure to plant seeds & bulbs for spring and summer fruiting. April is the ideal time to do that.

May:

Clean gutters - Replace old or damaged gutters with new ones. Better to purchase gutters with built-in leaf guards. Never compromise on quality regarding gutters, and drains etc. as there are plenty of cheap varieties available in the market. Take only the good quality products.

Clean fireplace & wood burners - In the fall, it’s advised to have your chimney inspected by a home cleaning expert and give it a professional cleaning. Ensure that all the ash from the fireplace and any stuck on stuff on the walls and the bottom of the fireplace are completely removed. Once the cleaning is over, inspect it for yourself and see to it that everything is sparkling clean.

Clear autumn leaves & dead wood - Rather than calling a landscaper or a house cleaning company to do the fall leaf cleanup, it’s recommended to do the task by the DIY route! The reason is cleaning of the autumn leaves and dead wood is not a onetime process. As leaves will be falling regularly covering a longer period of time, the cleaning has to be done two or three times. With proper tools and a well thought-out plan, leaf cleanup won’t be a difficult task for you and the family members.

 
Select Cleaning offers fantastic home cleaning job- extremely honest and reliable service. Security is never a problem with Select Cleaning Company as all their professionals are police checked and verified. The advantage here is that you get a high-quality cleanup at a cost effective price. Their home cleaners in New Zealand and Australia are continuously trained with the latest technology in the field. Each of their cleaning professional is a SelectCleaning Franchisee owner who takes pride in doing the home cleaning perfectly every time conforming to the SelectCleaning standards! Call them now on 0800 000 907 for an obligation-free home cleaning quote to experience it for yourself.