How to Spring Clean Your Apartment

With warmer weather here—and with the spring rains mostly behind us—it’s time for some spring cleaning if you haven’t already started. Let’s face it: life is messy, and it’s very easy to let your beautiful apartment become a little less beautiful in the course of your day-to-day routine. Additionally, it’s easy to let items linger in shelves or in the back of your fridge for too long. It’s ok. We’ve all been there.

That’s why your friends at HILLS Properties are here to help with a few spring cleaning tips for apartments. We’ve got some ideas, tricks, and even a spring cleaning checklist to keep in mind as you go through your apartment to make it spit-spot again.

Spring Cleaning Tips for Apartments

The apartment lifestyle has many benefits, but one big benefit during spring cleaning is because you only have the interior to worry about—no mowing, weed-whacking, or tree-trimming anywhere to be seen. Here are some of our best tips.  

Clean From the Top-Down

Spring cleaning involves more than a little dusting. For maximum efficiency, you’ll want to clean from the top of a room and work downward. That may seem counter-intuitive, but during the cleaning process, dust, dirt, pet hair, and more falls thanks to gravity. By starting with fans and the top of cabinets and working towards the floor, you’ll help save yourself from cleaning twice.

One Room at a Time

There are two types of approaches to an apartment deep clean project: you can either focus on doing one type of thing in every room, or you can focus entirely on one room at a time.

We recommend you do the latter. Why? Well, there are a few good reasons. First, by cleaning one room at a time, you’ll see progress faster. Seeing this progress can be a great motivator! Second, cleaning one room at a time allows you to spread out your spring cleaning project across a few days. Not everyone has all day to devote to an apartment-wide cleaning, and splitting your cleaning process into bite-size chunks can help you accomplish even the largest of projects.

Take the Time to Declutter

A little retail therapy is a fun way to spend time with friends and family and can be a great way to find cherished belongings. But it has a potential downside: acquiring items that you don’t actually need or end up not using for one reason or another.

If you decide to spring clean your apartment, you’ll inevitably come across some clutter, whether it’s a dress you just never got around to wearing or some knick-knacks that just don’t charm like you expected them to. When that happens, gather your items in one place. From there, you can start sorting them. We recommend you use three simple categories for those items:

• Throw them away—You can’t keep everything, and some items are just junk. Throw these items away, but be aware if they’re considered household hazardous waste. These items need special disposal.
• Donate them—Many perfectly good items that aren’t right for you are right for someone else. Donate these items to your local thrift store or nonprofit.
• Store them—Carefully put away items that you want to keep around but don’t need around right now by putting them in storage, whether that’s in your home or somewhere else. Consider renting a small self storage unit if you’re running out of apartment space.

Don’t Forget Your Appliances!

Your fridge, oven, microwave, washer, and dryer get used all the time. They deserve some cleaning, too! Spring cleaning is a particularly good time to go through your entire refrigerator and freezer and get rid of any expired items—especially those “out of sight, out of mind” items. Clean your coffee maker, microwave, and dishwasher, too.

During the course of standard use, your oven will probably gather grime. You can either use your oven’s self cleaning feature or you can clean it yourself with a variety of cleaning products. If you do the former, just be sure to remove everything from the oven, lest you ruin some good houseware products thanks to the self cleaning’s high heat.  

Spring Cleaning Checklist

Every good spring cleaning project deserves a checklist. Each room is different, but by following this checklist, you’ll be able to attack the big things that help your apartment feel clean.

• Clean every room
• Dust fans and other surfaces
• Vacuum and clean floors
• Clean appliances (fridge, oven, toaster, etc.)
• Organize cabinets, drawers, and closets
• Gather all clutter and sort appropriately
• Dispose of expired food and other products
• Remove and clean under furniture cushions
• Disinfect high-touch surfaces
• Clean windows and mirrors
• Clean toilets, sinks, and showers/baths

Achieve the Clean Apartment Living You Deserve

If you’re tired of upkeep for an entire house, apartment living might be just for you. Still, there’s no getting around the need for spring cleaning.

Looking for an apartment to fit your lifestyle and stage of life, whatever that might be? HILLS Properties has over 20 apartments across Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana that we’ve designed, built, and managed from the ground up. Explore our apartment home options near you today.

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